New tools are killing my screen real estate

This is what I use on a daily basis and always have open:

Browser:

• Gmail – general email
• Sitemeter – stats monitoring
• Basecamp – secure discussion and project sharing
• HighRise – secure email and case tracking
• TactileCRM – simple collaborative CRM
• Wordpress entry screen – blog
• Google reader – online RS reader
• HelloTxt – multiple network site updater
• Seesmic – video

AIR client applications:

• Twhirl - Twitter client
• SeesmicAir – in private beta so no link at this time – Seemic client

Other applications (desktop):

• NetNewsWire RSS reader
• Fetch FTP – simple file upload
• Taco HTML Edit – for editing HTML, PHP and CSS files
• iTunes
• Vienna RSS Reader – for those apps that don’t play nice with Google Reader

Other apps I regularly use:

Desktop:

• iWork (presentation only)

Browser:

• GoogleDocs and Spreadsheets – collaborative documents creation and sharing
• Blinksale – billing
• del.icio.us – bookmarking articles
• Feedburner – stats checking
• @eventtrack – people aggregation around events
• Flickr – photo and image sharing
• Qik – real time video from Nokia N95

In addition to this lot I may have up to 30 tabs open in the Firefox browser

It’s just not possible to see everything on a 15.4 inch screen. I desperately need at least a 23 inch screen and coupling that with the 15.4 inch screen. I’m not at all sure about that. Some folk have suggested going the whole hog and lashing out on a 30 inch screen. I’ve tried both. I could think about 2×23 inch screens as that’s the same cost as the 30incher but with 20%+ more screen real estate.

Whatever I do, it is a HUGE decision. Get it wrong and I end up wasting a lot of money.

Tagged as: applications, cinema desplay, desktop, excel, qik, seesmic