I have a big monitor, help me fill it

July 22, 2008 7:02 PM

What are some good applications that take advantage of a big monitor?

I recently acquired a nice, big 24" Dell widescreen monitor to hook into my Macbook Pro (running OSX5.4) and rediscovered the joys of Google Earth. What are some other fun applications I should I try out now that I have the larger real estate?

Games are OK, I guess, but I'm looking more for interesting applications that are especially awesome when viewing on a ginormous screen. Thanks!

posted by nitsuj to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Stellarium.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:17 PM on July 22

Lightroom is pretty great on a big screen. Defcon is even better.
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:24 PM on July 22

also: X-Plane, though it costs a bit and might be out of your video card's league.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:27 PM on July 22

I know you blew off games, but good old Civilization III* is hard to beat on a 30 (or 24) inch monitor.

It's good to be King when you can see the whole Empire.

(What's that? Civ IV? Get away from me, foul peasant. Civ III is perfection.)
posted by rokusan at 8:15 PM on July 22

Any graphics program (Photoshop, Illustrator) is a joy to use on a large screen. Mostly because you have room to park your palettes and still have screen space to work on the image.

Of course, we're talking actual work, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:17 PM on July 22

The Electric Sheep screensaver.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:25 PM on July 22

I find textmate is particularly awesome on a 24" monitor, especially when I have another 24" monitor to run iterm & a browsor on.
posted by lastobelus at 9:45 PM on July 22

My 24" screen got me back into playing games, Half Life 2, Quake Wars, and Portal do look great on my imac 24" screen. Don't worry about the latest and greatest graphics card, my two year old nvidia 7600 GT plays all of the above games just fine.

Seconding graphics apps, Photoshop, especially in full-screen mode.
posted by limited slip at 10:15 PM on July 22

Pro Tools. It is the reason that I wish I had a big monitor and that I covet my friend's completely insane giant LCD TV as Monitor setup.
posted by The World Famous at 11:36 PM on July 22

Autocad. It's even more impressive with dual monitors.
posted by JJ86 at 6:10 AM on July 23

I also just got the 2408WFP. Sometimes I turn it on the side and read e-papers.
posted by vkxmai at 9:25 AM on July 23

Microsoft Flight Simulator, Corel Painter, Aperture.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 10:19 AM on July 23

Filling a big screen is only half the fun. The other half is arranging multiple related programs so that you can use all of them without overlaps. (In the olden days, this was called tiling.)
posted by pmbuko at 8:00 PM on July 23