What a stunning monitor! I finally purchased a 24″ LCD, the Samsung T240, an upgrade from my previous 19″ Samsung 910T.

The quality of text, graphics and images are all so crisp. The colors are vibrant, rich and of beautiful quality; the monitor is bright and luminous. I love the sturdy, shiny plastic body of the monitor, it seems to be made with excellent materials. The red bezel on the bottom is beautiful too. I thought it might not tickle my fancy but I find it actually adds an artistic touch to the eye-catching aesthetic of this elegant monitor.

The pressure touch power button is sleek and incognito, while the remaining buttons are hidden on the side. The power button even gives off a little red-orange glow when turned on. The configuration of the monitor is simplified and easy, requiring only a couple brightness and contrast tweaks. I also set the gamma settings to Mode3, as it seems to be closest to 2.2 gamma. The removable back panel hides those ugly hookups and cables, making the monitor that much slicker! Did I mention the LCD came with no dead/stuck pixels? Samsung makes gorgeous quality monitors.

The only con would be a slight brightness issue, which does not really bother me. A Newegg customer said it best: “When you view the monitor from an angle other than straight on, the brightness dissipates. I personally don’t care (most probably won’t), but it is there.”

The Samsung SyncMaster T240 is huge! Using DVI, it has a 1920×1200 screen resolution. The viewable screen is 24″ from corner-corner, about 20.5″ from side-side, and 12.75″ top-bottom. The whopping 24″ of viewing pleasure @ 1920×1200 makes this monitor a wonderful step-up from my old 19″ LCD. You can see in the 8th picture where my dark Conky script ends (top of screen) – that extra space, to the right, is all the additional screen real estate I gained. The Samsung T240 puts my 15″ MacBook Pro to shame, though, the pictures don’t do the LCD justice, it is truly something to be seen.

Settings (Update)

As far as the settings go, I have the following setup:

• Brightness set to 85
• Contrast to 75
• MagicBright to Custom
• Color Tone to Normal
• Gamma to Mode 3
• Auto Source to Manual.

Those are all the settings I tweaked and they seem to be doing well for my eyes. I’ve experienced, on occassion, that durring a computer reboot the monitor will try to auto detect the input source and change between HDMI, AVI and DVI modes. This is rather annoying becuase it cycles through the video modes while the computer boots. I like to watch my PC boot so I set Auto Source to Manual.

I don’t use the Samsung’s provided MagicColor software though, because I am running Arch Linux. Also, There is a neat feature to turn the Powerbutton LED off… kind of cool but not essential  by any means. Also, I find the monitor collects and shows dust rather noticibly on the glossy plastic bezel. This can be easily taken care of with a quick wide-down every week or so.

*Update*

This monitor works perfectly at 1920×1200 resolution with my Macbook Pro. There is no need for additional software, the resolution can be changed through the ‘Displays’ panel in the ‘System Preferences’ of OS X. Here are screenshots of the monitor hooked up to my MBP.

Last month I went to an experimental show at the new EMPAC facility here at RPI, called Spectropia. As an assignment for my Audio/Video course I had to write a short review of the movie and my experience. Below, is that review.

Spectropia

The EMPAC website described Spectropia as “a highly imaginative live-mix cinema event, a “scratchable” movie performed by video DJs playing a movie “instrument”. Toni Dove’s sci-fi hybrid, features time travel, telepathy, and elements of film noir in a drama set in England, 2099 and in New York City, 1931, following the Great Crash.”. After  reading the description, I decided I would go watch the movie, which turned out to be more of an experimental interactive film.

Upon entering the theater, sitting down in front of the audience were two people in front of computers and a number of other unidentifiable machinery with glowing LED’s and pretty lights. Above them were three movie screens hanging form the ceiling. The movie started with an interesting intro describing the current situation and time, 2099. Half way through the intro, a woman from the front stands up and begins passionately waiving her arms and spinning her hands in the cool open air. Her hand and arm gestures appeared to be controlling the track of the movie. She seemed to be able to speed up, rewind, stop and play the movie with unidentifiable hand gestures. She gave us a short preview of what she was able to do with the technology and then continued on with the movie.

My first impression of the technology was that of amazement, but it soon wore off as the movie continued. At first I tried to pay attention to the movie but couldn’t keep my eyes off the crazed woman in front who was furiously waiving her hands in the air as if she was performing voodoo witchcraft or casting cryptic spells on our demon souls. Her movements were syncing with the computers to control the movie, which inevitably was tweaking out and appeared to be glitching like two manic depressive monkeys high on meth.

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I recently purchased a new phone using ebay – the LG Shine. I wanted a new stylish phone for a reasonable price, around $100. I found a barely used Silver LG Shine and purchased it for $118.00. I always do my research before purchasing new tech, so I knew I was probably going to be getting something worth my money.

My first impressions of the phone were that of thinking it’s “rather cool.” I really liked the slide LCD screen to reveal the keypad. The quality of the phone is really nice. It has a heavy metal-like industrial weight to it. The phone feels sturdy and built well.

The dimensions of the phone are 3.93 x 1.99 x 0.59 inches. The phone feels and looks much more compact and sleek than my old phone. I am a person who hates having things in my pants pockets, but this phone is comfortable and small enough to the point where I often forget which pocket I put it in.

The 2 megapixel camera is relatively nice. I have not used it much but it seems fairly decent for a phone. The phone also supports bluetooth, which I have used a lot for transferring custom made ringtones and wallpapers. Although the phone is not officially supported by Bitpim, users have reported getting it working with the software. I have not tried it on my linux machine, but I have yet to be successful with syncing to my Macbook Pro.

I find the bluetooth on the phone to be a little dodgy. For the most part I can sync the phone to my mac, but after 2 – 3 file transfers the phone fails to sync. I have to continuously restart the phone to ‘reset’ the bluetooth so I can use it again. Apparently this problem is pretty common among the LG Shine. Given the problem, I must admit I absolutely love the quick and easy file transfer via bluetooth. Transferring MP3 ringtones, and wallpapers is pretty effortless (when bluetooth decides to work).

I didn’t like the small menu scroll-button upon initial use. After a week of playing with it I have been able to get a feeling of the right pressure to apply for the buttons to function properly. I still find the scroll button difficult to use at times. Another downfall I find with the phone is the fact that you cannot customize the functions of the main buttons. For example, pressing the scroll-button right will bring up the ‘IM’ screen to start AIM, Yahoo messenger etc. Since I do not use this feature, I wish I was able to change the function of the button to bring up another menu. So there are limits to customizing the phone’s button, which rather sucks.

Overall I would give the phone a 8.5/10 stars. LG needs to improve the bluetooth and give the user control over the button functions. Other than that, I am in love with this phone. It’s beautiful, the sound quality is great, and the phone is fun to play with.

Links:
LG Shine
Bitpim
LG Cell Phone Forums (Great community and support)