Where PC means Personal Care® · December 2004 · No. 50
T E C H T A L K
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) vs. CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) Monitors
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors continue to improve in quality, and with their smaller footprint, sleek lines, image brightness, lower energy consumption and lack of headache-causing screen flicker, they are becoming incredibly popular. That said, there are a still a few pitfalls associated with LCD monitors.
Professional Photo Editing & Dead Pixels
For professional photo-editing, the ultimate color purity that the CRT offers for editing colors cannot be equaled in an LCD monitor. "Dead pixels" that occasionally occur in an LCD monitor – where pixels no longer function and cannot be repaired – can be particularly annoying. Check the warranty when you purchase your LCD monitor to determine how many dead pixels are covered by replacement.
High Speed Games
Most importantly for gamers, the Pixel Response Time (PRT) of an LCD monitor is not as fast as the CRT monitors. Measured in milliseconds, PRT is crucial for gamers, who will see a ghosting or trailing effect on their monitors if the PRT is over 20. The very best LCD monitors now offer sub-20 milliseconds PRT which is generally acceptable for gaming. High speed gamers (fighting-type games requiring a quick response such as Half Life 2 or Doom III) should look for monitors offering between 12 and 16 milliseconds PRT. Other games which don't require the ultimate PRT work well on an LCD monitor.
There really is a difference between low-end, inexpensive LCD monitors and more expensive ones. For you, the user, the difference will usually be apparent in the form of tired eyes or headaches if you use a low-end monitor for more than a few hours a day or for extended periods of time. Two of the more important characteristics to check are contrast and viewing angle.
If you would like to learn more about comparison of monitors, there are three very good articles that contrast LCD and CRT monitors at the following web addresses:
- http://www.pcreview.co.uk/article-4500.php
- http://www.cheap-lcd-monitor.com/lcd-vs-crt-monitors.htm
- http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20020114/lcd-02.html
We have several sizes and price ranges on display also. Come in and take a look.
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T E C H T A L K
Ergonomics
There isn't a computer user out there spending 3-5 hours a day or more working on a computer that isn't experiencing back and neck pain. There are three likely culprits causing your discomfort and they are:
- Poor posture in your chair. There is a great tendency to lean forward while you're working, putting strain on the neck and back because the head is not being supported properly.
- Incorrect height of your monitor. Even though monitors come with stands to adjust, they are frequently too high or too low for the user (not to mention people of different heights using the same computer with the same desk and chair.
- Incorrect height of your keyboard. If your keyboard is too high, chances are you are straining your shoulders holding up the weight of your arms, which ultimately causes strain of your neck and upper back.
An inexpensive and yet a very effective solution for the back is a footrest. It improves your posture by pushing you back against your chair. It helps prevent you from stooping forward over your computer. After trying a couple of different styles, we recommend a simple half-cylinder footrest. You can either set it with the flat side down or the curved side down so it rocks a little. $39.99
Correct monitor placement is certainly overlooked and often misunderstood. The monitor should be directly in front of you with its top being at eye level or slightly below. You want your eyes to be looking slightly downward without tilting your head down. One solution for a monitor that is too low is the SpinStation – a kind of
Featured in this newsletter:
· Tech Talk: LCD vs. CRT
· Tech Talk: Ergonomics
· Holiday Gift Find
· A Repair Story
· Hot Holiday Items
· 10th Anniversary Winner
Also:
Coupons
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BILL'S FEATURED HOLIDAY GIFT FIND
Suffering From Remote Control over your Remote Controls? You are searching for your remote control (and there may be five or more of them lying around – one each for the tuner, DVD player, TV, CD player and VCR). Time for some entertainment? It's quite simple, isn't it? To watch TV, turn on the TV, turn on the tuner and set the tuner to TV. To watch a DVD movie, change TV input to a video setting, turn on the DVD player, change the tuner to get the input from the DVD, and then take similar steps to change it back to watching just TV or the VCR instead. We've got a minimum of 3 remote controls and we don't even want to count the number of steps or settings. Some of us just wait for a more knowledgeable member of the family to come home and do it for us... Enter the Harmony Remote from Logitech. It comes with software that automatically connects to the Internet and programs it according to the models of your various electronic devices. It connects to your computer through a USB port. Once you have told it what devices you have and what the models are, it downloads the appropriate controls and programs the remote for you. Once this is done, you can press one button that says, "watch TV" and it will turn on the appropriate devices for you. Press another button to watch a movie. It changes the settings automatically. Press a button to listen to music. It turns off the TV, turns off the DVD player, changes the input setting on the tuner and turns on the CD player. The basic Harmony Remote sells for $160 (there are more elaborate versions available that will control lighting and watering systems). Most people will be able to program this in 20 to 40 minutes. You will probably still want to use the individual device remotes for functions such as programming the VCR or CD player, but for the basics, it makes life simple. And wouldn't we all like a little simplicity in our Christmas stocking? |
lazy Susan which stores desk items such as pens, staples, tape dispensers and so on. It's a convenient way to access your everyday desk items. They are for sale at Quidnunc for around $30. A good article about height and placement of montors is at http://www.office-ergo.com/setting.htm.
A keyboard is often too high. It can be adjusted or lowered if you get an under-desk drawer to accommodate the keyboard. We carry a sturdy drawer that also has a retractable mouse shelf for $44.99.
Sometimes you can solve both monitor and keyboard problems by sitting on a chair with adjustable height.
If you are not experiencing neck and back pain after a number of hours spent at the computer, your workstation is probably ergonomically sound. However, a final piece of advice is good for every computer user. Take regular breaks. Get up and walk around for a few minutes every hour to give your body a break from repetitive movements that can lead to neck, shoulder and back pain. There is a wonderful website showing excellent exercises to alleviate the stress of working at a computer at http://www.mydailyyoga.com/yoga/everyday_yoga.html.
| Quidnunc: the friendliest computer, software & Internet store in Seattle |
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A Repair Story
Recently, a customer brought in a computer because it would not connect to the Internet. Because our technicians were so busy and the customer was an old friend, I decided to see if I couldn't fix it by running our standard Spyware detection routines.
The first problem confronting me was that I couldn't even get one Spyware routine to install. An invasive Spyware object was blocking installation of the Spyware detection program. Now there's a Catch 22. Starting the computer in SAFE mode, I managed to install Ad-Aware and had it do a complete system scan. It detected and removed over 1,300 spyware objects. (Did you get that? One thousand three hundred!)
With that we were now able to get onto the Internet. I then downloaded and installed Spybot Search & Destroy and had it do a full scan. It found another 100-plus Spyware objects, some of which it said it couldn't remove because the programs were active. I then installed a new anti-virus and found and quarantined over 25 viruses.
Talk about a "sick" computer!
At this point, this computer had been running either virus or Spyware scans and downloading files for well over 3 hours in addition to about 1 hour of hands-on time on the computer.
I now ran Ad-Aware again. This time it found another 100-plus Spyware objects. Spybot ran another check and discovered 13 more objects, 7 of which it could not remove. Ouch.
Frustration was mounting at this point as we could no longer get on the Internet again. (One particularly malicious Spyware object was doing its dirty work).
I tried a couple of suggestions from one of my technicians including removing and reinstalling the Internet components of Windows XP with no success. At this point, I turned it over to my technicians. They worked their wizardry and by the next day our customer's computer was functioning again. After all this, my technicians advised me that this case was in fact a relatively EASY Spyware problem to rectify.
There is a reason why I employ technicians. And I vowed that neither will I ask them to do my job, nor will I attempt to do theirs again. They reported some instances that have taken as many as 15 separate steps, many of which should not be attempted by anyone other than a qualified technician, before they cleaned the system.
Please keep your systems clean. It is a much better solution than paying us for 1 to 3 hours of repair service.
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Hot Items For This Holiday Season
Two new computer games will be hot this Holiday Season – Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft. Gamers will go gangbusters with Half-Life 2. High resolution graphics in a first person shooter game – a great sequel to the first Half-Life game. You're in first person view and you run around shooting aliens, bad guys, with all kinds of crazy guns.
Warcraft fans can now play this epic adventure in an immersive and continually evolving on-line environment. Read about it at www.blizzard.com/press/040411-street-date.shtml
Other hot gift items...
Jump Drives These portable storage devices that you can keep on your keychain you plug right into the USB port. We now have 1 GB flash drives for less than $85 (Unbelievable.) The package says "Like having 704 floppies in your pocket!" This is a great holiday gift idea.
Does someone you love need a sleek and relatively inexpensive LCD monitor? Try our 17" SVA LCD monitor, priced at $349.99. Use the coupon in this newsletter to get $25 off!
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Tenth Anniversary Winner
of 17" LCD Monitor
Congratulations to Norma Dailey, who was the lucky winner in our Tenth Anniversary celebration prize drawing. Norma is the proud new owner of a 17" Samsung LCD monitor.
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