When one of the monitors on my primary computer showed signs of failing, it was time to replace both monitors. Two (or maybe three) questions needed answers. I'll run through the process I used to make a decision and when it's time for you to replace a monitor, you can decide to use my method because it's unquestionably brilliant or discard it because it's obviously idiotic.
Before getting to the questions, maybe I should explain why one failing monitor means replacing two monitors. I do a lot of work with photographs and its important for color to be consistent on both monitors. Not the kind of consistency that comes with monitors that cost $2000 each, but the kind of consistency that's good enough. Spoiler alert! I can tell you that the monitors I bought each cost about $240 — so less than $500 total for 2 monitors.
The two primary questions that I needed to answer involved the physical size of the monitor and the number of pixels the monitor displays.
Most monitors today are in the 17-inch to 30-inch range. Some smaller monitors are available — down to 12 inches and larger ones are available with some exceeding 50 inches. Keep in mind that monitors and television screens are measured from the lower left corner to the upper right corner, diagonally, and pixels are measured horizontally and vertically.
Determining the size of the monitors was easy and I didn't even consider one question that's fairly common. That question is "One monitor or two?" As monitors became less expensive, having more than one monitor seemed like a good idea and, in fact, it is a very good idea for anyone who needs to refer to on-line reference materials while working.
When I decided to replace a 17-inch monitor several years ago, I thought that a 24-inch monitor might be a good stand-in for dual monitors. I found out very quickly that it is not. There are lots of good reasons for this, but the primary reason seems to be what happens when the user puts a window in full-screen mode. If you have a single monitor, full screen takes up the entire working surface. If you have two monitors, full screen leaves the second monitor untouched. I explained this to my younger daughter, the graphic designer, who I believe was thinking "you idiot" even though she was far too polite to say it.
So I added a second 24-inch monitor. It was the same make as the original 24-inch monitor, but not the same model. That model had been discontinued. Consistency from one monitor to the other wasn't ideal and I learned that matching dual monitors is a good idea.
Several years later, I replaced the two 24-inch monitors with two 27-inch monitors. That turned out to be the perfect size for the space available, so when it was time to replace those monitors the question about physical size had already been answered.
If you haven't yet answered this question, I can suggest that the center of the workspace is not where the dividing line between the monitors should be. You'll want to have one monitor centered on where you're looking. For me, it's the left monitor. The monitor on the right side is positioned so that I need to turn my head a bit to view it. Maybe this is because English is a left-to-right language or maybe it's because I'm left-eyed (even though I'm right-handed) some might suggest that it's because I'm a liberal. Whatever the underlying reason, it's clear to me that my primary monitor should be on the left.
I would be looking for two matched 27-inch monitors, so that left the question of resolution.
Resolution has changed more than size. In the earliest days, CGA monitors had 320x200-pixel resolution. Most of them displayed 16 colors and they were amazing. Then came 640x480-pixel monitors and these were followed by VGA monitors (800x600 pixels) with 256 colors. Wow! Could it get any better than this!? Well, yes, it could.
XGA with 1024x768 pixels and 65,000 possible colors came next, followed by several new video standards that could display 16.7 million colors.
The monitors I needed to replace were Full High Definition (FHD) monitors with 1920x1080-pixel resolution. Although I was satisfied with FHD, the Quad High Definition (QHD) specification seemed to be a better choice today. QHD monitors are 2560x1440 pixels. Earlier monitors mimicked television screens with a 4:3 format, but most current monitors have adopted the 16:9 wide-screen ratio used by HD television.
There are many other high-definition video standards. Several notebook computer manufacturers offer 3200x1800-pixel resolution on built-in monitors. Some of Microsoft's Surface Pro computers have 4500x3000-pixel resolution. The problem with these resolutions on relatively small screens is that text, although astonishingly clear and crisp, is so small that it's unreadable. My primary computer is a Lenovo P50 notebook with a 15.6-inch screen that offers 4K resolution (3840x2160-pixels). As wonderful as that sounds, text is so small that it's unreadable. That's why I run the computer with the case closed and view only the external monitors.
If you look hard enough and have enough money, you'll find monitors with the Ultra-Wide 10K specification display 10,240 pixels wide and 4320 pixels tall.
The illustration at the right shows:
You'll undoubtedly notice that the TechByter website doesn't expand to fill the full screen for any screen larger than 1600 pixels. That's intentional because allowing extremely long lines of text would make the text much more difficult to read. Additionally, few applications are designed for full-screen use on larger, high-res screens. Some of the notable exceptions are those by Adobe — Dreamweaver, Lightroom, Photoshop, Audition, and Premier in particular.
Instead of having a narrow code view area on the left, I can see both the full screen visual representation of the page and a comfortable code view display.
Realistically, though, monitor buyers today should probably stick with 4K monitors (4096x2160 pixels) or less. My choice (Quad HD) seems to be the current sweet spot for resolution and price.
The Quad HD monitors and the option to randomly select background images create surprising and sometimes amusing combinations — one of our small kitties on one screen and lions or cheetahs on the other, a camel from The Wilds appearing to observe the Franklin Park Conservatory, or both daughters and their husbands.
And that brings us to the third question regarding how much to spend.
Maybe that depends on how much money you have. If you want to spend $2000 per monitor, you can and you'll certainly purchase the highest quality devices, but do you need that amount of quality? Will you know how to use it?
I grew up in a small town where one of the residents was a wealthy man. This was in the 1960s if you need a time reference. He bought a Hassleblad camera because it was "the best camera available". And it was! Hassleblad quality was unequaled, but he didn't know how to use the camera and it sat on the shelf. If you buy a high-end monitor, you'll need to understand color management to use it effectively; you'll also need to position the monitor properly and run color management software regularly.
I run X-Rite's Color Munki color management software. It's not the most comprehensive color management application available, but it's sufficient for my needs. If you spend a lot of time working with photographs, a color management system might be worth investigating. Eventually I decided to purchase two AOC Q2781PQ 27" WQHD 60Hz monitors. They're good, but not exceptional and, because the technology is now about 2 years old, the price has dropped by about 40%. Is this the right answer for you? Maybe. Or maybe not.
And if you still have just a single monitor, perhaps another question needs to be asked: Do you need two monitors? I can't imagine working with a single monitor, but not everyone likes two monitors. So choose the arrangement that works best for you and avoid pronouncements by pundits that everyone must follow the same rules.
A company that police and prison agencies depend on to track information about phone calls to or from prisoners in many jails and prisons has been hacked and, according to Motherboard, it was largely their own fault.
Motherboard is a electronic publication by Vice Media. The publication says "The hacker has provided some of the stolen data to Motherboard, including user names and poorly secured passwords for thousands of Securus’ law enforcement customers." The firm, Securus, provides exorbitantly-priced telephone services that families are required to use to communicate with inmates in many of the nation's prisons.
The hacker sent several internal company files to Motherboard. One of the documents contained nearly 3000 user names, email addresses, phone numbers, hashed passwords, and security questions. Hashed passwords aren't the actual passwords, but an encrypted representation of the password. A secure hash that's also salted is generally considered to be secure.
Securus failed to secure the password hashes with a salt. Salting refers to the process of adding random data to create a one-way function that virtually ensures the password cannot be reconstructed from the hash. Instead of doing it the right way, Securus used only MD5 hashing, a process that's known to be weak.
Motherboard says that most of the information is from users who are in sheriffs departments and local police departments. Amusingly, the names also include Securus staff members. The full article is on the Motherboard website.
This is episode 600, which means the podcast has been running for 12 years. Prior to starting the podcast, it was Technology Corner on WTVN radio for about 15 years. Some people commit murder, are convicted, sent to prison, and released on parole in less than 27 years and yet here we are.
If you're wondering how 600 episodes works out to 12 years and you think it really should be about 11.5 years (11.538 years, to be precise) based on a year having 52 weeks: It's because there's no podcast Thanksgiving week and none at the end of the year. So 50 episodes per year comes out to 600 in 12 years.
This segment is at the end of the podcast because not everyone appreciates navel gazing and that's mainly what this is. So if that's the case ... class dismissed and I'll be back next week.
If you're still here, let's listen back to 12 May 2006. The first podcast was in 3 parts and most of it was experimental and not very informative.
The first real podcast occurred on 11 June 2006 and without a produced open or close. There was no music between segments.
There was still no produced open or close by 7 January 2007, but the script had changed slightly.
In 2008, I added the first produced opening for the show.
I heard from a lot of people who didn't like that one, so it lasted only for a year. That was also the year that I tried to replicate the sound of WCOL from the mid 1960s. The extra compression and reverb were not well received, so that effect went away after just a few programs. Then in January 2009 I dropped the opening "shocking" sequence but retained the music and it remained unchanged until January 2013. That's when I tried a twangy guitar open.
And in January 2015, the current produced open debuted.
The audio quality has improved. In the early years, the MP3 files were produced at the lowest acceptable quality, more or less the equivalent of AM radio, but as high-speed internet connections became more common I pushed the production standards up to where they are now with a 48KHz sample at a constant 112 kilobits per second rate.
Thanks for listening, whether you've been around since the radio days when Technology Corner could be heard in Ohio and parts of Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky or or you started listening when TechByter Worldwide became available on the internet.
There are, of course mistakes made during the recording and these are edited out by the recording engineer, but he also keeps a few around to embarrass me occasionally.
The "boing" sound effect is licensed under Creative Commons from Audiosoundclips.com.
