Monday, July 28, 2008
I'm a web designer who recently upgraded to a quad system
I recently upgraded my workstation to a four monitor system and my productivity has definitely increased... even my boss noticed it. After working on a project where I had access to a quad system it was a major let down going back to my single monitor at the office. I finally convinced my boss to invest in a quad system for me and he eventually ended up getting one for each programmer in my department.
Mark (continue reading &aquo;)
Mark (continue reading &aquo;)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
An Extreme Multiple Monitor System Stock Trader
Mike
Las Vegas July 2008
Working with multiple monitors has totally changed the way I do business. I'm a day trader and reliable, up to the minute information impacts whether I'll make a sucessful trade or not. Each monitor I've added to my workstation increases exponentially the amount of companies I can follow. I realize I'm at the extreme end of the scale with 16, yes 16 monitors running from one computer but believe me when I tell you not one monitor is being wasted. I'm able to track over 250 companies at the same time covering all the financials sectors of the market. On the bottom row I have 6 different watch lists on 6 different monitors, a browser directly in front of me and my emails next to it. On the top row I have charts, level 2s, last trades tracking the companies I've selected from the watch lists below. It might sound like alot to follow but I'm so comfortable trading this way I couldn't imagine trading with anything less. (continue reading &aquo;)
Las Vegas July 2008
Working with multiple monitors has totally changed the way I do business. I'm a day trader and reliable, up to the minute information impacts whether I'll make a sucessful trade or not. Each monitor I've added to my workstation increases exponentially the amount of companies I can follow. I realize I'm at the extreme end of the scale with 16, yes 16 monitors running from one computer but believe me when I tell you not one monitor is being wasted. I'm able to track over 250 companies at the same time covering all the financials sectors of the market. On the bottom row I have 6 different watch lists on 6 different monitors, a browser directly in front of me and my emails next to it. On the top row I have charts, level 2s, last trades tracking the companies I've selected from the watch lists below. It might sound like alot to follow but I'm so comfortable trading this way I couldn't imagine trading with anything less. (continue reading &aquo;)
How I Work: Bill Gates-(Multi Monitor Productivity)
Not much of a paper chase for Microsoft's chairman, who uses a range of digital tools to do business.
Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft, U.S.A.
April 7, 2006: 5:17 PM EDT
NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - It's pretty incredible to look back 30 years to when Microsoft (Research) was starting and realize how work has been transformed. We're finally getting close to what I call the digital workstyle.
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If you look at this office, there isn't much paper in it. On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215" caption="Bill Gates-Microsoft Chairman"][/caption]
The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen. This setup gives me the ability to glance and see what new has come in while I'm working on something, and to bring up a link that's related to an e-mail and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.
At Microsoft, e-mail is the medium of choice, more than phone calls, documents, blogs, bulletin boards, or even meetings (voicemails and faxes are actually integrated into our e-mail in-boxes).
I get about 100 e-mails a day. We apply filtering to keep it to that level—e-mail comes straight to me from anyone I've ever corresponded with, anyone from Microsoft, Intel, HP, and all the other partner companies, and anyone I know. And I always see a write-up from my assistant of any other e-mail, from companies that aren't on my permission list or individuals I don't know. That way I know what people are praising us for, what they are complaining about, and what they are asking.
We're at the point now where the challenge isn't how to communicate effectively with e-mail, it's ensuring that you spend your time on the e-mail that matters most. I use tools like "in-box rules" and search folders to mark and group messages based on their content and importance.
I'm not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I've flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.
Outlook also has a little notification box that comes up in the lower right whenever a new e-mail comes in. We call it the toast. I'm very disciplined about ignoring that unless I see that it's a high-priority topic.
Staying focused is one issue; that's the problem of information overload. The other problem is information underload. Being flooded with information doesn't mean we have the right information or that we're in touch with the right people.
I deal with this by using SharePoint, a tool that creates websites for collaboration on specific projects. These sites contain plans, schedules, discussion boards, and other information, and they can be created by just about anyone in the company with a couple of clicks.
Right now, I'm getting ready for Think Week. In May, I'll go off for a week and read 100 or more papers from Microsoft employees that examine issues related to the company and the future of technology. I've been doing this for over 12 years. It used to be an all-paper process in which I was the only one doing the reading and commenting. Today the whole process is digital and open to the entire company.
I'm now far more efficient in picking the right papers to read, and I can add electronic comments that everyone sees in real time.
Microsoft has more than 50,000 people, so when I'm thinking, "Hey, what's the future of the online payment system?" or "What's a great way to keep track of your memories of your kid?" or any neat new thing, I write it down. Then people can see it and say, "No, you're wrong" or "Did you know about this work being done at such-and-such a place?"
SharePoint puts me in touch with lots of people deep in the organization. It's like having a super-website that lets many people edit and discuss—far more than the standard practice of sending e-mails with enclosures. And it notifies you if anything comes up in an area you're interested in.
Another digital tool that has had a big effect on my productivity is desktop search. It has transformed the way I access information on my PC, on servers, and on the Internet. With larger hard drives and increasing bandwidth, I now have gigabytes of information on my PC and servers in the form of e-mails, documents, media files, contact databases, and so on.
Instead of having to navigate through folders to find that one document where I think a piece of information might be, I simply type search terms into a toolbar and all the e-mails and documents that contain that information are at my fingertips. The same goes for phone numbers and email addresses.
Paper is no longer a big part of my day. I get 90% of my news online, and when I go to a meeting and want to jot things down, I bring my Tablet PC. It's fully synchronized with my office machine so I have all the files I need. It also has a note-taking piece of software called OneNote, so all my notes are in digital form.
The one low-tech piece of equipment still in my office is my whiteboard. I always have nice color pens, and it's great for brainstorming when I'm with other people, and even sometimes by myself.
The whiteboards in some Microsoft offices have the ability to capture an image and send it up to the computer, almost like a huge Tablet PC. I don't have that right now, but probably I'll get a digital whiteboard in the next year. Today, if there's something up there that's brilliant, I just get out my pen and my Tablet PC and recreate it.
Days are often filled with meetings. It's a nice luxury to get some time to go write up my thoughts or follow up on meetings during the day. But sometimes that doesn't happen. So then it's great after the kids go to bed to be able to just sit at home and go through whatever e-mail I didn't get to. If the entire week is very busy, it's the weekend when I'll send the long, thoughtful pieces of e-mail. When people come in Monday morning, they'll see that I've been quite busy— they'll have a lot of e-mail.
(continue reading &aquo;)
Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft, U.S.A.
April 7, 2006: 5:17 PM EDT
NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - It's pretty incredible to look back 30 years to when Microsoft (Research) was starting and realize how work has been transformed. We're finally getting close to what I call the digital workstyle.
<!--
var clickExpire = "-1";
//-->
If you look at this office, there isn't much paper in it. On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215" caption="Bill Gates-Microsoft Chairman"][/caption]
The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen. This setup gives me the ability to glance and see what new has come in while I'm working on something, and to bring up a link that's related to an e-mail and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.
At Microsoft, e-mail is the medium of choice, more than phone calls, documents, blogs, bulletin boards, or even meetings (voicemails and faxes are actually integrated into our e-mail in-boxes).
I get about 100 e-mails a day. We apply filtering to keep it to that level—e-mail comes straight to me from anyone I've ever corresponded with, anyone from Microsoft, Intel, HP, and all the other partner companies, and anyone I know. And I always see a write-up from my assistant of any other e-mail, from companies that aren't on my permission list or individuals I don't know. That way I know what people are praising us for, what they are complaining about, and what they are asking.
We're at the point now where the challenge isn't how to communicate effectively with e-mail, it's ensuring that you spend your time on the e-mail that matters most. I use tools like "in-box rules" and search folders to mark and group messages based on their content and importance.
I'm not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I've flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.
Outlook also has a little notification box that comes up in the lower right whenever a new e-mail comes in. We call it the toast. I'm very disciplined about ignoring that unless I see that it's a high-priority topic.
Staying focused is one issue; that's the problem of information overload. The other problem is information underload. Being flooded with information doesn't mean we have the right information or that we're in touch with the right people.
I deal with this by using SharePoint, a tool that creates websites for collaboration on specific projects. These sites contain plans, schedules, discussion boards, and other information, and they can be created by just about anyone in the company with a couple of clicks.
Right now, I'm getting ready for Think Week. In May, I'll go off for a week and read 100 or more papers from Microsoft employees that examine issues related to the company and the future of technology. I've been doing this for over 12 years. It used to be an all-paper process in which I was the only one doing the reading and commenting. Today the whole process is digital and open to the entire company.
I'm now far more efficient in picking the right papers to read, and I can add electronic comments that everyone sees in real time.
Microsoft has more than 50,000 people, so when I'm thinking, "Hey, what's the future of the online payment system?" or "What's a great way to keep track of your memories of your kid?" or any neat new thing, I write it down. Then people can see it and say, "No, you're wrong" or "Did you know about this work being done at such-and-such a place?"
SharePoint puts me in touch with lots of people deep in the organization. It's like having a super-website that lets many people edit and discuss—far more than the standard practice of sending e-mails with enclosures. And it notifies you if anything comes up in an area you're interested in.
Another digital tool that has had a big effect on my productivity is desktop search. It has transformed the way I access information on my PC, on servers, and on the Internet. With larger hard drives and increasing bandwidth, I now have gigabytes of information on my PC and servers in the form of e-mails, documents, media files, contact databases, and so on.
Instead of having to navigate through folders to find that one document where I think a piece of information might be, I simply type search terms into a toolbar and all the e-mails and documents that contain that information are at my fingertips. The same goes for phone numbers and email addresses.
Paper is no longer a big part of my day. I get 90% of my news online, and when I go to a meeting and want to jot things down, I bring my Tablet PC. It's fully synchronized with my office machine so I have all the files I need. It also has a note-taking piece of software called OneNote, so all my notes are in digital form.
The one low-tech piece of equipment still in my office is my whiteboard. I always have nice color pens, and it's great for brainstorming when I'm with other people, and even sometimes by myself.
The whiteboards in some Microsoft offices have the ability to capture an image and send it up to the computer, almost like a huge Tablet PC. I don't have that right now, but probably I'll get a digital whiteboard in the next year. Today, if there's something up there that's brilliant, I just get out my pen and my Tablet PC and recreate it.
Days are often filled with meetings. It's a nice luxury to get some time to go write up my thoughts or follow up on meetings during the day. But sometimes that doesn't happen. So then it's great after the kids go to bed to be able to just sit at home and go through whatever e-mail I didn't get to. If the entire week is very busy, it's the weekend when I'll send the long, thoughtful pieces of e-mail. When people come in Monday morning, they'll see that I've been quite busy— they'll have a lot of e-mail.
(continue reading &aquo;)
AGP, PCI and PCIe Technology Guide
AGP, PCI, and PCIe Guide
Matrox guide to different types of expansion slots and
add-in cards
A variety of graphics cards designed to be inserted into certain types of computer expansion slots. The most common slot types used by graphics cards are AGP, PCI, and PCIe and for each of these types, there are also several sub-types. The different slot types available are an important consideration when buying a graphics card or computer. This guide describes differences between these slot types and their sub-types.
AGP
The AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) standard was introduced by Intel in 1997 and was specifically designed to connect graphics hardware to the rest of the computer. This is in contrast to connection standards like PCI which aren't limited to graphics hardware. The advantage of the AGP approach is that graphics hardware has a dedicated connection with the rest of the computer and thus graphics hardware using an AGP connection doesn't have to compete with other devices for communication resources.
The dedicated nature of AGP can be a disadvantage in that computers supporting AGP usually have only one AGP slot. This is sufficient for most needs, but can be limiting when multiple graphics cards need to be used to support multiple displays. Fortunately, computers using the AGP standard usually have other general-purpose, PCI slots that can accommodate extra graphics cards. There are also AGP graphics cards like the Matrox QID that support up to 4 monitors at a time.
Matrox QID (AGP)
graphics card
AGP also features a more direct way to access system memory. This can be useful for 3D applications that require large amounts of memory and when there isn't enough dedicated graphics memory. Graphics cards intended for 3D applications (for example, Matrox Parhelia 256MB) have large amounts of graphics memory to minimize the use of slower system memory. More direct access to system memory is useful to low-end graphics hardware built into the motherboard of a computer. Such graphics hardware typically doesn't have its own dedicated graphics memory. This type of graphics hardware is typically disabled automatically when a graphics card is installed.
The original AGP standard was extended to achieve higher maximum bandwidths. To take advantage of the extended capabilities, graphics hardware and software has to be specifically designed for the new specifications. For example, different versions of the standard use different voltages and slightly different edge connectors.
Each variation of the standard is differentiated by a multiplier indicating the differences in potential bandwidth. The base potential bandwidth of AGP is 266 MB/s (megabytes per second) and the variation of AGP associated with this bandwidth is referred to as AGP 1x (pronounced "one-ex"). With different variations of AGP, increases in potential bandwidth are achieved by multiplying the number of bits of data transferred with each clock cycle on each data line. (continue reading &aquo;)
Matrox guide to different types of expansion slots and
add-in cards
A variety of graphics cards designed to be inserted into certain types of computer expansion slots. The most common slot types used by graphics cards are AGP, PCI, and PCIe and for each of these types, there are also several sub-types. The different slot types available are an important consideration when buying a graphics card or computer. This guide describes differences between these slot types and their sub-types.
AGP
The AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) standard was introduced by Intel in 1997 and was specifically designed to connect graphics hardware to the rest of the computer. This is in contrast to connection standards like PCI which aren't limited to graphics hardware. The advantage of the AGP approach is that graphics hardware has a dedicated connection with the rest of the computer and thus graphics hardware using an AGP connection doesn't have to compete with other devices for communication resources.
The dedicated nature of AGP can be a disadvantage in that computers supporting AGP usually have only one AGP slot. This is sufficient for most needs, but can be limiting when multiple graphics cards need to be used to support multiple displays. Fortunately, computers using the AGP standard usually have other general-purpose, PCI slots that can accommodate extra graphics cards. There are also AGP graphics cards like the Matrox QID that support up to 4 monitors at a time.
Matrox QID (AGP)
graphics card
AGP also features a more direct way to access system memory. This can be useful for 3D applications that require large amounts of memory and when there isn't enough dedicated graphics memory. Graphics cards intended for 3D applications (for example, Matrox Parhelia 256MB) have large amounts of graphics memory to minimize the use of slower system memory. More direct access to system memory is useful to low-end graphics hardware built into the motherboard of a computer. Such graphics hardware typically doesn't have its own dedicated graphics memory. This type of graphics hardware is typically disabled automatically when a graphics card is installed.
The original AGP standard was extended to achieve higher maximum bandwidths. To take advantage of the extended capabilities, graphics hardware and software has to be specifically designed for the new specifications. For example, different versions of the standard use different voltages and slightly different edge connectors.
Each variation of the standard is differentiated by a multiplier indicating the differences in potential bandwidth. The base potential bandwidth of AGP is 266 MB/s (megabytes per second) and the variation of AGP associated with this bandwidth is referred to as AGP 1x (pronounced "one-ex"). With different variations of AGP, increases in potential bandwidth are achieved by multiplying the number of bits of data transferred with each clock cycle on each data line. (continue reading &aquo;)
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processors
The Intel® Core™2 Quad processor is the latest in cuttingedge
processor technology for the desktop PC. Based on
the new Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, the Intel Core 2 Quad
processor delivers four complete execution cores within a
single processor, delivering unprecedented performance and
responsiveness in multi-threaded and multi-tasking business
and home environments.
The unprecedented performance of the Intel Core 2 Quad
processor is made possible by each of the four complete
execution cores delivering the full power of Intel Core
microarchitecture. More instructions can be carried out
per clock cycle, shorter and wider pipelines execute commands
more quickly, and improved bus lanes move data throughout
the system faster. This quad-core processor represents Intel’s
continued leadership and drive of multi-core processing and
more parallel computing.
The latest versions, built on Intel’s 45nm manufacturing
technology, take these benefits to a whole new level. This
new technology uses hafnium-infused Hi-k transistors,
enabling even more processor performance by doubling the
transistor density, improving efficiency and speed relative to
the previous generation, and increasing cache size by up to
50 percent. These new Intel Core 2 Quad processors deliver
even more performance without using more energy (continue reading &aquo;)
processor technology for the desktop PC. Based on
the new Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, the Intel Core 2 Quad
processor delivers four complete execution cores within a
single processor, delivering unprecedented performance and
responsiveness in multi-threaded and multi-tasking business
and home environments.
The unprecedented performance of the Intel Core 2 Quad
processor is made possible by each of the four complete
execution cores delivering the full power of Intel Core
microarchitecture. More instructions can be carried out
per clock cycle, shorter and wider pipelines execute commands
more quickly, and improved bus lanes move data throughout
the system faster. This quad-core processor represents Intel’s
continued leadership and drive of multi-core processing and
more parallel computing.
The latest versions, built on Intel’s 45nm manufacturing
technology, take these benefits to a whole new level. This
new technology uses hafnium-infused Hi-k transistors,
enabling even more processor performance by doubling the
transistor density, improving efficiency and speed relative to
the previous generation, and increasing cache size by up to
50 percent. These new Intel Core 2 Quad processors deliver
even more performance without using more energy (continue reading &aquo;)
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