It’s what I do for a living so don’t call it ‘playing’!
Today my new Samsung 226BW arrived, which pretty much ends my spending on gadgets for the foreseeable future. Setting it up wasn’t quite as easy as I’d hoped since my video card (an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400) refused to provide it’s native resolution of 1680 x 1050 using an analog connection. After three hours I resorted to the digital connection and it worked first time.
Why didn’t I try that in the first place, i hear you ask? Well, two reasons – Initially it had worked through analog (for about 30 minutes) and second I have a KVM switch for the second monitor so I can switch it between the PC, Mac and Linux server. The KVM doesn’t support digital, obviously. Also, when it was working, the switch definately didn’t give the bet picture quality. The KVM switch is a D-Link DKWM-4U which was touted as giving a really good picture quality, but I guess I stretched it a little by wacking on a 22″ monstrosity.
Through the digital cable the picture quality is outstanding. I’m, very happy with it. So happy in fact that I just wanted to play videos all day while in my office (a temptation I avoided, obviously). I love the irony of displaying the Linux shell on it. The letters are so big you can probably read them on the pictures here. They sure are sharp letters though!
I think I pretty much have everything sorted now. Maybe some would say over-sorted since I have more kit than I would ever be given in a permanent office job. Bear in mind that this is what I do for a living before passing judgement! As a friend once said to me (when I was fighting my conscience over buying the MacBook), you wouldn’t expect a professional photographer to only have one camera. Having said that they probably don’t feel the need to upgrade every year (though I imagine digital cameras have started to bring that about).
I’m sure everyone who works in (and enjoys) software development gets that comment about ‘playing with computers’ from friends, relatives and probably even partners from time to time. My advice would be to just ask them why they think that – you might be able to put them right (in a nice way, obviously). If you get too defensive (like me) it just sounds like you have something to hide!
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