Browsing the web at 1440x900...

[J Arcane]

I just got a new monitor for my computer, a 1440x900. I've gotten used to it for the desttop and most things, but browsing the web is tricky. While some sites work fine (like here, for the most part), many apparently don't scale, but stay fixed. Which makes them either very hard to read (since they take up 1/3 of the screen) or in some cases, like IGN, they stuff on the right ends up being placed in the middle, obscuring everything.

Any tips? I've tried playing with the increase text size function, but that seems to vary from page to page.

ACk! You must relearn to use the fullness of the desktop.

I don't even have a resolution nearly that wide on my monitor, and I don't even maximize my browser windows.

I've got things so that I've got a browser window on the left, offset from the screen edge by just enough to see the row of desktop icons, for easy access, and enough space on the right to fit my Winamp window, or an IM window, or an overlapping Windows Explorer window, or whatever my needs might be at the present moment.

Windows were invented to allow you to do stuff like that. Maximize is the devil.

Besides, as noted, most sites are only built for about 800x600 or 1024x768, making all that extra space pretty much wasted. You may as well make use of that space one way or another.

 

[Asmor]

there are very few programs which I will tolerate un-maximized. It just gets on my nerves. Minesweeper, notepad... That's about it. Web browsers especially always have to be maximized for me.

I think the real issue here is the wide screen... I just don't see the draw. Give me two standard aspect-ration screens over a wide screen anyways. The only possible benefit I can see for the wide screen is watching movies... And that's why I have a wide screen TV.

 

[Alan Shutko]

I think the real issue here is the wide screen... I just don't see the draw. Give me two standard aspect-ration screens over a wide screen anyways. The only possible benefit I can see for the wide screen is watching movies... And that's why I have a wide screen TV.

Depends a lot on what you do. It'd be great for Outlook or any program with tons of panes. More niche, the normal programming IDEs these days put up so much crap to the left and right of the editing window, widescreen is the only way to actually use those sidebars and see text at the same time. (And, unlike NICE programs, you can't just drag stuff to your second monitor.)

 

[werk]

Maximize is the devil.

QFT!

I also love topdesk, for when I'm using big spreadsheets on my little notebook LCD and things get too crowded for me. Mapped it over the insert key, because I FREAKING HATE THE INSERT KEY!

I think it's the most useful new feature in Vista, but like 2 years earlier.

www.otakusoftware.com (I think)

 

[trancejeremy]

I think the real issue here is the wide screen... I just don't see the draw. Give me two standard aspect-ration screens over a wide screen anyways. The only possible benefit I can see for the wide screen is watching movies... And that's why I have a wide screen TV.

Well, I didn't have $500 to spend on 2 monitors, for one, even if I had the deskspace. And I went with the widescreen because I found a 19" 4:3 monitor to be too big. With the widescreen ones, at least you don't have to move your head up and down.

I was hoping to find a 17" regular monitor, but the only one I could find that size in stores was a cheap CRT. I guess if I had more time I could have gone mail order, but my old monitor finally gave up (and I threw it off the sundeck, which made it pretty final) and so I wanted one right away.

 

[Asmor]

Yes, the cost can be a bit prohibitive. I've had this 19" LCD forever it feels like, and a few years back I found a 17" CRT that someone was throwing away and I decided to snag it. But once you go with two monitor's there's no going back.

Of course, according to Jeff Atwood, the real sweet spot is 3 monitors.

Some day... some day.