Technology Tempest (7/20/08) Three years ago, the Samsung 243T was a $1,600+ monitor. I just bought one on eBay for $243 including shipping (oddly enough). It has a cracked base, but so what? At worst, I'll put it on a monitor support arm, and I might try that anyway. By all accounts this is a far better monitor for Photoshop than the one I bought a couple of weeks back for twice the money.

This 2943HM is doing well enough for me -- but it's clearly not made for what I use it for. I've tried it in its various modes and "Internet" works best for photo editing. I have to cheat to keep control over the deep greys (I have to do what I used to do on my Trinitron: look at images in negative form). And the gamma of the monitor changes with the viewing angle from top to bottom, maybe enough to matter, as the critics of this sort of LCD panel (TN rather than IPS) warned. The remaining Viewsonic VP930b which I use in portrait mode (and which sometimes flickers and reverts to something less than truecolor) shows none of these problems. I used to use the Viewsonic as my editing monitor, and I want something at least as good for my primary editing space.

If the new old Samsung is in the condition I expect (good screen, bad base) then I'll put it on a monitor arm and install the more current model on my Mom's computer. Then we'll each have a spectacular screen made to be used the way we use them.

We pulled the new Alpine 9874 out of the Subaru Legacy when we traded it on a 2007 Forester. The Forester's factory radio isn't much to brag about, but it does work. I personally installed the Alpine in the Honda. Everything works except the iPod connector. Three different iPods all show only "searching" when I hook them up to the adapter cable and try to play music. S'OK: that cable will charge the iPod and I can use the accessory input to listen. This requires an extra wire, but lets me keep using the iPod's interface, so it's not all bad. And a solution to the "searching" thing will turn up eventually.

What's worse is that the new stereo exposed the fact that the rear speakers are blown and the antenna is shot. A set of Boston Acoustics speakers and an aftermarket antenna kit are on their way from Crutchfield. I gather it's going to be a major operation to install the speakers, but I'm on a roll. First the O2 sensor, then the receiver, next the rear speakers and the antenna.

Today's helpful links:

The Lagom LCD Monitor Test Page
My ViewSonic VP930b passes these tests beautifully. The Samsung 2943HM is a mess.

Ergotron LX desk mount arm. Buy dot com.

Crutchfield (deep link to speakers, but once you're there, there you are).

Replacing speakers in a Honda coupe. Lonewolf Online.

Radio replacement in a 1993-1995 Honda Coupe. Install Doctor.

If I ever find a fix that works for the "Searching" problem, that link will be here. (Some things I hvae found and tried: make sure shuffle, repeat, and so on are turned off; reboot the iPod, reset the stereo; update / restore the iPod's osftware; store fewer tunes on it. Nada so far. Now excuse me while I reload my music.)

:: back to the slow blog ::