Facing Blend

As described in my previous post, my husband got as a late mother’s day present, an incredible 27-inch apple cinema display.  There were a whole lot of hoops to jump through so that we could get it to work.  The last of which was the lack of control over the brightness – the thing by default was quite dim.  Compare it next to any of my existing screens and it was like someone had put a pair of shades over my eyes, but they were special selective shades which only dimmed the screen.

Since I do a lot of work which is very color specific (plus, it just seems wrong to not see the colors vividly on such a nice screen), it was QUITE important to get this issue resolved.  This screen – unlike most other monitors – does not have physical controls.  It’s like a laptop screen which has it’s brightness and contrast controlled by the keyboard’s FN key – but I’m not on a laptop and therefore cannot control these settings from my keyboard (though I looked to see if I could find some sort of hardware which would allow just that functionality)

After a few days of searching, we FINALLY discovered a solution.

It’s all about BootCamp.  See, Apple doesn’t appear to support the practice of allowing PC users to use their hardware, but they do support allowing people to install windows on their intel based systems.  But wait – I’m on an AMD processor!

That seemed to be a limitation, but even after we got through that hoop, we still had difficulties.

It turned out to be something crazy simple.

The bootcamp exe file for the control panel (called AppleControlPanel.exe) is all which is needed.  You don’t have to install anything, it takes next to no time to run, and it has the control built in.  By running this and clicking on the “Brightness” tab, I have full control over the brightness settings.

We actually found the files for this by looking through forum threads on hardforum.com.

The links to the exe can be found below:

32bit AppleControlPanel

64bit AppleControlPanel

All this just to do a simple thing like increasing or decreasing brightness on the 27″ Apple Cinema monitor.

Unfortunately, the above links no longer work, however, due to the high demand, someone has built an application dedicated to being able to fill the needs of those like myself using this awesome display on a PC.

To note: I have nothing to do with this app.  This is something built by someone other than myself.  As always, be safe when downloading anything which is open source.  Most often, open source is fantastic but on occasion, you find that someone is exploiting people’s affections and trust in open source items.  Now, I’m not implying that the below link is, but I don’t personally know for certain.  I truly mean no offense to the community member who shared this with everyone.

 

http://www.holstschumacher.dk/p/brightness-controller.html

Supported displays are:
24″ Cinema Display
27″ Cinema Display
27″ Thunderbolt Display

My husband brought home a new shiny last week.  A 27″ apple cinema display.  Oh my oh my.  So pretty.

The initial attempt to plug it in resulted in us discovering an issue with compatibility of ports.  My graphics card was an ATI Radeon 5870, which has a mac compatible display port, but not the mini version, which is what this screen supports.

We ordered an adapter which says it converts the signal.  A week later, we first test the screen on my husband’s laptop, which has the same display port that my computer has.  Bingo, it works!  Sweet.  So we plug it in on my system and sadly, we didn’t get the same positive response.  Instead, the system constantly makes a disconnect reconnect sound from Windows and flickers the screen on and off along with the audio.  My system does pick up the icam, speakers, and usb hub which is built into the screen, but not the screen itself.  *sigh*

After a bunch of digging and research, we discover that we essentially have 2 options.

1. Pay around $200 for an active converter (the adapter was a passive converter)
2. Find another graphics card which supports the darn mini-display port.

We researched option 1 already and didn’t like the whole idea on principal (my graphics card was the same price.  I’m not paying $200 just to make this darn screen work on something which has no other function.  That’s a lot of dough for the return), so we started looking at option 2.  We found graphics cards which are supported for around $230.  Looking on ebay for how much my current card is going for, it looks like we’ll be able to essentially exchange cost for cost.  My card sells for MORE than the new card, and the new card has similar capabilities.

Sweet.

So new video card it is.

Installed the card and yay!  It works!  So now I’m on this amazing screen and need to figure out what to do with my existing wide-screen.

I really like the idea of having it standing tall to the right of the lovely cinema display.  It would be both useful for reference while working on projects as well as be appealing, but the stand which it is on isn’t one of those which allows for it to tilt and stay on its stand.  So back to Amazon.  After reading a ton of reviews, I found this little guy which was just over $15.

Amazon is swift.  I ordered it on Monday.  Today is Wednesday and it arrived around noon.  I was just at a pausing point with a project, so I thought, “What the heck?” and proceeded to install it.

All was well.  My stud finder (which always tells me there’s a/c in any part of a wall… ) was quite consistent with its reporting of where a stud was.  I marked, measured, leveled, and got everything ready.

Part of this was the concept of where the darn screen would be exactly.  This swivel can extend, go left and right, and tilt, but it can’t go up and down, so I need to figure out exactly where vertically this will be placed.  Not too high and not too low.

My first attempt to mark exact placement was to take chalk and thickly put lines where the bracket will need to attach to the back of the screen.  I took the screen and rubbed that on the wall… nope.  There’s a lip that prevented the chalk from touching the wall.

Second attempt was to put the screws partially in, and mark the screws with chalk… but the screws are the shiny kind which wouldn’t even take the chalk dust.

Attempt number three, I take double sided tape, put that on the ends of the screws and try to get it to stick to the wall – and they liked the screws a little more than they liked the wall.

Last attempt, I combined both concepts and drew with the chalk directly on the tape, and then took the chalked, taped, screw ends which were partially screwed into the screen, and rubbed that on the wall where the screen needed to be.  THAT actually worked.

Next on the order of business was the installation itself.  There were heavy wood screws in the pack that came with the wall mount.  So after double checking my leveling and marking exact placement of the mount, I started getting this thing into the wall.  Halfway through screwing these wood screws in, the top one’s head started stripping.  I slowed down and tried to get the screwdriver as perfectly placed as I could, but the screw wouldn’t stop breaking down.  It got beyond turning… it was just too mangled up and not screwed in enough to call it good.

I’ve heard that a screw with stripped threads would be removed by drilling into the middle of it and slowly removing the drill bit which would release the screw.  I didn’t think it would work in this case but I was willing to give it a try (I figured the threads were entrenched too much in the wood, but who knows?)

So I get out the drill bit and start trying to drill and *SNAP* the entire thing just snaps in half.  It didn’t even leave a devit in this darn screw.

*sigh*

Got a pair of locking pliers and plied the sucker as tight as I could and was able to very slowly but steadily remove the darn screw.

What I don’t get is why the heck the manufacture would send sub-par screws like this.  The stripping of the head was rediculous.  Their guide said in red italic text that this needs to be mounted directly into a stud.  Since they knew it was going to be in wood and under a lot of torque, why the heck would they include a screw with soft metal?!

Anyway, I had a long solid set of wood screws in the garage, easily installed with that and got the screens set up.

Last on my list is to figure out how to control the brightness of the screen.  It’s system driven like a laptop’s screen is.  I’ve read that drivers can be found on an OSX Leopard disk within the bootcamp area.  I truly hope that is true because this screen is quite dim.

Will post an update with what I discover.

Thanks for reading!

UPDATE

I discovered how to control brightness on my 27″ apple monitor and posted what we discovered:

27-inch Apple Cinema display on my Windows 7 system

As the first post after mentioning my intent to change the tone of content here on Facing Blend, I’ll kick it off with one of my new “obsessions” – new healthy stuff to try.  Now, this isn’t really a new thing.  I enjoy hearing about ways that I can change what I am doing to improve the health and well-being of my and my family’s life.  This has taken me down so many roads from different and fun new physical activities to improving the food that we eat.  (It also includes new ways to improve the health of my pets)

The latest change that we’ve been slowly integrating into our life is the use of yogurt.  The health benefits are numerous.

Up until recently, yogurt has been in basically 1 form: A lovely plastic cup which contains fruit and occasionally granola.  Sometimes it comes in a tube for my kids – but the contents and “application” of yogart has always been essentially the same.

Well that’s changed a bit.  I read an article on either Yahoo or MSN (can’t remember which, sorry!) which was one of those picture “articles” which listed 10 things which should be eaten more to improve your health.  Well, yogurt was one of them.  The article mentioned  the use of yogurt in other ways than just the cup of fruit – to use as part of the base for mashed potatoes.

So I decided to experiment.  I headed to the grocery store and picked up some plain WHOLE yogurt (not non- nor low-fat… I’ll talk about that in another blog), and proceeded to do just what the article mentioned – using yogurt as a replacement for the milk and butter.

What I found was that it was quite tasty – and a bit surprising.  It tasted like I added sour cream to my potatoes rather than the yogurt taste I was expecting.

Since my initial experiment, I’ve altered the quantity of yogurt.  Replacing ALL of the butter and milk was quite unbalanced in taste.  Instead, I add 2-3 tablespoons of yogurt and add butter and milk until I get a consistency which was appealing.  It’s certainly not an exact science, so if you try it, you’ll have to use your judgement.

Since, I’ve been trying different things with yogurt.

1. Cheese sauce (pouring over broccoli)
2. Cheese, Broccoli, Chicken & Potato soup
3. White sauces in general including a lovely fettuccine sauce over shrimp & crab ravioli
4. The mashed potatoes mentioned before
5. home made ranch dressing (I still use some sour cream)

I’ve not discovered anything else where it sounded like yogurt could be used, but I’m still exploring this new ingredient to my cooking.

Oh, and btw: So far, all of the dishes have been kid tested and over the top approved.  My 1 yr old enjoys the food and my 5 year old asks for seconds!! (That almost never happens)  My daughter’s absolute favorite is when I make the cheese sauce and mix it in with rice, broccoli, carrots, corn, and shredded chicken(after boil-cooking it).

Yay yogurt!

When I last actively blogged on Facing Blend (not counting the random occasional post with crickets to fill the silence of months between), life was quite different.  Between pregnancy discomfort and working at a job that no longer challenged me (after years of attempting to work every angle I could so I could find challenges to overcome) – I wasn’t the happiest.

(No hard feelings towards the company.  Even the director 2 bosses up from my own wrote me a letter of recommendation expressing how I’ve grown out of the company’s ability to keep me challenged.)

Things have changed – a lot.  I now am working for an amazing company that is nothing but challenges (and fun!) from project to project.  I’m even finding time to connect with people that I feared I wouldn’t ever again… I’m finding myself to be quite happy and moving forward on lighter feet.

Redefining “Facing Blend”

The meaning behind Facing Blend was a bit shallow, but I am about to give it a greater and more personal level of depth.  Its original meaning surrounded my struggles and triumph as I went from an Adobe and Web standards background to something more interactive by way of learning how to use Expression Blend.

But underlying all of this was a much deeper meaning that I was constantly wanting to blog about, which wasn’t specific to expression blend, the software.  That deeper meaning being the struggle that I think many have in many industries – the challenges surrounding the blend between work and family.

I’m the one who created Facing Blend – so why not blog about all sorts of “Blend”?  Work and Family, Design and Development, and anything in between.  So from now on, not only will there be work related, design or development related, content, but also other types of content.  Will anybody be interested in the content?  No clue.  But I sure hope so!

Today – I am officially going to turn a new leaf on Facing Blend.