I’ve just purchased a new monitor. A 20″ LCD ViewSonic VP201s. This thing is simply amazing. Of course, I’d, a couple days earlier, bought an ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro Radeon video card in preparation for the monitor – for digital output.

I hadn’t actually intended on buying the monitor itself quite so soon, but the store I was going to get it at ended up having it on sale (for a week) for $200 off. I thought that was a deal I couldn’t pass up.

I’m still trying to adjust to the different display (yes, it’s a far better picture, but the way text, for instance, looks on the LCD is going to take a little getting used to) as well as the real estate. Since this thing runs in a native resolution that’s higher than my CRT – I’ve got a whole lot more desktop to work with.

I also had to spend 2.5 hours completely redoing everything under my desk because the digital video cable wasn’t long enough to reach my computer. (I’d been using an old analog cable for my older monitor.)

Additionally, I’d recently bought a KVM – a higher quality one that supported higher than 60Hz refresh rates, thinking I could (finally) just switch between my workstation and my server without leaving my chair. Unfortunately, I discovered that it produced ghosting on my screen – which I wasn’t about to put up with given the quality of my new video card and soon-to-be (now current) monitor. Perhaps really high end video cables would fix this, but I don’t know. However, I’m using the KVM to switch my keyboard and mouse, and my monitor (which has dual inputs) to switch my video. I have to do two different things, but that’s okay – I still don’t have to leave my chair.