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I love technology. I love how I’m surrounded by amazingly extravagant pieces of electronics that come at extraordinarily low prices. I can hop on the sky train and be surrounded by people holding iPods, fake iPods just as good as the real ones, 3G mobile electronic devices, and funny Bluetooth headsets with flashing lights (I always see them as cyborgs). I skip off the BTS and head down to Pantip Plaza where I could buy a new notebook PC, that would be perfect for any professional freelance writer, at a cost less than $500 USD. Bangkok is an amazing city, and the technology in it makes my life easy as hell.

While I am at Pantip Plaza, the main electronics go-to mall in Thailand, I get plenty of pleasure just looking at the newest creations that cheap, Chinese manufacturers have come up with to copy bigger names. “The iFone” is a cute example. However, I’m always looking for what will make my job as a professional freelance writer more simple. There is one purchase I will never, ever forget, and I recommend everyone follow suit with me on this decision.

I use a 15.4 inch monitor on my notebook PC. It is perfect for anything. I could write for my clients, I could play a little WoW in my spare time, and it always got my assignments completed on time. I always wanted something “more”, though. Those 15.4 diagonal inches just weren’t doing it for me. I did some research on the topic and even built a niche website on it. After, doing so I walked into Pantip knowing what I wanted… A Big-Ass Computer Monitor.

I knew the brand name Big-Ass didn’t exist (although it is the name of one of my favorite Thai bands), so I settled for Samsung. Samsung is known for some very distinguishing style in their computer monitors, and the quality is second only to Apple (which is 3-4 times more thanks to import taxes in Thailand). 300 dollars out of my PayPal account later, I was lugging the gorgeous Samsung SyncMaster 2232GW 22 inch monitor to the nearest taxi I could find.

I fired the thing up and connected it to my notebook as soon as I got home. Colors exploded onto the screen and I was in awe of what I had just bought (Did I mention I like technology?). I test shot some bad AI bots through some games on it, and then opened up 10 chat windows and they all fit on the screen. My desktop space just tripled!

I switched to dualscreen mode. With Firefox opened on my notebook monitor, and Word set to display two pages at once on the goddess of monitors, I started working on a freelance writing project I had been on for the past couple days. Wow! Everything flew by. I didn’t have to click through ten windows to find word after looking through Firefox for my writing research. I could examine research material while writing. I no longer had to memorize whole paragraphs, or copy and paste to keep my research on the same window. I didn’t have to shrink Word to see what that last sentence included from my research that I just had to know.

My job just got a whole lot easier.

Get a second monitor, or one really Big-Ass computer monitor. Honestly, it has been a dream working from two computer monitors. My work gets done in about 60% of the time of what it used to take. That means more money for me. The monitor cost me 300 dollars, but every month since I’ve had it, my freelance writing income has been rising on a much higher scale. More projects done in a faster amount of time equals more money. Simple logic, Gatsby (I just made that name up). The monitor payed for itself in less than two weeks.

Yup. That’s some smartly spent cash for you freelance writers.