Julie Barrett is a freelance writer and photographer based in Plano, TX.

Looking at things in a different light, of sorts

Fresh when it gets here from Julie Barrett
Tuesday, May 30, 2006


I've ditched my old monitor today and replaced it with an LCD display. Oh, I've been waffling over this for a long time. My poor old monitor would behave for a while, and then one day all of the solid vertical lines (like the edges or windows or web browsers) would develop a bit of a "wave." I don't know how else to describe it.

The old monitor has served me well for a long time. I "inherited" it probably six years ago at a part-time job. I stayed with the place as it closed down, and the rewarded the few who stayed by allowing them to buy their computers at a steep discount. The monitor was already a few years old at the time and had seen quite a bit of service, so it's kind of surprising that it's lasted this long.

The new monitor is so different. I went with an LCD display. I'm still working on getting it calibrated correctly, but I'm sure that will come. When I got it pretty much the way I wanted I opened up my folder of flower pictures and was astonished at them! I hadn't realized that my old monitor was in such sad shape. I'm also amazed at the amount of space the new display has opened up. With a CRT monitor, the larger the front of the display, the deeper the case has to be to accomdate the tube. You can imagine that a 21" monitor took up a lot of real estate. The new display is 19", but right now I'm not missing the extra area at all.

The only downside to this is finding a new home for all of the toys that used to reside on top of the monitor. Right now I've got them on the stand next to the new display.

And to think I just went into Fry's for an audio cable.

The cable was for the transmitter for the bluetooth headphones. I could use the very short cable that came with it and crawl under the desk every time it needed to be powered up or charged, or get an extension cable and bring it up to where I could easily get to it. The cable was the obvious choice. It took a bit of doing to determine which of the jacks on the back of the audio card was for the headphones, but I finally figured it out. This is one of those sound cards that has several jacks in pretty colors, but no notations stamped on the metal as to what they mean.

We drove up to McKinney for lunch today. Or rather, Chris did the driving. We're still trying to get him enough hours to finish off his driving course so he can take his driving test. And Friday, of course, is still laundry day. I've got one more load to go before it's all over. But then, I didn't get started until late.

I also renewed my domains today, so it looks like we'll be around for a while. ;-)

Time to go switch that last load of laundry. Perhaps I'll post a picture of the monitor when I get it better-calibrated.

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Filed under: Life   Technology           

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DesLily said:
Congratulations on the new monitor!! Amazing the difference it makes isn't it?!!.. I got a dimension 9100 a few months back w/ a 19 inch thin, flat screen monitor.. my old gateway (6 yrs old) has a 17 inch viewsonic (flat glass but still the big monitor).. the new one is so bright it hurt my eyes for a while !!.. It's hard to go back and forth. I keep the old computer for an old paint program that won't work right on XP.. so keep the old computer with windows 98 on it and my psp 5 which is my favorite paint program.. kinda tight with two whole computers! Its not what i had planned.. didn't think a program wouldn't work on the new computer sigh.. hope all works out well for you.. i have to say i love the thin flat screen monitors !!
Date: 5/30/2006 8:18:59 PM Date: 5/30/2006 8:18:59 PM

Gravatar
DesLily said:
Congratulations on the new monitor!! Amazing the difference it makes isn't it?!!.. I got a dimension 9100 a few months back w/ a 19 inch thin, flat screen monitor.. my old gateway (6 yrs old) has a 17 inch viewsonic (flat glass but still the big monitor).. the new one is so bright it hurt my eyes for a while !!.. It's hard to go back and forth. I keep the old computer for an old paint program that won't work right on XP.. so keep the old computer with windows 98 on it and my psp 5 which is my favorite paint program.. kinda tight with two whole computers! Its not what i had planned.. didn't think a program wouldn't work on the new computer sigh.. hope all works out well for you.. i have to say i love the thin flat screen monitors !!
Date: 5/30/2006 8:18:59 PM Date: 5/30/2006 8:18:59 PM





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