Christmas treat

I treated myself to a technology treat last week. I bought a new computer monitor. And now I’ve bought another one.

I’ve had a 15” flatscreen since whenever I bought my last Dell system, maybe 2003. It works fine, but it’s SMALL, and large documents, especially excel files, require lots of scrolling or view size reduction (like, to 80%). So on December 9, feeling at odds with the world, I went to the local (Randolph) computer store and asked for a 19” flatscreen, square, please.

Vermont Computing is the local computer store and it carries one brand of PC accessories, named Acer. All the 19” monitors are widescreen. That’s great for movies, not great for photos and documents. They had a 17” one that was close to square and very affordable so I bought it.

Yesterday I stopped staring at the new monitor, worked up my technological courage, and installed it. I hoped to actually have two monitors (without which I'd never get work done at work) until I took everything apart and realized that my computer is so old that it has only one place to plug in a monitor. OK (heavy sigh). I can live with that.

Plugged in the new monitor, fired up the computer. Hooray, it works. Aaargh, the color is horrible. Everything tends to the yellow-green part of the spectrum. Looked at the blog. The pictures are ugly. Looked at the Christmas card file. The pictures are ugly. Blecccch.

When in doubt, read the directions. This monitor only has idiot buttons. You can change sharpness and contrast, but you can’t change the color calibration. I have no intention of spending money on calibration software when what I need is a properly calibrated monitor.

So I went to the Dell site and found a refurbished (which with Dell is close to Good As New) monitor: square, and 19”, not 17”. And since they’re Good As New, they will have the same excellent color rendition that my 15” monitor does.  For the same price as the Acer, by the way.

Monday or Tuesday I’ll return my purchase to Vermont Computing. I’m sorry to have to take a sale away from the local store. But I tried. Dell says I’ll have my new monitor for Christmas!