Miscellaneous Musings

The above image was taken from my chair as my system is seen by the person using the computer. The Logitech track ball is connected to my primary computer; the white mouse is connected to the computer controlling the right display; the gray mouse is connected to the computer controlling the left display. Using the OnScreen Display from Windows XP accessibility menu allows the use of both computers without needing additional keyboards cluttering up the physical desktop. Since the times that the computers running the displays have to be used independently is minimal, this arrangement is more than satisfactory. My system also consists of three other computers connected via KVM to the visible keyboard and Logitech mouse. MaxiVista and Ultramon handle this environment without difficultly.

My system(s) is(are) now happily running as a triple headed system. The combination of MaxiVista and Ultramon works perfectly. All of my applications work in any window. My primary display is the center display with Display Two to the left and Display Three to the right. Display Two is running from my old HP Laptop whose screen has died. Display Three is running from and old white box that has just enough horsepower to run Windows XP without a problem. The displays easily keep up with changes in the image. My right display is usually running Windows Task Manager to keep an eye on CPU usage along with the Paging File. There was no problem in setting up the displays in the manner desired. They just worked without any of the hassle that TripleHead2Go caused and in the end never did work in the manner desired.

It is truly a pleasure to work with software that does it's job without arcane setup instructions and much tweaking to get the configuration correct. MaxiVista is almost as simple as Hamachi was to get up and running. Just install and you are almost good to go. Just set some obvious settings and locate the monitors using Windows XP and all is outstanding! It is important to have matched displays. The variation in color and brightness is a real pain. Originally the center display was different than the other two. It was an awful arrangement!

By placing the odd monitor to my right, most of my work is done with the center and left display, the differences are not even noticeable. Having to look from the center to a different brand on the left just did not work at all. With the center and left displays identical brands there is no problem. The right display has just a touch more brightness, brightness setting does not affect the image, and shading to be difficult to switch between. The identical displays have minor differences but they are not distracting.