On coding (with a tiny screen)...

Yes, I program occasionally. Lately, I've been executing this arduous task on my 13" MacBook (not pictured left). The programming itself is not at all difficult; it is the available screen real estate I've available to work with. I have recently come to realize that it is impossible to read/write/modify a large code base on a tiny little 13" screen! It's actually been quite madenning of late... I find myself scrolling more then executing any other task involved in the process of coding. This is unacceptable.

My temporary solution to this is to set up my old desktop once again. I pulled it from it's previous duty as my living room's media center PC and have since refitted it to function as a desktop PC. It now runs Windows 7 and sports a dual head monitor setup with a 15" and a 17" (which is still not nearly enough screen space but'll do for now). Windows 7 is very nice by the way. It's much less resource-intensive than it's predecessor Vista (it's very fast!) and has a gorgeously reworked interface flow. Just try it, you'll see.

This solution is working out beautifully well. I must say, there's just something about coding on a desktop that makes it so much more comfortable.

At any rate, the long term solution I've got worked up is to build a custom rig for about $1800 which will be the sweetest, most sexy thing you've ever seen (as far as computers go...). I will have:

• 2 x 24" widescreen ASUS 1080P flats (w/HDMI support)
  
• Intel i7 Core CPU
• 6GB of RAM in triple channel configuration
• Radeon 4870X2
• etc.
  

...and yeah, it'll be fast.

Anyway, so I suppose I'll stop procrastinating my duties and return to work. Catch ya' later blogosphere!