OS X Multi-Monitor Setup

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:03:30 +0000

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I’ve been using the dual 30″ monitors with my Vista machine, hooked up with Dual Link DVI cables. Someone in chat suggested I use one of them for the MacBook Pro. With these new MBP’s, it’s quite easy. Just plug in one of the DVI cables, and off you go… or so I thought.

Setting up the dual screens with OS X was much different than it is in Windows. It is pretty elemental… almost TOO much so. I’ll get to that in a minute, though. When I plugged the cable into the MacBook Pro, it was automatically recognized. It automatically recognized the display, the colors, everything. Out of the box, Mac OS X handles dual monitors better than Windows: you can set screen-specific wallpaper images by default without any extra software. Just choose “Set Desktop Background,” and a panel appears on each screen to configure them separately.

Then… I ran into problems. I was over-thinking things, I admit it. The Menu bar was still showing up on the MBP, and I didn’t want it to. I wanted it on the big screen. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to move it, and Google wasn’t being my friend. So, I turned to my chat room. LifeJustIs2007, Protocol and a few others started looking around. LifeJustIs found the answer for me, and it was exceedingly simple, I had to laugh.

It’s easy to move your menu bar from one monitor to the other: just click and drag it to any side of either monitor to make it stick.

Uh yeah. It really was that simple. So now that it’s all set up, I think I’m going to keep it this way. I have one sweet 30″ screen for the Windows machine, and one right next to it for my MacBook Pro. Jealous yet? I know… I’m a lucky man. These are just awesome to use, and I’m very grateful to have them.

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OS X Multi-Monitor Setup

Chris Pirillo » dvicable

OS X Multi-Monitor Setup