[Mr Mushroom]

Hi there,

I am a full time professional poker player, and am currently in the process of switching to mostly online play, so I can stay home more often. I would like the ability to multi table on a large scale (For non-pokerplayers this means playing many games at once) so need to get myself a lot more screen space available than just my trusty PB 17".

I have never used an additonal monitor or monitors, so don't really know where to start - The first thing I thought about was just getting a very large screen such as the 30" Cinema Dsiplay. I have since found out that my PB will not run this, but only run the 23" or smaller. My ideal set up would need to have around 1600x1200 available JUST for Poker and still have significant space left for other web activities and apps. Should I/Am I able to run both my existing monitor on my PB AND run a 23" on the side, and have different things on both? How do you switch between them, or is it considered one big screen? These may sound like silly questions but I just have no experience with this and would like to know what will work best before I buy anything.

As far as the actual monitor goes, I guess I am deciding between the 23" Apple and the 24" Dell as these suit my price range and look good, but I am very open to any suggestions.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Mush

[flanders]

You can certainly use the internal PB display along side a 23" display. This would give you both screens to do with as you please. You don't have to switch since they're both on all the time. Just drag whatever you want to whichever screen you want to use it on. Most apps will remember which screen they were last used on even if you shut down your machine.

As for which device? I think most would tell you to get the Apple display, but the Dell is no slouch and should work well. FWIW, I think the Apple is a bit better quality for sharpness and color but you might not have a need for that fine a line in order to save quite a few hundred bucks.

[Fusion]

You can run your Powerbook screen and the ACD at the same time. You have three options when running an external from your powerbook. You can:

A: Close the lid of the powerbook and operate in "clamshell" mode. In this mode, you only have 1 screen, but 100% of your GPU is dedicated to the external monitor.

B: You can have the lid of the powerbook open and the screen showing in a mirrored fashion. Whatever happens on one screen, you see on the other. This is especially helpful for presentations, etc...

C: You can have the lid of the powerbook open and the screen showing in a dual-monitor fashion. This will give you more screen real estate, but your GPU's power is divided in half (which is fine since you have 128mb of RAM).

I'd recommend getting the 23" for your Poker stuff and then just using the internet and misc apps on your powerbooks screen. Combined with an iCurve or similar stand, external Keyboard and Mouse, this makes a great setup.

OT: Which website do you play Poker at?

[corbusier]

Also - if you are going to be on a mac - check out Poker-Mac. Full of tons of good info. If you want to contribute content, they are asking for that too.

Have you thought about a G5 ? Then you can run a 30" monitor - your laptop could also be part of the setup, but not the main brain.

my $0.02