Rippin' It!

A year or so ago we implemented a paperless system for documenting our investigations.  Since we often have between 500 and 5,000 documents associated with one investigation going paperless was a good thing but not without its issues.

One of the issues was being able to see multiple documents, such as contracts, at the same time to compare and reference (think hyperlink) them to each other.  I use the Word bookmark and Excel Range naming extensively to link relevant documents to one another.

Because we also work in the field all of our work is generated from laptop computers which makes the problem even more difficult when you have something less than a 20″ screen to work from.   Running a second monitor on most laptops is relatively simple as most laptops come with a secondary video port.

Since most laptops only come with one external monitor port you might think adding a 3rd too difficult, too expensive, or both. You can, for less than $60 bucks add a second video port compliments of your USB port. 

While browsing around Best Buy one evening I saw a product from Eclipse (Eclipse SEE2 UV150) that would allow you to run a monitor, or multiple monitors if you want to purchase multiple UV 150 units, off a USB port. 

The device is easy to install but does require a device driver meaning if you don’t have admin rights on your computer you might be out of luck unless you can convince your boss/supervisor/IT division or whoever, you need the driver installed.  In my case it wasn’t an issue as I have admin rights on my work computer as well as my home computers.

Once installed you simply plug in the USB device, which looks just like what is shown on the box above, plug in a monitor and you should be relatively good to go. 

In the Windows display settings you can designate which monitors will be 1, 2, and 3 as well as adjusting the positioning of where the monitors are located with respect to one another.

If you look at the picture above you’ll notice my monitors at home are above the laptop, which is my primary screen, and offset to the left and right.  The display settings reflect the same position, shown in the image above.  That makes moving from one window to another a natural action.

Finally, if you think you want to go to a three monitor setup one piece of software that isn’t needed, but highly recommended, is called UltraMon.

UltraMon is a try it before you buy it piece of software designed for multiple monitor use.  You can download it from the UltraMon website and try it free for 30 days while you decide if you want to pay the $40 registration fee.  For me, it was an easy decision.  I paid the $40.

Ultramon has a lot of features but there are a few that are especially worth mentioning.  Windows, by default, puts the task bar icons on the primary monitor no matter which monitor the program/document is actually being displayed on.  UltraMon lets you assign specific task bars to specific windows, a handy feature when you have 5-6 .PDF files and 3-4 text files open.

Another good feature of Ultra Mon is the ability to quickly click a program from one screen to another without the need to drag and drop. UltraMon adds a new icon to the windows open/close minimize/maximize ribbon.

When you click on the newly added icon you get a popup window asking which monitor to send the program to.  Might seem trivial but the ability to quickly snap windows from one screen to the other is a big benefit when you spend 8-10 hours a day moving windows around.

For me the total cost, include two lightweight 20″ LED monitors was about $300 for the Eclipse device, UltraMon, and both monitors and it was worth every penny!