When I was a wee lad I wish my dad told me never skimp on buying a monitor. You only realise this mistake when your brand spanking new budget model greets you with washed out colours and bland detail, and the odd dead pixel. And you simply can’t ignore those dead pixels can you ladies! They taunt you every day and you focus and fixate on them until you lose your goddamn mind!
Back to sanity mode… The problem with monitors is specs from budget to premium pretty much read the same, but in reality specs alone don’t reveal the real quality of their components. This makes shopping for a monitor that you’ll be using for the next few years is quite a large challenge, and that’s why next issue we’re having ourselves a bumper monitor group test so you won’t make the mistake my dad made of not fully preparing me for my first monitor purchase. In this vein, our third Web Pack for this issue is dedicated to the monitor.
Follow these links for our other ‘issue 262 web packs:
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Issue 262 game demo roundup!
Only a few premium monitors are calibrated out of the box, the rest of us are usually greeted with washed out colours, unadjusted contrast and brightness that will burn the eyes right of your skull. Calibrize runs you through a fool proof two step calibration process that will have your monitor adjusted as well as can be without resorting to costly professional monitor calibration hardware. (free)
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Defix fills the entire surface of the screen with red, green, blue, white and black so you can inspect your panel for dead and stuck pixels, then fixate and weep inside if you discover any! (free)
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Virtual desktops is the simple hack of giving you multiple empty desktops to work within. For instance you could have a browser running on one virtual desktop, flip to another and have Photoshop running, and your music player running on another. In reality all these programs are running at the same time and the applications are either being shown or hidden when you flick between the desktops. It’s a handy way to reduce screen clutter and improve productivity. Dexpot is one of two we’ve selected in our Web Pack and the most power packed software of this type, providing up to 20 virtual desktops and other clever stuff like supporting different desktop icons and wallpapers on each. (free)
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This is suite of five small utilities for dual monitor set ups. These are Swap Screen, Dual Launcher, Dual Wallpaper, DisMon, and Dual Snap. Besides DisMon, there isn’t anything else that caught my attention. This particular utility is a desktop application that disables/enables secondary screens on demand making it quite handy for gamers where twin screens aren’t compatible or desirable. (free)
Download from here
Some smartphones have a sensor to adjust the screen brightness according the surrounding lighting conditions to improve viewing. f.lux is essentially your PC monitor equivalent, instead basing the brightness setting on time of day which should normally be consistent from day to day. The software is completely configurable for adjusting suitable settings for your requirements. (free)
Download from here
This is a tiny taskbar program for adjusting on-the-fly screen brightness for any laptops and netbooks armed with Intel GMA video chipsets. (free)
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I’m not sure who would want this, but if you’d benefit from a utility for changing screen resolutions through hotkeys, then you’ve found it! Works with both single and multi-monitor rigs. (free)
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If you’ve manually adjusted your monitor settings without using any calibration aids, the chances are they’re not set correctly and image quality won’t be as optimal as it could be. It shouldn’t take more than a few short minutes a run through the Monitor Calibration Wizard and set things up properly. (free)
Download from here
According to the experts a monitor gamma value of 2.2 will produce the best possible visual output. That may not mean much to you, as achieving this is not a simple setting and all monitors are not equal. QuickGamma helps you achieve this through visual means, just follow the on screen instructions and it will only take a few short minutes. (free)
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This program maybe able to repair defective stuck pixels by quickly cycling colours over the area of your monitor that is defective. The idea is to kick start these pixels into working, and in many cases it will do the job. A physical approach is to gently manipulate the screen with tapping or rubbing. But care should be taken not to cause damage. There is a short guide on this here. (free)
Download from here
This is another virtual desktop solution that looks quite interesting. The software restricts you to just 4 desktops, but in reality, would you really need more! Once launched 4 mini-windows appear on the Taskbar to aid navigation, whilst dynamically displaying mini thumbnails of the positional arrangement of open windows and applications. (free)
Download from here
Posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 11:05 am under Web Packs. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
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