I went from a 19" flat CRT monitor to a 20.1" LCD (ViewSonic's VP201s). It took my eyes a couple of days to adjust to the new monitor (and took my bank account a bit longer...). But I do think it's clearer and easier on the eyes.

I don't watch movies or TV on this monitor. I don't play games on it, either (I have a PS/2 hooked up to the TV for games). I use this monitor almost exclusively for coding, email, web browsing (which seems to be mostly PM ;->), and the like. Nothing moving fast, and mostly text. I run at 1600x1200 (was a requirement, and severely limited my choices of monitors).

LCD is not going to have the flicker that can be associated with even the non-interlaced CRT monitors. And, no matter how imperceptible, it can tire out your eyes. LCD should be better for that, but I don't think anything can help if you're doing 9-14 hours at a time with them. ;-) You still have to remember the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, switch your focus to something at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

What kept me away for so long as was the lack of resolution (most LCD monitors have a max of 1280x1024 that I noticed). So when I saw this one within an hour of my old monitor dying, I bought it. Twice the price of other LCD monitors, but the resolution is worth it. I still have 8 desktops nearly all full.

I'll second that. I bought one of these puppies and my eye strain is nill after a full day of coding at home. At work, ... well, let's just say it give me another reason to want to telecommute.

--
tbone1, YAPS (Yet Another Perl Schlub)
And remember, if he succeeds, so what.
- Chick McGee

Likewise if you are using X with an LCD display you can enable subpixel font rendering.

Information for doing this for XFree86 and X.Org servers is available.

I've spend anything from 9 to 14 hours staring at 2 and sometimes 3 monitors with 4 to 5 vim isntances at once. I know I am asking this to the right people here ! :) Are there any suggestions?

Yup.

Don't do that!

Seriously. Take a break for a few minutes every hour. You'll feel better for it :-)

I have little to no experience with flat lcds, is this something one should consider? are there advantages? I see a lot of talk online about graphics and monitors, but little about coding. Please suggest, money is not an issue with this.. it's our eyes!

I personally prefer LCDs to CRTs. I presume that this must have something to do with the lack of refresh flicker. I've been told by some gamers I know that CRTs are better for them - but I've never found it an issue for coding.

One low tech tip that I find works for whatever display you like. At the start of each day set the brightness/contrast to their lowest settings. Then adjust them so their comfortable.

If I only tweak the settings when I notice a problem I slowly jog them towards the high-brightness / high-contrast end of the scale but never end up turning them down. So I end up with more light coming off the screen which hurts my eyes (it burns!). Daily resets force me to find a more optimal setting.

This tip about setting the brightness contrast really helped- i usually use high contrast, and low bright.. and that makes the screen really flare up.

Another thing I try to do is: us a lamp! I place it lighting up something on my peripherals, that helps.

Also, I had a black monitor for a while.. and it hurt my eyes.. switched it for a light grey one and it was a lot better. it seems when your vision is too preocuppied by the monitor, it freaks the eyes out?

( i take smoke/coffee breaks every half hour : ) )

Dell have a (relatively) cheap 24" LCD, selling for under $900 in the States -- I know someone who is happy with his, although I heard that the image is not perfect.

No question - LCDs. A 17" LCD has the same viewing area as a 19" CRT and, especially with DVI, generates much crisper text even at the lower resolutions most LCDs provide at the moment.

I use a two LCD monitors at work and would find it rather traumatic to give one up. I'd hardly be able to keep an eye on the CB at all without two monitors.

I use a two LCD monitors at work and would find it rather traumatic to give one up. I'd hardly be able to keep an eye on the CB at all without two monitors.

That's a damn good point. Two monitors rock. I'd hate to go back to a one monitor setup. If it's a choice between one big monitor and two small - go for the two small. You'll get more surface area for your money.

You might want to consider not changing the monitor, but your application --

0.21 dot poitch is relatively small. You'll either need to sit closer, or increase the font size to compare to your previous monitor. As I tend to sit further away from larger monitors, I can actually lose real estate in terms of number of viewable characters as the screen size increases.

Consider color and brightness -- CRTs can be very bright. I find that keeping my background color to an off white helps with long term legibility when reading text. Sometimes, adjusting the overall monitor brightness can help. You want a high enough brightness and contrast to read everything, but not so bright that it's making your eyes tired. You may want different settings for daytime vs. nighttime work. (I work just from monitor glow late at night)

As for the LCDs -- they're just fine for coding and such. I do much of my work on a laptop, or an external LCD monitor connected to the laptop. The important thing to remember is that LCDs are only really good at their max resolution. (maybe at 1/2 the resolution, but it'll look bad if you randomly choose). Large CRTs force you to worry about the depth of the table/desk, and its overall strength, and can be a royal pain to move, but they do tend to last a rather long time.

The only monitor that I've used that I really didn't like was a Sun 21" CRT -- it gave me the worst headaches when using it. I've seen a few CRTs that sort of got fuzzy over time, as well, but I can't remember what brand they were (it was a whole lab full of them that started going bad)

I can't remember where, but someone recommended a wheat background with black text (xterm). It's a great combo.

I'll take this opportunity to shamelessly plug this node where I use a brightness formula to generate fun xterms.

I have to say I agree here. The (pseudo?)scientific explanation is that white actually represents a pixel that is 'on,' therefore emitting radiation that hits your eyes. Thus the ideal is a black background. I do this for all my Xwindows stuff, but have yet to find a way to do it for web pages. I'd love if PM were green text on a black background! How do you change the color scheme?

The ability to change your PM Display Settings may be of interest here; there are several predefined themes for PM, including green on black (Night Shift Theme). There is also the option of using your own CSS, although I've not actually experimented with that much.

Tim

Well in Mozilla( I'm sure others are similar), you go to Edit->Preferences->Appearance->Colors. It has little color boxes that you click, to select the various colors, BUT you must check the box "Use my chosen colors, ignoring the default web page colors".

The one thing I noticed as a "glitch" in the black background, is that it can partially obscure dropdown menus on some sites that use alot of "javascript menus". But you can always switch the checkbox mentioned above, to naviagte such sites. 99% of the sites are fine.

---

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh

In addition, a good chair (I like Aerons, you may like other brands), keyboard, keyboard tray, and mouse are relevant. The arms should bend at about 90 degrees at the elbows, and fall naturally to the side of the body. Your wrists should not hurt at the end of the day - if they do, examine your posture. The knees should be at about 90 degrees as well, with a solid comfortable stance. Finally, work out your back muscles when possible. They hold your back up all day. Beware of the common combination of strong stomach muscles (from sit-ups) and weaker, less exercised back muscles. You'll end up bent forward all day without realizing it.

Ted

jdtoronto