If you don't use dual monitors, then this month's article maynot interest you. But for those who have tried them, I will relatea recent incident that showed us just how ingrained dual monitorscan become in an agency. I'll also pass along a few ideas you mightfind helpful.

I've observed several agencies with dual monitors and havenoticed that they tend not to take advantage of the features toutedas the primary reasons for investing in the second monitor. Thoseagencies' employees typically use their two monitors to keep opentwo sessions of their management systems and compare documentsonscreen. Some keep Outlook (or another e-mail program) open whilethey do other work. However, the true benefit of dual monitors isthat they enable you to drag a file from one screen and drop itonto the other. Doing so makes adding multiple attachments to ane-mail message as simple as opening Windows Explorer on one screenand the e-mail program on the other, then dragging and dropping theattachments anywhere on the e-mail message field. If you've neverused your dual monitors for this purpose, try it; you're sure tobecome addicted within an hour. By using this feature of ouragency's dual monitors, our staff has saved hundreds of hours overa two-year period, which is especially significant when youconsider that staff time is an agency's largest marginal cost.

Sometimes, we realize how much we rely on something only when itis no longer available to us. Any agency that has lost the use ofits management system for a day or more can appreciate thefrustration of trying to perform daily operations without all thefunctions and efficiency the system provides. Likewise, beingdeprived of a second monitor can confound an employee who isaccustomed to using one. Last winter, a broken pipe caused a floodin our office. Our computers were high enough off the floor toescape damage, but we had to quickly move everyone to a new spacewhile maintaining our service capability. We initially set up thefirst three machines with only one monitor each, just to get bytemporarily. The moment of enlightenment came when someone on ourstaff asked if we could really operate with only one monitor foreach workstation. Such na?vet? brought us a good laugh in themiddle of a bad experience and also illustrated how dependent wehad become on dual monitors.

A number of readers have asked me for advice on using dualmonitors with terminal services. The problem is that, while asingle personal computer can support dual monitors, when that PCconnects to a remote host over terminal services, access isavailable to only one of the monitors. Connecting with the terminalservice is like opening a screen program in itself, and moving datafrom one screen to another in this mode would be like moving a filefrom one computer to another. So far, no one has found an effectivesolution for this problem.

An answer may be on the horizon, however, if you're willing topay for some new screens. We all know what it's like to openmultiple programs on a single monitor and toggle among them bysuccessively minimizing open sessions. If you had enough displayspace, however, you could maximize two programs at once on a singlescreen and create the equivalent of dual monitors. The first time Iheard of this concept, I was somewhat skeptical, since I'd onlyseen maximized programs that occupied the full-screen display.Monitors are now available, though, with enough display space toaccommodate the equivalent of two smaller monitors onscreen atonce. Making this trick possible is a video card (the board with aplug on it that connects your monitor to the PC's brain) that canbe configured so that the monitor's resolution is high enough toallow it to display two opened programs. As a result of thisconfiguration, dual-monitor capability becomes possible with asingle monitor in a conventional environment, even in a remoteterminal services connection setting.

We are currently exploring another device from a vendor calledcalled Matrox (www.matrox.com), which sells devices that providedual- or triple-monitor capability from a single video output. Thedual-monitor device, called Dual Head2Go, can work with a laptop.If we can implement this technology, it will give us a simple, easyand inexpensive solution to the terminal-service problem. I mentionit here for you to explore on your own as a possible portablecomputer option. Another “monitor” capability currently in thedevelopment stage is a sheet of material on which images can bedisplayed. It also can be rolled up like a map or chart, or laidflat and attached to a wall–a truly portable alternative to thetraditional monitor. If you've been looking for a solution toproblems with a terminal-services remote connection in adual-monitor environment, perhaps one of these options will workfor you.