Pleasant surprise

[redbird]

I walked into work this morning, put my breakfast down on my desk, thought "Vista enabled WTF?!" and made a surprised sound as I started to turn my computer on, and then registered the size of the thing that sticker was on.

I now have a 24-inch monitor on my desk.

This makes a practical difference in my work--I'm doing a lot of work with InCopy, and it helps for me to be able to see a two-page book spread all at once, large enough to read the text. I had thought, a few times, that a larger monitor would be good. I hadn't actually said anything about it, because there seemed no point. But my boss arranged to get a few of these monitors, and handed them to some of us who she thinks need them most. She doesn't have one. Marilyn and I do a lot more with InCopy than she does.

I like my boss.

Oh, and two hours later there was email to the entire editorial department, from the head of IT, telling us that he didn't decide who got the new monitors.

[I could have a larger monitor than I do here at home, but I'm not sure it would improve my at-home computer experience--I don't do layout-related stuff here--and I'm short on desk space as it is. I'm short on desk space at work, too, but the tradeoffs are different.]

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

We have 20" monitors at work since the recent refresh; they had specified 17" but for various reasons 20" were delivered. Most of my colleagues find the 20" difficult; they don't run them at native resolution and they don't quite see the use of the extra space, especially because they look so bad stepped down. I much prefer it; I have had 20" at home for a couple of years.

But at home I have a 24" iMac and I adore it. I finally have the sense of what a large screen is useful for; I typically run the thing I'm working on in one part of the screen, the web in another, reference material in a strip down the side, and, quite often, a video playing in one corner (often a lecture or presentation, or BBC Parliament).