The best pair programming experiences I've had involve each programmer using their own laptops, each with a separate screen attached. The pairing sessions were

The best pair programming experiences I've had involve each programmer using their own laptops, each with a separate screen attached. The pairing sessions were shared via ScreenHero (now I use Tuple), where each person has independent control of their own mouse cursor, but can grab control by clicking anywhere and typing. Because the pairing session is constrained to the external monitors and the laptop screen isn't shared, each dev can still check their private email or look up things off to the side, but can also keep an eye on the pairing session and jump back in whenever they are needed. This methodology works well in a side-by-side pairing environment, and it also works great for remote pairing.