In this article i will show you a small tool named “switcher”. Maybe you know the feature expose on mac OS S, Switcher enables this on Windows Vista and Windows 7 Clients. I guess if you install Switcher you never use “alt” & “tab” and “win” & “tab” again.
You can’t imagine how frustrated I was when I received my new dell business notebook with Core i7 (hyperthreading) when I tried to attach two external monitors to the docking station while running the laptop screen as third monitor… It’s just not possible! As a software developer it is really helpful to have three monitors. I usually have the following work setup when having three monitors (normally 20” with 1600×1200):
First monitor (primary with taskbar):
VS2010 with just the solution explorer and properties pane visible as needed
Second monitor (with extended taskbar from ultramon):
Resharper 5.1 windows such as file structure, unit test explorer and unit test session (those are the most important for me)
Third monitor (with extended taksbar from ultramon):
Firefox, Skype and Email, usually also documentation (which I’m currently writing or user documentation when help is needed)
With only two monitors you always need to move around the resharper windows when you want to browse or read a tutorial on the internet. This sucks!
Two eliminate this problem when using the business laptop I was looking around for a USB to DVI adapter and found finally a good one which has arrived last week by postal service. Gefen Ext-USB-2-DVIHD-CO! Let me describe it.
I’m currently working with Windows 7 Public Beta (Build 7000) and I’m very satisfied with it. I only had two blue screens since I have installed it 3 months ago. I would like to share some really cool features in W7 in an upcoming post and look at this video on Channel 9.
But the interesting thing from a .NET Developers perspective is the 64 Bit part of Windows 7 (that should be the same as in Windows XP 64 Bit or Windows Vista 64 Bit) which I will cover in this post.
First of all: Most of the things developing .NET are running very well. The drawbacks will be shown later…