The monitor made it here in good shape. I got it set up and the (minimal) software loaded. The first thing I noticed was the screen is super bright. I had to bring down the brightness to 20 (from a preset of 100).
There are no dead pixels (the dread of anyone that gets an LCD monitor), the realestate on the desk used is about the same as my old, old 17" monitor (my previous monitor was a 19" beast that took up massive space). I still have to set my resolution to 1024 x 768 in order to have the icons large enough that I can see them and the monitor complained that it does best at 1280 x 1024, but that is life.
The only complaint is that the controls (brightness etc.) have very small icons on them so it took me a while to figure out what was what - not very friendly for the hard of seeing, but I guess I shouldn't have to touch the controls very often so I can deal with it.
The most amazing thing is that I now have an "Off" button. I haven't had one of those since my old Gateway monitor. I really hated that my last monitor didn't have one. Okay, so that really isn't that amazing but I am happy about it.
All in all, I already like my new monitor!
I had also ordered a Micr*s*ft Comfort Curve keyboard. I am hoping that it will help alleviate the problems I am having with my left elbow and wrist. It is a tad difficult to get used to because of the number pad positioning.
The Ctl button and the nest of middle buttons (home, end etc.) also confound me a bit. However, if I do normal typing, my fingers actually find the keys better than a regular keyboard (witnessed by the fact that the only mis-spellings I have had so far are from mis-spelling the word in my mind so my fingers followed suite). The number pad thing also wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't typing in the dark anyway (yes, go ahead and get your jokes out about my being in the dark - just laugh it up).
If I like it at home, I plan on taking the keyboard to work (where I do the most typing) to use it where it will do me the most good.
in the dark! hehe...sorry bogie, just had to.
glad its all up and running well.
Posted by: bod | July 19, 2006 at 08:22 PM
Congrats on getting stuff that you like. I totally understand about the brightness. People at the Red Cross are constantly trying to turn on more light in the area in which I work, not understanding how that affects my vision.
I should think that the company would provide an ergonomic keyboard, on request, as a way to keep from having you off work/disabled for work due to carpel tunnel surgery. (Obviously, you are more of the situation than am I, though.) Even the Red Cross was able to dig one up for me during Katrina (I don't normally do enough input to need an ergonomic.) You are right that one takes a little getting used to, but that it is really neat once one does get accustomed. The bad part is the room that it takes up. Can't have everything, can we?
Posted by: CopCar | July 19, 2006 at 10:39 PM
Carpel tunnel isn't the problem - I have a problem with my elbow that affects my wrist along the way. I'm sure they would by the keyboard, but first I want to make sure that it would do some good.
Posted by: bogie | July 20, 2006 at 03:55 AM