Turning junk into good use

Before I got the new iMac, I was using a HP desktop with a 15-inch LCD display. But now that the HP is no longer in use, the display has been sitting in a corner collecting dust, until today.

I should have thought of it earlier, but somehow the idea didn't hit me that I could use the old 15" display together with the iMac for an extended desktop experience, meaning, dual display.

Setting it up was easy. After messing around with some cables, this is how my computer table-top looks like:


So this is how it works. The iMac has a Mini-DVI video-out port. I borrowed my dad's DVI to VGA adapter for his MacBook, and used it to hook up the 15" display. Then, under System Preferences, I arranged the monitors such that dragging any windows out of the iMac's screen to the left would result in that window appearing on the other display.

Only a few people would realise how useful this dual display configuration is. It's like having two computers and one CPU. It is beneficial when using software such as photoshop, where I move all my toolbars on the other monitor so that there is space to work on whatever photo I'm editing. It's useful when you're checking mail and working on a document at the same time. Just shift the web browser window over to the other monitor so that the word doc can occupy the iMac screen. I can see so many reason why I could use this extended screen experience.

And I'm turning junk into good use! My only complain: placing a 15" beside a 20" is like David versus Goliath. It looks weird!