posted 2007/09/12 at 22:29
My father has finally agreed to let me build a new computer for him, which will probably be a prelude to (and practice run for) the construction of Yggdrasil Mark II. Although we'll be buying the bulk of the items later this month, we got in a 22" Acer flat panel earlier this week, which will be going to the new computer. (It was on sale for a limited time at Tiger Direct, so we picked it up while the price was low.) Given that we needed to test the flat panel for dead pixels and the like, I hooked it up to my computer earlier tonight. Ignoring how ludicrous it is that I now have a bigger display on my computer than my television right now, I'm kind of falling in love. You wouldn't think that the 1280 × 1024 my old flat panel churns out would be insufficient, particularly given that I don't really have that many applications I tend to run. All that extra desktop space sure is fun to play with, though, particularly given how I like to keep things all nice and tidy and lined up.
What bothers me, though, is that I don't really need a monitor this big. I mean, yes, I'm certainly getting some use out of the extra space here, but I could survive quite fine without it. It would be a convenience for me to have more space to keep good-sized windows up so I didn't have to keep flipping between windows, and all that extra desktop space gives me more room for my beloved Yahoo! Widgets (I should switch to Google Desktop soon, I know), and I suppose that this translates to more productivity. Still, even if I were to view my old flat panel's smallness as an inconvenience, I don't think it's an inconvenience that is worth spending so much money to remedy, even if right now I'm kind of salivating inside as I use this larger flat panel.
One thing that inconvenienced me, though, was that my old Oh My Goddess! desktop wallpaper kind of got stretched out because the aspect ratio I'm running Windows under now got changed from the old ratio to a widescreen ratio. I've had to "upgrade" my wallpaper before because my screen resolution went up, but I've never had my aspect ratio change. I've never had the reason to go out looking before, but I suppose that there must be Websites out there devoted to widescreen wallpapers. I think I'll go look for some widescreen Oh My Goddess! wallpapers here now.
Oops. Let's try that PC mockery again:
Ah yes, your monitor is separate from your computer. How quaint.
Ah yes, you have to void your warranty if you just want to add a bit of RAM to your all-in-one-so-if-one-part-breaks-down-you're-screwed doohickey. How quaint.
Why would you need to add RAM during your warranty period? Provided you know what you want to do in advance, the original configuration should work fine for well over 3 years...
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon