5/6/01

Yes, it's me. It really is.

Anne's Journal of Minutiae

Sunday,
May 6, 2001

I'm pathetic, I know. One measly entry for last month (yargh! It's already May!). Yup, I'm bound to break my old record of two entries per month. (Hmmm, how about one long entry per month? Naw. Didn't think that'd fly either.) Sigh.

New 'Puter Hardware News! I finally got a bigger monitor -- a 17" ViewSonic A70 SuperClear. Woo-hoo! No more 800 x 600 res for me -- I'm now lookin' at 1024 x 768. The 19" monitor on my G3 Mac at the lab is also a ViewSonic, btw. I had seen a CompUSA flyer advertising the 17" A70 for a total of $160 (after two store rebates, one manufacturer rebate). I rushed to the store the following Monday -- good thing, because they only had five A70s left. I'm still keeping my 15" Shamrock to proof my web pages at 800 x 600 -- but it'll have to wait until I've got room for it.


	Finally -- I have room for that nifty little grey "chip" in the upper right-hand corner of the Photoshop 6.0 screen. With 800 x 600, you are denied this very useful feature. As you can see, I've stashed quite a few necessary palettes in this "chip." Hah! (Click here for a larger picture.)

It's really nice having more screen real estate -- particulary when you use graphics programs. A 15" monitor is fine if you're just word processing and surfing the Web -- but it's sorely lacking when you make the jump to graphics. With my 15" I could just barely see the "OK" button in Illustrator's "Print" dialog box. That sucks. Oh, and of course there's the matter of Flash 5 and its floating palettes! I think what really *did it* for me was having to use that 19" monitor at the lab and the 17" monitors in class. After experiencing the joy of abundant screen space, I'd have to go home to my teeny, tiny Shamrock. Sigh.

But now. I mean -- 17 inches may seem a bit size-challenged to those with 19" and 21" monitors, but to me -- this is heaven. I still plan on someday adding a 21" -- but for the time being, this will suffice. Besides, I gotta start saving up for my G4 Mac!

Oh. Don't bother looking at the Writing Log. Nothing to report. I know: I'm slime, I'm durance vile.