The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5) - bionic office cure for monitor glare?

bionic office cure for monitor glare?

after reading the bionic office article, http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html
I could not help wondering if the office help reduce monitor glare.

I like looking out the window, but working in an office that has east/west facing room I have light reflecting off my monitor early in the morning and afternoon. Glare is a problem and I know more than a few developers working in bunkers to avoid glare.

Anyone else got any ideas to reduce glare on monitors?

peter renshaw
Sunday, October 5, 2003

Get LCD monitors. I get zero glare off them.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Sunday, October 5, 2003

i've an 17" LCD but glare is not off, only minor.

the window (oriented West) is at my back, even with curtain and awning sometimes.

the light must be at any other angle to avoid glare.

Guillermo
Sunday, October 5, 2003

*new lcd monitors* yeah maybe in like 3 years. While I can get cheap reliable CRT's I'll stick with them.

why do LCD's reflect less light?

I was thinking more of how can you design workspace for minimal refelection, maximum lighting maintaining a distant view. Not quite software engineering but when you stare at a monitor all day small things like this matter.

peter renshaw
Sunday, October 5, 2003

LCD's reflect less light, because the surface is different. CRTs are polished glass. LCDs are matte... something. I'm not sure exactly what. :) Also, LCDs are perfectly flat (many CRTs are also perfectly flat, but not all of them), which means less angular light.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Sunday, October 5, 2003

By the way, you should consider it a SERIOUS problem if your work won't provide you with high quality materials for you to work with. For a developer that makes $60k/year, a couple $500 LCD monitors amount to less than a week's worth of salary.

Things I don't compromise on: lighting, monitors, and chairs. My eyes and posture are too important to me. That would be a deal-breaker (or I would at least provide these things for myself, and hope to inflict horrible guilt and shame on my employer. :-p

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Sunday, October 5, 2003

No question about it. LCDs are the way to go. The reduced glare, high brightness, no flicker, no spatial distortion, and crisp pixels makes a world of difference. I work with a dual display (one CRT and one LCD) and the side-by-side comparison is dramatic. The only reason I still have the CRT on my desktop is because I've not yet found an LCD equivalent to the 24" 16:9 ratio Trinitron I'm using within a price range I'd consider justifiable. The IBM T221 is a gorgeous display and would be a suitable replacement if it wasn't $5000+ for one. I'll just wait until they come down in price.

Matt Latourette
Sunday, October 5, 2003

It's pretty much insane not to go with LCDs now. CRTs gave me nausea and made my eyes hurt. I hat to squint to read the text and the glare drove me nuts. Also, CRTs give off a fair amount of X-RAYs. Remember when your mom told you not to sit so close to the TV because of the radiation? And now you sit 18" from the TV 12 hours a day? You're just plain nuts to do this when there is now a far better alternative. You can work more hours, take fewer breaks and make fewer errors -- tell it to a reluctant boss.

If you are a developer and you can't afford a decent LCD for $500, you probably should ask if it's time to switch to a career you can make a living at.

Dennis Atkins
Sunday, October 5, 2003

By the way, I just found out that Dell is selling 20" LCDs (1600x1200) for $799, with both DVI and analog inputs.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Sunday, October 5, 2003

Those Dell 20" LCD panels are excellent. I've used them extensively at a client site. The 1600 x 1200 resolution makes a big difference, compared to the paltry 1280 x 1024 on some panels. The price is fantastic too.

I'm planning to get a pair of them for my new Dual Xeon development PC (see earlier thread).

Steve Jones (UK)
Monday, October 6, 2003

Just noticed something weird about the Dell website.

If you order a new PC with two of these 20" LCD panels you get one price. But if you order the same PC, with a bog-standard 17" CRT and then order two of these nice LCD panels as separate items, you save about £100 + VAT.

So, you get £100 and a spare monitor, just for ordering the same kit, but in a different way. Seems like a pretty strange way to do business.

Steve Jones (UK)
Monday, October 6, 2003

LCDs are the way to go. Since I switched to a 15" laptop LCD + 17" LCD 2nd monitor, my eye strain is down, no glare, I just *feel* better after an 8 hour day of coding.

Don't miss my old dual 21" CRTs at all.

cheapo
Monday, October 6, 2003

I had the option of switching to an LCD. I kept my aging CRT.

For one, my eyes do fine on a good CRT.

For another, I can run my CRT at 1600x1200, whereas the LCD offered would only do 1280x1024. This is valuable to me.

Maybe give it a year or two more and the LCDs will start to look appealing.

Flamebait Sr.
Monday, October 6, 2003

I can't find the $799 LCDs on dell's site. Anyone have a direct link?

lcd needed
Monday, October 6, 2003

found it, by going through small business.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=04&sku=320-4105

question: anyone know if the base is integral to the LCD? Can I take it off? I want to wall mount these using a swing arm apparatus.

lcd needed
Monday, October 6, 2003

Has anybody used an anti-glare filter/screen? I've been wanting to try one out myself, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

bb
Monday, October 6, 2003

I asked for an anti-glare screen as I was getting headaches from the light reflecting off my screen in the morning.

It has worked for a week, but not today and I don't have any aspirin left to take.

Thanks.

Tim
Tuesday, October 7, 2003

well given a stack of responses citing the advantages of flat panel LCDs how do they go with ...

*multi resolutions up to 1280x960 ?
*linux and openbsd support

as for *... Things I don't compromise on: lighting, monitors, and chairs... *

-lighting is natural but it moves E/W
-monitor: sony multiscan E220
-chairs: good one.

peter renshaw
Wednesday, October 8, 2003

> *multi resolutions up to 1280x960 ?

Any LCD panel has a fixed and optimal resolution. By and large, 15" LCDs will be 1024x768, 17-18" LCDs will be 1280x1024, and 19-20" LCDs will be 1600x1200.

You can use any resolution up to the optimal resolution (some will let you go over, too). Going under or over means pixel scaling (and in the case of going over, actually pixel loss, so that should be avoided). The pixel scaling will make the image seem necessarily blurier.

At optimal resolution, the picture will look crisp and sharp. Unless there's some other reason not to do it (like, say, playing a game), then you should always be running at the optimal resolution.

> *linux and openbsd support

It's a monitor. It works. I use XFree86 w/ an nVidia GeForce FX hooked into a 17" Viewsonic via DVI. No problems.

> -lighting is natural but it moves E/W

I meant the quality of the artificial light, as well as control over both artificial and natural lighting. All windows must have shades that can be adjusted. All lights must be non headache-inducing flourescents (personally, I'm a big fan of lots of task lights from Ott-Lite).

> -chairs: good one.

A chair should encourage good posture. Feet firmly planted on the floor, back straight and upright. Properly supported posterior. Adjustable lumbar, if you need it. Adjustable tension, if you need it. etc...

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Wednesday, October 8, 2003