To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
do you ever miss being square? ;-)

Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas, and I don't want to be
stuck with something that I'll ultimately not care for. It would be
awkward to set them up and test drive for any length of time. (To answer
the obvious suggestion to try them for a while.)

--
"Because all you of Earth are idiots!"
¯`·..·¯`·-> freemont <-·¯`·..·¯

freemont wrote:
> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
> do you ever miss being square? ;-)

I've been using a widescreen monitor for a couple of years now and I
would certainly never go back. It's great being able to have a couple of
applications open next to each other at the same time, like a text
editor and a web browser, for example. I'm so used to having a
widescreen monitor now that 4:3 monitors just look wrong, sort of squashed!

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

The opinions stated above are not necessarily representative of
those of my cats. All opinions expressed are entirely your own.

freemont wrote:
> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
> do you ever miss being square? ;-)

I've been using a widescreen monitor for a couple of years now and I
would certainly never go back. It's great being able to have a couple of
applications open next to each other at the same time, like a text
editor and a web browser, for example. I'm so used to having a
widescreen monitor now that 4:3 monitors just look wrong, sort of squashed!

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

The opinions stated above are not necessarily representative of
those of my cats. All opinions expressed are entirely your own.

freemont wrote:

> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
> do you ever miss being square? ;-)

I have a 20 inch widescreen and yes, I prefer it to the "square"
screen I had before. When I need to see two windows at the same time
for whatever reason, I prefer to look from left to right, then from
top to bottom. I think the width of the window is easier to scan than
the height, but that might just be personal preference.

Also, the width gives me room for a desktop sidebar where I keep all
my quickstart shortcuts (so they don't occupy the taskbar).

> Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas, and I don't want to be
> stuck with something that I'll ultimately not care for. It would be
> awkward to set them up and test drive for any length of time. (To answer
> the obvious suggestion to try them for a while.)

Wouldn't have though to suggest that really, but now that you mention
it, you could get a piece of thick paper in that size, put some
printed text on it, and place it in front of you - check if you find
it troublesome to turn your head from left to right to read what's oon
either side of it :-)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/

Dylan Parry wrote:

> I'm so used to having a widescreen monitor now that 4:3 monitors
> just look wrong, sort of squashed!

You mean your widescreen is what, 3:2? Mine is a little less wide
then, 4:3. My old monitor was 5:4 :-)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/

freemont wrote:
> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
> do you ever miss being square? ;-)
>
> Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas, and I don't want to be
> stuck with something that I'll ultimately not care for. It would be
> awkward to set them up and test drive for any length of time. (To answer
> the obvious suggestion to try them for a while.)
>
Don't forget that in Win and Linux (don't know about Mac)
you can extend your desktop across two monitors. I would take a couple
of square screens over a wide screen any time. (And I wish I had two
wide screens to experiment with!)

Els wrote:
> Dylan Parry wrote:
>
>> I'm so used to having a widescreen monitor now that 4:3 monitors
>> just look wrong, sort of squashed!
>
> You mean your widescreen is what, 3:2? Mine is a little less wide
> then, 4:3. My old monitor was 5:4 :-)

Not entirely sure what you're talking about here My monitor is 16:10,
which is pretty much standard and has a display of 1680x1050. Although I
believe you can get 16:9 which can also be seen in use as a widescreen
monitor format. 4:3, for reference is the typical ratio of a monitor
that displays in 800x600 or 1024x768.

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

The opinions stated above are not necessarily representative of
those of my cats. All opinions expressed are entirely your own.

Dylan Parry wrote:
[...]

Oops. Looks like I hit "reply to all" on this one. Sorry

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

The opinions stated above are not necessarily representative of
those of my cats. All opinions expressed are entirely your own.

Per freemont:
>Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas, and I don't want to be
>stuck with something that I'll ultimately not care for.

At home, I've got a Sony square screen: 1600 x 1200.

At work, I've got a cheaper wide-screen: 1920 x 1200.


Because of the Sony's extremely-good picture quality/sharpness,
I'd call it a wash between the two; but, in the end, the more
screen space the better for me.

Even with the so-so quality of the wide-screen monitor at work, I
definitely appreciate the extra space.

A feature of the wide screen I have is that it rotates. I don't
rotate it all that often - but having limited brainpower, I
really appreciate it for working with the occasional
humongously-long routine - and being able to see the whole thing
at once.

--
PeteCresswell

freemont wrote:
> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen?

Yes!

> Or do you ever miss being square? ;-)

No!

> Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas,

When I got my wide screen, I got a 24 inch. They are a little pricey,
but one thing I wanted was not to lose any height on my monitor. I had a
19 inch square monitor. I wanted a wide screen monitor that was at least
as tall as the 19 inch. Most of what I do is tall (perl scripts, web
development/browsing) so buying a wide screen monitor with fewer pixels
in height didn't make sense.

I'd love a 30 inch, but they cost 3 times what I paid for the 24 inch. I
couldn't justify the difference in price.

Scott Bryce wrote:
> freemont wrote:
>> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for
>> day-to-day computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a
>> square screen?
>
> Yes!
>
>> Or do you ever miss being square? ;-)
>
> No!
>
>> Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas,
>
> When I got my wide screen, I got a 24 inch. They are a little pricey,
> but one thing I wanted was not to lose any height on my monitor. I had
> a 19 inch square monitor. I wanted a wide screen monitor that was at
> least as tall as the 19 inch. Most of what I do is tall (perl scripts,
> web development/browsing) so buying a wide screen monitor with fewer
> pixels in height didn't make sense.

That's where I am -- at 1400x1050 on a traditional 4:3 Trinitron, and
since most of my scrolling is *vertical* on long pages I'm more
interested in having more vertical geography than horizontal. They
don't make many monitors bigger than this one in 4:3. I'm presently
contemplating a 24" because the widescreens (which I consider only the
new norm because of the movie aspect ratio) because they're not much
more expensive than the 20" 4:3 1600x1200 units I started shopping for,
and can be had with the same 1200 px vertical size.

(The one I started liking was a Samsung with the pivot feature someone
else mentioned.)

--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project - http://improve-usenet.org

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:39:57 -0500, mbstevens writ:

> freemont wrote:
>> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
>> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
>> do you ever miss being square? ;-)
>>
>> Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas, and I don't want to be
>> stuck with something that I'll ultimately not care for. It would be
>> awkward to set them up and test drive for any length of time. (To answer
>> the obvious suggestion to try them for a while.)
>>
> Don't forget that in Win and Linux (don't know about Mac)
> you can extend your desktop across two monitors. I would take a couple
> of square screens over a wide screen any time. (And I wish I had two
> wide screens to experiment with!)

Well that's the deal - I currently use two 19" CRTs; they're to be
replaced (possibly) by two 19" widescreen LCDs. And this is a Linux box
with my desktop spread across both monitors, just as you describe.

I'm a little apprehensive about the prospect of having my desktop spread
out across such a wide area. This:

__________________ __________________
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|________________| |________________|

Will become this:

_____________________ _____________________
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|___________________| |___________________|

.... or so it seems. The question in my head is, how wierd will that be?

--
"Because all you of Earth are idiots!"
¯`·..·¯`·-> freemont <-·¯`·..·¯

freemont wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:39:57 -0500, mbstevens writ:
>
>> freemont wrote:
>>> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
>>> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
>>> do you ever miss being square? ;-)
>>>
>>> Looking at a couple of 19" widescreens for Xmas, and I don't want to be
>>> stuck with something that I'll ultimately not care for. It would be
>>> awkward to set them up and test drive for any length of time. (To answer
>>> the obvious suggestion to try them for a while.)
>>>
>> Don't forget that in Win and Linux (don't know about Mac)
>> you can extend your desktop across two monitors. I would take a couple
>> of square screens over a wide screen any time. (And I wish I had two
>> wide screens to experiment with!)
>
> Well that's the deal - I currently use two 19" CRTs; they're to be
> replaced (possibly) by two 19" widescreen LCDs. And this is a Linux box
> with my desktop spread across both monitors, just as you describe.
>
> I'm a little apprehensive about the prospect of having my desktop spread
> out across such a wide area. This:
>
> __________________ __________________
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> |________________| |________________|
>
> Will become this:
>
> _____________________ _____________________
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> |___________________| |___________________|
>
> .... or so it seems. The question in my head is, how wierd will that be?
>
It might require a bit of healthy head tilting, but there is so much room!

While we are on monitors..

I seen an ad today in the paper that stated the LCD TV they had on sale had
a "HDMI input, to use as a computer monitor".
I didnt think HDMI inputs were for that type of connection, are they?
What do you all think about using a TV as a monitor also? Better to stick
with just a regular monitor?

Blinky the Shark wrote:
> (The one I started liking was a Samsung with the pivot feature someone
> else mentioned.)

I was not able to find a 24 inch Samsung with a pivot feature.

freemont wrote:

> I'm a little apprehensive about the prospect of having my desktop spread
> out across such a wide area. This:

I would be more concerned about the desktop becoming less tall. If you
are a web developer, most of what you do is tall.

Scott Bryce wrote:
> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> (The one I started liking was a Samsung with the pivot feature
>> someone else mentioned.)
>
> I was not able to find a 24 inch Samsung with a pivot feature.

The above was back when where I started -- looking at 20-inchers.

I wanted to get 1200 px vertical, as an improvement over my current
1050. I didn't care as much about horizontal size, so I started looking
for 1600x1200 4:3 conventionals. The pivot I settled on before deciding
to bite the bullet and look at 1920x1200 widescreens was the Samsung
SyncMaster204B.

http://tinyurl.com/fdbs5

They probably don't even make 24" 4:3 monitors, with push being to
widescreens for watching movies.


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project - http://improve-usenet.org

Scott Bryce wrote:
> freemont wrote:
>
>> I'm a little apprehensive about the prospect of having my desktop
>> spread out across such a wide area. This:
>
> I would be more concerned about the desktop becoming less tall. If you
> are a web developer, most of what you do is tall.

Heck, even if your a compter-as-toaster type and all you do is email
retreaded 1998 hoax urban legends to your friends and browse the web,
most of what you do is tall.


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project - http://improve-usenet.org

On 10/16/07 03:49 pm, freemont wrote:
> To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
> computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
> do you ever miss being square? ;-)
>
The screen space in a GUI environment is commonly called a "desktop."
How many desks have you used that were 18" x 18"? You could read a
magazine. *Or* write a letter. *Or* balance a checkbook. But not without
having to put everything else away.
Once you have a monitor that is actually *like* a desktop, you'll wonder
how you ever got any work done.

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

"freemont" <freemont@spammenotfreemontsoffice.com> wrote in message
news:30faa$47157426$4b5b430e$22017@ALLTEL.NET...
> On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:39:57 -0500, mbstevens writ:

> I'm a little apprehensive about the prospect of having my desktop spread
> out across such a wide area. This:
>
> __________________ __________________
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> |________________| |________________|
>
> Will become this:
>
> _____________________ _____________________
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> |___________________| |___________________|
>
> ... or so it seems. The question in my head is, how wierd will that be?

I currently have three 19 inch monitors, desktop across all three. The
"physical" desktop is 1.2 metres (four feet) wide.

You get used to it pretty quickly. Expecially when you can have half a dozen
things visible at once.

I think I would rather stay with three 19" rather than two, say, 22". Three
areas to park things rather than just two. Also, I would never go from 19"
4x3 to 19" 16x9. Too much loss of height. Have to be at least 22" 16x9.
Possibly 26".

Also, being almost consumables these days three times 19" is a whole lot
cheaper than two times 26".

--
Richard.

Dylan Parry wrote:
> Els wrote:
>> Dylan Parry wrote:
>>
>>> I'm so used to having a widescreen monitor now that 4:3 monitors
>>> just look wrong, sort of squashed!
>>
>> You mean your widescreen is what, 3:2? Mine is a little less wide
>> then, 4:3. My old monitor was 5:4 :-)
>
> Not entirely sure what you're talking about here My monitor is 16:10,
> which is pretty much standard and has a display of 1680x1050.

280px more horizontal than I do, okay, mine isn't widescreen then!

> Although I
> believe you can get 16:9 which can also be seen in use as a widescreen
> monitor format. 4:3, for reference is the typical ratio of a monitor
> that displays in 800x600 or 1024x768.

Or 1400 x 1050, as mine :-)
I guess there are regular monitors, widescreens, and eh
semi-widescreens or something? The monitor I have is advertised as
widescreen, but it's obviously not then...
Still looks wide-ish to me, if I compare it with my old monitor, which
I had set to 1280x1024.

Next time I'll want a 16:10 or 16:9 now... :-)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/

rf wrote:

>> ... or so it seems. The question in my head is, how wierd will that be?
>
> I currently have three 19 inch monitors, desktop across all three. The
> "physical" desktop is 1.2 metres (four feet) wide.

Ground Control to Major Tom...


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project - http://improve-usenet.org

Els wrote:
> Dylan Parry wrote:
>> Els wrote:
>>> Dylan Parry wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm so used to having a widescreen monitor now that 4:3 monitors
>>>> just look wrong, sort of squashed!
>>>
>>> You mean your widescreen is what, 3:2? Mine is a little less wide
>>> then, 4:3. My old monitor was 5:4 :-)
>>
>> Not entirely sure what you're talking about here My monitor is 16:10,
>> which is pretty much standard and has a display of 1680x1050.
>
> 280px more horizontal than I do, okay, mine isn't widescreen then!
>
>> Although I
>> believe you can get 16:9 which can also be seen in use as a widescreen
>> monitor format. 4:3, for reference is the typical ratio of a monitor
>> that displays in 800x600 or 1024x768.
>
> Or 1400 x 1050, as mine :-)
> I guess there are regular monitors, widescreens, and eh
> semi-widescreens or something? The monitor I have is advertised as
> widescreen, but it's obviously not then...

Nope. That's normal old conventional 4:3. Same aspect ratio as
640x480, 800x600, 1024x768.

> Still looks wide-ish to me, if I compare it with my old monitor, which
> I had set to 1280x1024.

Which was a weird aspect ratio -- 5:4


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project - http://improve-usenet.org

Blinky the Shark wrote:
> Els wrote:
>> Dylan Parry wrote:
>>
>>> Although I
>>> believe you can get 16:9 which can also be seen in use as a widescreen
>>> monitor format. 4:3, for reference is the typical ratio of a monitor
>>> that displays in 800x600 or 1024x768.
>>
>> Or 1400 x 1050, as mine :-)
>> I guess there are regular monitors, widescreens, and eh
>> semi-widescreens or something? The monitor I have is advertised as
>> widescreen, but it's obviously not then...
>
> Nope. That's normal old conventional 4:3.

Yes, exactly. Still the monitor is advertised as widescreen (don't
blame me for it ;-) ):
<http://computers.pricegrabber.com/flat-panel-lcd-monitors/m/32673117/>

> Same aspect ratio as 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768.

That's what I'm saying :-)

>> Still looks wide-ish to me, if I compare it with my old monitor, which
>> I had set to 1280x1024.
>
> Which was a weird aspect ratio -- 5:4

If you look at the options for screen resolutions in your display
settings, 1280x1024 is there, while for the past 3 videocards I've
used, including the one I bought last month, 1400x1050 just isn't in
it. Meaning, 1280x1024 is not rare. (nor weird! :P )

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:49:54 +0000, freemont put finger to keyboard
and typed:

>To those of you who use them: For developing, and also just for day-to-day
>computer stuff, do you prefer the widescreen format to a square screen? Or
>do you ever miss being square? ;-)

I've got a widescreen at work, which is nice for development work. My
home monitor is still standard width, and I don't have any problems
with that for normal mail, news, web and games use.

My main problem with a widescreen monitor at work is when I need to
show my boss something I'm working on (we're in the middle of a major
website redevelopment at the moment). If I call him over to my desk to
show him, the first thing he asks me to do is maximise my browser
while I'm demonstrating, as "it's too distracting having other things
on the screen when I need to concentrate on something like this". But
then, of course, there's loads of white space on the screen as the
content expands to fill the width. At which point, he tells me there's
too much white space and asks me to find something to fill it with. I
have to keep on pointing out that virtually no-one browses full screen
on a widescreen monitor, and that widescreen monitors are a tiny
proportion of our userbase anyway.

That's where the Firefox developer toolbar is really ful. I can
maximise the window on my monitor, but then say "Of course, hardly
anyone will see it like this. Most people will see it like this..." at
which point I click the button to resize the window "...or this..."
followed by another click, "...or even like this..." followed by
grabbing the window by the corner and resizing it up, down, left and
right.

Mark
--
http://www.BritishSurnames.co.uk - What does your surname say about you?
"I wanna spend all your money"