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multiple monitors posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Open Source, Troubleshooting, Windows x64

SheepDog rounds up stray application windows on multi-monitor setups

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then I receive a customer's laptop which just doesn't want to believe it's no longer attached to an external monitor. And it never fails - some important app is going to appear in the display Twilight Zone.

If only there was some kind of digital shepherd to corral those errant windows. Hey, if not a shepherd, why not SheepDog?

It's a tiny, portable application whose sole purpose is to bring apps that have wandered back to the primary display. Fire it up, and the tray icon listens for a hotket combination to be pressed. In the options screen you can customize your key combo and also change the system tray icon.

Hit the hotkey (or right click the system tray icon and select reposition) and any offending application windows are instantly moved.

At only 20Kb, this baby is going straight on my USB flash drive with all the other handy utilities I need once in a blue moon.

Filed under: Design, Developer, Fun, Games, Photo, Utilities, Video, News, Windows, Productivity, Microsoft

Windows Vista multiple monitor restriction

multiple monitorsI've been a multiple-monitor nutjob since Windows 98 (first edition), when only a small number of video cards were even supported for a multiple monitor configuration. As time has gone on, Microsoft has made Windows better at dealing with multiple video cards driving multiple monitors. I'm sure part of this has been Microsoft guiding the video card companies to support certain standards, allowing Windows to get some consistency.

I hadn't really even considered the multiple monitor situation with respect to Windows Vista, because since Windows XP, it just really hasn't been much of an issue. Need another monitor? Slap in another video card, and away you go.

Now, it turns out, if you want to run the new Aero interface, you'll need to be using the same video driver to drive all of your monitors. Now, since Aero (in my opinion) is one of the only reasons to run Vista, obviously not running Aero isn't going to be an option. Hopefully this means that different cards within the same families that run on the same drivers, for example ATI's Catalyst drivers, will be supported. But if it turns out that Microsoft is requiring identical cards for each additional monitor, they've taken a big step backwards.

Filed under: Utilities, News, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial

Vista feature: Transient MultiMon

Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft is now talking up a few new features for Vista, including Transient MultiMon which is intended to make Windows smarter about what to do when external displays are plugged in or unplugged from mobile devices. Personally, I think the time has come for features like this one. I run into this particular headache every day when plugging in my external monitor. Although I've got it down to two mouse clicks to make XP aware of the extra monitor, realistically it shouldn't even require that. Windows should know as soon as I plug the external monitor in, and should even remember based on the monitor's firmware which monitor it is, and what my preferred positioning and resolution are for it. That way, I could be portable between a number of places where extra monitors are available to me, and Windows would know what to do in every situation.

Here's hoping that Vista also handles the taskbar better on secondary displays. It should work out of the box the way it does when you have UltraMon installed. I'm just sayin'.

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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