The manager for the packaging design department came to me with a blank procurement form last year and said, “Fill these out. We need a new Mac; you have 1,000,000 yen to spend on it.” My mind was instantly filled with images of a dual processor G5, Apple Cinema display, striped and mirrored SCSI backup system, Firewire-powered cappuccino maker, etc., you know, The Perfect System. I almost cried. (I say “almost” because this would have been a dream in my Mac maven phase, say five or six years ago.)
Well, I came even closer to crying today when I saw how this new girl, the Designated Mac Operator in the design room was using the Perfect System. She had the 23″ Apple Cinema HD Display (max. resolution 1,920 x 1,200) at the lowest resolution possible, 800 x 500 while laying out pages in PageMaker. I couldn’t believe my eyes even though I watched her 1337 operating skillz for a good 5 minutes over her shoulder. The only possible analogy I can come up with would be sitting two feet from a movie screen; as in TOO CLOSE to a good thing. My man, the folders on the desktop (to mix metaphors) were the size of matchbooks. I later found out that she lowers the resolution instead of using zoom tools in the DTP programs. Amazing.
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
I just wanted to point out that I see this ALL THE TIME. I had a user who had a 19” screen, who ran it 800×600. I figured it was a fluke of old, old age but the two younger users who later inherited the thing ran it in the same resolution; and other users who get 19” flat panels do the same thing. It makes me cry, and it takes all might to keep from screaming at them to go get NEW F’N GLASSES! May as well get 15” tubes if you’re going to be pulling that crap, oye!