Saturday, June 17, 2006

Monitor-ed

As I blogged earlier, I have a 15" Samsung LCD monitor for WPC and my original plan was to share that with Mini via a KVM. The obstreporousness of the KVM in refusing to recognise my wireless keyboard has put paid to that.

I am about to reconcile myself to unplugging and re-plugging the monitor from one to the other. But it's too painful a solution for a lazy sod like me. Just then as I'm poking about disconsolately behind Mini I realize that she's sitting right next to my TV - she needs to be there to connect easily to my amplifier. And I know that computers can be plugged into TVs, so this might be worth exploring.

My TV is also a Samsung, but more than that, it's an LCD TV. I had been particular to choose an LCD one rather than a plasma one when I went looking for a flat screen TV because the industry buzz was that LCD was the wave of the future. So I had settled on a somewhat smaller LCD that cost me about what a larger plasma would have. I had figured the trade-off would be worth it.

My hunch is about to pay off in spades!

I rootle about behind my TV and discover a socket that looks awfully like a computer monitor one. I frantically burrow through my drawer of manuals and locate the TV manual and with trembling hands I flip through the pages. Yes! It can be used as a computer monitor! And it uses DVI which is what Mini uses too! Oh, frabjous day!

There is little else to tell. In a few seconds Mini is connected to my 42" LCD TV, the wireless keyboard is on my lap and the mouse is at my side as I sit on the bed 10 feet away and surf iTunes in glorious technicolor and large-enough-to-read-from-ten-feeet-away font size and blast the music of my choice.

When Front Row is introduced a few months later, I scoff at it and flick the dust from the irreproachable Logitech keyboard at my wrists and laugh out loud from lazy eyelids. I've been on Front Row from Day One. (Why Front Row, anyway? I always thought the Back Row was the place to be at the movies.)

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