5 ms·

Honest question, do you feel a little ridiculous with that setup? I'm a coder and have 2x24" monitors, and found that to be borderline ridiculous with neck str

Honest question, do you feel a little ridiculous with that setup? I'm a coder and have 2x24" monitors, and found that to be borderline ridiculous with neck strain, thus the reason I'm going 27". But unless you're running security at a place of business or something with 50 security cams, I can't imagine what you're doing that requires a wall of monitors?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
patcheudor 12y ago
Our philosophy in the office is that alt-tab is for suckers. While my setup is the most over the top we have three other people with five monitors or more. We are all security researchers and find the configuration saves a bunch of time in reviews. As an example, I can associate a MitM proxy like the Burpsuite or Fiddler 2 with the server side application which might communicate to web clients as well as to additional web services behind the scenes. That takes up one monitor, typically the one at the far top left. Under that monitor I can then associate another MitM proxy with the client. I can then run the client from my laptop display. If I'm working on a fat client, on the 30" I'll then run Wireshark which will effectively be watching the client. On another monitor I can run sysinternal tools. What remains I use for writing code necessary for the review, running additional tools like Metasploit, e-mail, chat, and research. I arrange my workspace for the task at hand. On a daily basis do I use all nine? No. Interestingly enough, with this sort of setup it's pretty easy to visually see what's happening when going after an application. Before going to the monitor extreme I'd constantly alt-tab between my monitoring & exploit tools with every action. Now I can run an action and see the results within one workspace. Of course there is a massive downside. It makes competing in CTFs a pain in the butt as I can't drag that setup with me to physical events.
- jmgrosen 12y ago
  A bit off-topic, but what CTF team do you play on?
  - patcheudor 12y ago
    THD+N.
    - dustin999 12y ago
      Dumb question, but which CTF game/mod are you referring to?
      - endgame 12y ago
        He isn't. It's a term to describe security competitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag#Computer_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag#Computer_secu...
      - ibrahima 12y ago
        Presumably they're talking about security, not an FPS mod: https://ctftime.org/ctf-wtf/ https://ctftime.org/ctf-wtf/
      - xanderstrike 12y ago
        It's a gamification of security analysis. Teams are pitted against one another trying to exploit a system to achieve a goal.
- lttlrck 12y ago
  Surely you still use the keyboard to switch keyboard/mouse focus? But instead of Alt-tab another key combo?
  - richardkeller 12y ago
    The moment I use more than 1 screen, I find alt-tab to be cumbersome. I find that in a GUI environment, having your mouse autofocus on the window it's hovering over is far easier than using alt-tab. Especially when you have multiple windows open, cylcing to the correct window using alt-tab is usually slower than moving the mouse over the window.
  - Neridum 12y ago
    Just what I was thinking. How on earth do you find the cursor never mind navigate it from one corner to the other.
- Dewie 12y ago
  > Our philosophy in the office is that alt-tab is for suckers. Which is why I've partly switched from Unity to xmonad (a tiling window manager). Dual monitors is nice to have for me, but the real boon was to have 9 (or 10?) easily accessible workspaces, which allows me to only have to worry about a handful or less windows in each workspace. Unity also have workspaces, but they suck (at least out of the box).
brador 12y ago
If you're getting neck strain from using 2 monitors try moving them further away. Ideally you want both screens in your front facing FOV, with only your eyes doing the moving.
zanny 12y ago
I just got my fourth monitor. Two of them are old shitty 900p screens though. My main displays are my new 144hz 24" 1080p panel ($160 black friday sale) a 21.5" 1080p panel over hdmi, and the two shitty old panels I got from clients throwing out their old screens. Usually the layout is IDE on the main window, docs on the second screen, IRC, git, and github on the third / fourth.
beefsack 12y ago
I can't go back from three monitors (currently running 24" displays): Left Portrait, Terminator with two horizontal splits Centre Landscape, Vim with a vertical split, usually have NERDTree open Right Portrait or landscape, browser and/or documentation I find if I don't have all of those constantly open I can miss stuff, and having them all squished onto a single monitor means I'm not able to display enough information to cover my needs.
colechristensen 12y ago
Back in the day, I was much happier with two 4:3/5:4 monitors than I am with two 16:9 monitors, as you say the neck strain... or wasted space is a bit ridiculous. I prefer two squarish monitors to 2x widescreens _or_ giant screens.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

patcheudor 12y ago

Our philosophy in the office is that alt-tab is for suckers. While my setup is the most over the top we have three other people with five monitors or more. We are all security researchers and find the configuration saves a bunch of time in reviews. As an example, I can associate a MitM proxy like the Burpsuite or Fiddler 2 with the server side application which might communicate to web clients as well as to additional web services behind the scenes. That takes up one monitor, typically the one at the far top left. Under that monitor I can then associate another MitM proxy with the client. I can then run the client from my laptop display. If I'm working on a fat client, on the 30" I'll then run Wireshark which will effectively be watching the client. On another monitor I can run sysinternal tools. What remains I use for writing code necessary for the review, running additional tools like Metasploit, e-mail, chat, and research. I arrange my workspace for the task at hand. On a daily basis do I use all nine? No. Interestingly enough, with this sort of setup it's pretty easy to visually see what's happening when going after an application. Before going to the monitor extreme I'd constantly alt-tab between my monitoring & exploit tools with every action. Now I can run an action and see the results within one workspace. Of course there is a massive downside. It makes competing in CTFs a pain in the butt as I can't drag that setup with me to physical events.

jmgrosen 12y ago
A bit off-topic, but what CTF team do you play on?
- patcheudor 12y ago
  THD+N.
  - dustin999 12y ago
    Dumb question, but which CTF game/mod are you referring to?
    - endgame 12y ago
      He isn't. It's a term to describe security competitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag#Computer_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag#Computer_secu...
    - ibrahima 12y ago
      Presumably they're talking about security, not an FPS mod: https://ctftime.org/ctf-wtf/ https://ctftime.org/ctf-wtf/
    - xanderstrike 12y ago
      It's a gamification of security analysis. Teams are pitted against one another trying to exploit a system to achieve a goal.
lttlrck 12y ago
Surely you still use the keyboard to switch keyboard/mouse focus? But instead of Alt-tab another key combo?
- richardkeller 12y ago
  The moment I use more than 1 screen, I find alt-tab to be cumbersome. I find that in a GUI environment, having your mouse autofocus on the window it's hovering over is far easier than using alt-tab. Especially when you have multiple windows open, cylcing to the correct window using alt-tab is usually slower than moving the mouse over the window.
- Neridum 12y ago
  Just what I was thinking. How on earth do you find the cursor never mind navigate it from one corner to the other.
Dewie 12y ago
> Our philosophy in the office is that alt-tab is for suckers. Which is why I've partly switched from Unity to xmonad (a tiling window manager). Dual monitors is nice to have for me, but the real boon was to have 9 (or 10?) easily accessible workspaces, which allows me to only have to worry about a handful or less windows in each workspace. Unity also have workspaces, but they suck (at least out of the box).

brador 12y ago

If you're getting neck strain from using 2 monitors try moving them further away. Ideally you want both screens in your front facing FOV, with only your eyes doing the moving.

zanny 12y ago

I just got my fourth monitor. Two of them are old shitty 900p screens though. My main displays are my new 144hz 24" 1080p panel ($160 black friday sale) a 21.5" 1080p panel over hdmi, and the two shitty old panels I got from clients throwing out their old screens. Usually the layout is IDE on the main window, docs on the second screen, IRC, git, and github on the third / fourth.

beefsack 12y ago

I can't go back from three monitors (currently running 24" displays): Left Portrait, Terminator with two horizontal splits Centre Landscape, Vim with a vertical split, usually have NERDTree open Right Portrait or landscape, browser and/or documentation I find if I don't have all of those constantly open I can miss stuff, and having them all squished onto a single monitor means I'm not able to display enough information to cover my needs.

colechristensen 12y ago

Back in the day, I was much happier with two 4:3/5:4 monitors than I am with two 16:9 monitors, as you say the neck strain... or wasted space is a bit ridiculous. I prefer two squarish monitors to 2x widescreens _or_ giant screens.