For OVGE this year I needed a computer monitor to connect to my laptop and face the public. I have no less than a dozen computer monitors out in my garage that I’ve acquired over the years, from old 15″ junkers to 21″ monsters that weigh around 100lbs each (they’re old … and big). I decided that none of these would do. Work has spoiled me with flat panel LCD monitors, and I decided I just had to have one. It would take up a lot less space on the trip, be a lot lighter to move around, and after the show I could use it as my main computer monitor at home, replacing a monstrous 21″ monitor.<\/p>\n

[side rant]<\/p>\n

The day before OVGE, I went to Staples to pick up a monitor. Staples has replaced Best Buy in my life as “the place that never has anything in stock” — although Best Buy’s not any better, so I suppose Staples simply shares the title with Best Buy. When I arrived at Staples I saw lots of monitors for sale, but one really caught my eye — a ViewSonic 19″ widescreen model. The best news was, it was on sale for $219. which was cheaper than even the cheapest 19″ regular monitor that they had on display. To make a long story short, of course they didn’t have any in stock, so I ended up driving to Office Depot and getting the exact same thing. Staples is basically a great place for me to go window shop and see what I want to buy at Office Depot.<\/p>\n

[\/side rant]<\/p>\n

I didn’t open the monitor before I got to OVGE, and I was surprised that it didn’t accept the same resolution that my laptop does, which runs at 1680×1050. I ended up running the display at some funky resolution that kept scrolling the screen around randomly. It worked for the show, and I figured I’d iron out the bugs when I got home.<\/p>\n

Last night I hooked up the monitor, and I can’t get anything to work right. The monitor keeps popping up an error that reads, “this monitor works best at 1440×900”. Problem is, neither of my computers offer that resolution (I have two machines running to the monitor through a KVM system). My 3ghz Compaq doesn’t even have any Windows 2003 compatible drivers available, and only offers standard video modes meaning all the text on that machine is r e a l l y w i d e. My Dell fares a bit better, but not much. It does offer a couple of letterbox modes, but neither are the 1440×900 the monitor keeps asking for and the text looks a little scrunchy.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, I think I should have bought a regular aspect (non-widescreen). This is also seriously making me rethink the purchase of a widescreen television anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For OVGE this year I needed a computer monitor to connect to my laptop and face the public. I have no less than a dozen computer monitors out in my garage that I’ve acquired over the years, from old 15″ junkers to 21″ monsters that weigh around 100lbs each (they’re old … and big). I decided that none of these would do. Work has spoiled me with flat panel LCD monitors, and I decided I just had to have one. It would take up a lot less space on the trip, be a lot lighter to move around, and after… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}