gHacks technology news » lcd http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:38:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Shall I turn the monitor off or use a screensaver ? http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/24/shall-i-turn-the-monitor-off-or-use-a-screensaver/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/24/shall-i-turn-the-monitor-off-or-use-a-screensaver/#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 22:10:20 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4243 There is still some confusion about the use of screensavers and I would like to explain it to those who do not know if it makes more sense to use a screensaver or to turn off the monitor. Screensavers were invented in a time to prevent phosphor burn-ins from images that were displayed for a long time on the monitor. They made sure that the image on the screen changed frequently to eliminate the chance of a burn-in.

Today’s monitors however are not prone to those burn-ins which makes screensavers for that purpose obsolete. If you want to save energy you should therefor turn off the monitor. I have set the Energy Saving options to turn off the monitor after fifteen minutes of inactivity.

Moving the mouse turns the monitor on again and work can resume afterwards. Screensavers these days serve mainly two purposes. The first is entertainment. A wide variety of possibilities exist including video screensavers, virtual tours or graphic demos. The second is a basic protection of the computer which can be configured to ask for the user password before work can commence.

How is your computer configured to handle inactivity ?

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/24/shall-i-turn-the-monitor-off-or-use-a-screensaver/feed/ 11 Monitor Calibration Wizard http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/14/monitor-calibration-wizard/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/14/monitor-calibration-wizard/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:37:24 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/14/monitor-calibration-wizard/ Calibrating a monitor, be it LCD or CRT monitor, can be a tedious task. I for one have always doubts about the settings that I have chosen when setting up the monitor for the first time. Questions about the monitor’s brightness, the colors, contrast are not that easy to answer if you only have to rely on your eyes and have no test patterns that help you determine the correct settings.

The software Monitor Calibration Wizard [homepage] tries to aid the user in calibrating his monitor correctly by walking him through several steps that configure the monitor’s brightness, contrast and color settings. These settings can be saved as profiles which can be started during Windows startup.

Every part of the calibration process displays patterns that can be used to find the best setting for the connected monitor. The first test deals with the monitor’s brightness and contrast setting, after that the three colors red, green and blue will be tested before slight corrections can be made during the final test.

monitor calibration wizard

It does not take that long to calibrate the monitor. If you do not want to start another program during system start you can still use the calibration wizard but use the settings of your graphics card to make the changes.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/14/monitor-calibration-wizard/feed/ 1 Dead Pixel Tester http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/dead-pixel-tester/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/dead-pixel-tester/#comments Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:06:28 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/dead-pixel-tester/ If you have bought a TFT monitor you might want to consider using a software like Dead Pixel Tester to see if it has any dead pixels. This could for instance be useful to see if it is possible to get the current monitor replaced by a new one because of to many dead pixels.

Most monitor manufacturers have a policy of replacing TFT monitors if they have a certain amount of dead pixels. The software Dead Pixel Tester is able to identify dead pixels by filling the monitor with straight colors. If a pixel is not able to display that color it will display a different one which means that you just discovered a dead pixel.

Using Dead Pixel Tester is not complicated at all. After downloading the application start it. Please note that it does not need to be installed which is always nice. A menu will appear that makes it possible to configure some settings but this is not necessary at all.

If you left-click your mouse on your screen you will notice that it will change color. A right-click will hide the menu so that you can inspect the full screen to see if there are any dead pixels on the screen.

If you spot none you can cycle through all colors to see if a dead or stuck pixel appears when the screen is shown in a different color. You could try to fix a dead or stuck pixel by launching the pixel exerciser and moving its window over the area of the dead pixel but the author himself is not so sure if this is working at all.

Ask the manufacturer of the monitor about their replacement policy to know if they replace the monitor if you found some dead or stuck pixels.

Read More:

Dead Pixel Tester

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/dead-pixel-tester/feed/ 1 Top 10 Future Display Technologies http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/10/top-10-future-display-technologies/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/10/top-10-future-display-technologies/#comments Thu, 10 May 2007 21:21:37 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/10/top-10-future-display-technologies/ If you thought that you would be starring at those boring LCD or Plasma displays for the next ten years you will now be proven wrong. Some displays look incredible cool. I personally would love to lay my hands on the Samsung 12mm thick LCD display, the Toshiba Interactive 3D Display, the Mutsubishi Diamond Touch (incredible) and the Touchless Touchscreen. I decided to only include my favorites from the ten future display technologies and suggest that you head out to the original website who posted the list to see the others.

I still hope that you enjoy this display of modern technology as much as I do. Which one would you want to have at home ?

  • Touchless Touchscreen

  • Toshiba Interactive 3D Display Technology

  • Mitsubishi Diamond Touch (showing Warcraft 3)

found: TechEBlog

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/10/top-10-future-display-technologies/feed/ 0 How to fix a dead pixel on a lcd monitor http://www.ghacks.net/2006/02/01/how-to-fix-a-dead-pixel-on-a-lcd-monitor/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/02/01/how-to-fix-a-dead-pixel-on-a-lcd-monitor/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:18:19 +0000 admin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=305 following site and decide for yourself if you want to try this method.]]> I don´t have a lcd monitor yet but this might be useful to some of you who already own one. This is not supposed to be working for every flat screen out there but I think its nevertheless worth a try. Take a look at the following site and decide for yourself if you want to try this method.

You simply apply pressure to the dead pixel and remove it at a certain time. Sounds easy ? well try it out and tell me if it worked.

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