PLAN CAREFULLY
Think through how you spend most of your time on your computer, to figure out the preferred arrangement. A common pattern is to have e-mail on one screen, a Web browser on a second screen, and on a third screen a document such as a Word file.
PICK A NUMBER
If two screens are better than one, is three better than two, and so on? Mr. Thompson may be a test case, since he kept adding one monitor after another until he ran out of desk space at five. But he was to learn that five was in fact too many - he wasn't using them all, was getting dizzy from all the head spinning, and a physiotherapist suggested he could get neck strain from too many monitors. So he settled on three, and urges you to beware of diminishing returns at some point when you are adding. "Two is probably the most common and easiest. I'd certainly suggest starting with two before three."
CHECK PORTS
You can add the monitors yourself or get a technician to help. The key is having spare video ports in the back of the computer to handle each new monitor. It's also possible you may have to install an upgraded video card. If you're adding one monitor, he says just plug it in and follow the directions in Windows' display properties function.
ARRANGE MONITORS
If you have two monitors, be wary that you don't casually set them up with one to your right and the other to your left, leaving you staring down the middle between them. Arrange them so you naturally face one monitor. If you opt for three, then it's easier to have one of those in the middle.
SLIDE WINDOWS OVER
To get started, just drag a window over to the second (or third, or fourth) monitor, and then maximize it to open there. In effect, the monitors work together as if they are one desktop, and you just have a bunch of windows open on that giant desktop, but because it's big you can have more than one fully maximized and visible at a time, without them covering each other or being very small. That's the time- saver: You aren't continually minimizing and maximizing windows.
BEWARE OF DISTRACTIBILITY
All those open windows can be distracting. Mr. Thompson doesn't keep his e-mail open all the time because he knows it will catch his attention and pull him away from other work.
THINK VERTICAL
Not all the monitors have to be set up horizontally. If you write a lot of reports, set one monitor up vertically, so that you can have a full-screen view while writing.
MAKE NEW HABITS
The new arrangement calls for some experimentation to devise the best new habits of operating. "Try e-mail on the right and the browser on the left, and then flip it. Check how your work is going, to see which is best," he says.
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IT / INFRASTRUCTURE SHORTFALLS THAT HURT SECURITY
Janco Associates, a Utah-based consulting firm, reviewed more than 100 instances of security and data breaches. In IndustryWeek, the company lists the following core factors as contributing to those lapses:
In many companies, data are so voluminous, so disorganized and dispersed so frequently that IT departments aren't sufficiently staffed to implement uniform security standards.
IT departments tend to respond to problems after they occur rather than identifying solutions beforehand, again largely because of a lack of resources.
There is a wariness toward deploying yet another set of rules and tasks for staff to follow for their various electronic devices - desktop, laptop, smart phone and the like.
Devising and implementing a comprehensive, viable security policy may get in the way of traditional business practices. It also requires attention beyond IT to human resources, finance and legal teams, as well as business unit managers.
