Monitors Dual Queries: How to share a monitor? And need an external usb DVDRW Drive!

A

amityrock

Adept
hey guys!

First off... the big news.. i got a macbook air! ;) actually its not mine but for the house..!:eek:hyeah: anyways so now the problemo is no dvd drive.. an i enquired with apple and they sellin it for 5k (i cud probly gt it for bout 4 though! ) but then considerin the cheap ass price of 1k for dvd writers i cant convince myself to spend ta extra 3k..! so pour in your advice on what to do and specific external dvd drives an models.. !

Second query is regarding the abililty to share a monitor.. in my office i would soon have 2 comps and basically use only 1 at any given point of time.. so i was wondering if its possible to save some bucks and use the 1 monitor i currently have for both the systems.. its would also help save precious deskspace which is what im more worried about. Now the deal is my old monitor only has 1 vga port.. else if it had dvi an vga i could hav attached 1 comp from each route.. so now is there like a vga signal splitter kinda thing with a switch to select the signal?

Pour in your ideas fast.. need to decide in a day or two!
Cheers! :hap2:
 
Just get a decent 5.25" external casing and a DVD Writer of your choice. Dont go about looking for External DVD Writers as they will also be costly like the Apple one (though they will still be cheaper than Apple one).

As for your second query, we too deal with the problem of having multiple computers at our office and in fact I myself use 4 computers. Most people use KVM Switchs. These things allow sharing a single set of Keyboard/Mouse and Monitor between two or more computers. In case the Keyboard/Mouse needs to be seperate, a VGA switch is used. These things just switch between multiple video sources.
 
okie.. i think il opt for a vga switch.. btw how much does a kvm or vga switch cost? also any recommended brands or do i opt for whichever chinese one is available! ;)

And yeah.. for the 5.25 casing: again which brand and price? also i hope i wont need a power adapter with the drive (i.e hope it works on usb alone? ) also which dvd drive model?.. im guessing some samsung one?

Edit: just realized that the macbook air dvd superdrive doesnt need a power source (unlike conventional external drives) so tat tilts the apple drive in2 favour .. drawback of apple is tat it works only on the air not even imacs.. so now am totally confused!.. are there any other drives which work on usb alone?

@ racy: buddy got a 3 yr old monitor with only single vga input.. :(!
 
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