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Inexpensive Ways To Reduce Computer Screen Blues? 27

Posted by timothy from the cheap-pretty-and-legal-pick-any-two dept.
jnaazgul writes: " I've been a programmer for well over 5 years. I don't have access to high end hardware such as LCD monitors, new low-radiation monitors or the such. I've been searching all over for a low cost solution to keep my eyes from becoming fried globes from staring at code for more than 8-13 hours straight. I've heard about screen protectors, but they do nothing. Knowing that the slashdot comunity has a large population of programmers and computer-tied people like me, I'd like to ask you all what you do to avoid monitor radiation and ways to protect your eyes."
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Inexpensive Ways To Reduce Computer Screen Blues? More

Inexpensive Ways To Reduce Computer Screen Blues?

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  • I'm no optometrist, but I'm pretty sure that the answer to this is "Yes". Poor refresh rates have been proven to cause headaches and eye strain, and I sure can attest to that. I highly recommend you get a new monitor if you can afford it. I imagine your 1993 model is also releasing a fair amount of radiation (when compared to today's models), which surely doesn't help your eyesight either.
  • Occationally when i'm working on more time-consuming projects, i'll throw on a pair of Oakleys (a-wires, I believe..) They do a fairly good job at decreasing any non-visible light/radiation and if you crank the brightness *way* up on your monitor, the color rendition can sometimes be improved. And let's not forget how it looks, too ;)
  • Your concerned about radiation doing harm to your eyes? Personally, I think that the whole low-radiation scene is a gimmick. Assuming you don't stick your face 2 inches from the screen, you should be fine.

    Eye strain is a completely different issue. Set your refresh rate as high as possible. Adjust the brightness and contrast settings on you monitor until you find something you like. These adjustments will make more of a difference than most people think. Also, make sure that your lighting around the computer is sufficient.

    -mdek.net [mdek.net]

  • Same problem.... (Score:3)

    by NoWhere Man ( 68627 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @04:44PM (#542696) Homepage
    I find that sun glasses in general work pretty good. Yellow lenses seem to help the most.
    Frames Direct [framesdirect.com]
    That link has some glasses that wrap around the head...which I find helpful. I have also seen contact lens that are photosensitive...I will probably be picking up a pair myself soon. Anything with POLARIZATION would be good.

  • Refresh rate is paramount (Score:3)

    by GenetixSW ( 35311 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @05:36PM (#542697)
    The single most important thing you need to consider is the refresh rate when you're staring at a monitor for hours on end.

    In theory, a monitor that displays past 72Hz is extraneous (because supposedly that's all the eye can see), but believe me, the difference between 72Hz and 85Hz becomes painfully obvious within a few hours.

    If your department's budget can't afford an LCD (which is best for your eyes because refresh rate really doesn't exist, and the light is softer), see if you can get something that can do about 1280*1024 @ 85Hz. This is good for a 17" or a 19" conventional monitor. Even if you don't need that high a resolution, it is still helpful. The smaller the pixel size, the more fluid the screen appears. Always helpful.

    After testing a few monitors for my own use, I settled on an LG Flatron 795FT Plus. It's flat, which is really nice because it also reduces glare. However, you really should take a look around a computer store and see for yourself. Test different resolutions and if it possible, see what it looks like in the dark (will *not* be possible in your average big box store).

    One last note. Check to see what the white is. The purest white you find on most monitors is a 9300K (Kelvin) white, while cheaper monitors opt for around 6500K, which is more beige. A whiter white makes for better clarity, but for some monitors, may impair refresh rate.

    Happy hunting!
  • Computer screen blues? Tried ditching Windows?

    Ashes of Empires and bodies of kings,

  • Guaranteed to get the blue out. (Score:3)

    by fwc ( 168330 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @06:09PM (#542699)
    To get the blue out of a monitor, perform the following operation:

    1. Unplug the monitor cable from the computer. Hold it facing toward you, with the thickest part of the D connector upward.

    2. Using needle nose pliers or other suitable tool, remove pin 3 from the 15 pin connector. In the orientation as described above, this should be the middle pin on the top row, or counting from the left, skip the first two and remove the third. Usually these can be broken out by either just pulling hard or by wiggling them back and forth.

    3. Reinsert cable. Presto, no monitor blues.

    If you'd like to know how this works, see any standard VGA monitor pinout diagram such as the one at Technick.net [technick.net]

    Important: The author cannot be held responsible for any damage caused by anyone actually attempting this modification. Perform at your own risk!

  • Even regular glasses help. Get the ones with the UV coating. Having lightly tinted glasses helps with the glare.

    In fact my previous job has a vision care program to buy everyone a pair of tinted lens glasses (even no prescription people) because it helps with the eye problems.

  • The computers at school fry my eyes after about an hour. They are mostly 15" curved screens, without glare filters and SVGA at 70 to 75khz. The lighting is all fluorescent.

    At home I can go all day, with a 17" perfectly flat CRT, and a ARAG (?) glare filter, at 1280 x 1024 and 79khz. And regular light bulbs. Viwsonic also makes some claim about the quality of the color on my monitor (a PF775) that supposedly makes a difference.

    So I must be benefiting from one of the above differences, probably the flat screen, the glare filter or the lights. Or it could be psychological, since I'd hate to believe I spent 300 whole dollars on a monitor for nothing, which is fine with me. If I feel better, that's good enough. Other people can't stand flat screens, so go figure. You could have yourself hypnotized.

    Thank you for reading about me an my monitor. Until today, no one else cared.


  • I would try blinking once in a while......

  • I have the same eye problems that you do. 20/20 and lil problem on near objects. Maybe changing from 14'' to 17'' will solve the problem? Who knows...

  • I did get my eyes checked, and found that though I technically have 20/20 vision, I am slightly farsighted. The thing that bites is I'm not farsighted enough to really impair my reading - I can focus on something six inches in front of my eyes, but it takes more work and strain to do it, and glasses are more of a hinderance than a help for me. I also have a condition where my eyes have trouble tracking close objects together - I have to concentrate or my eyes drift, causing double images. This creates more strain, and glasses can do nothing to fix this.

    Other than getting a better monitor - with a high refresh rate, you also might want to do an ergonomics check. Make sure the monitor is about an arm's reach from your eyes, have the top of the screen about even with your eyes, make sure lights or windows aren't causing glare.

  • You might just want to see a doctor and get your eyes checked. Your insurance should cover it, and it might spot problems before they get really bad.

    I have had generally good results with my 15" Sony monitor from years ago at ~75Hz. But then, I get 8 hours of sleep a night, so my experience can't be too indicitave of a good monitor.

    But I have found that a quality monitor -- a Sony or the like -- will be much better for you than a cheapo one.

    And the other trick, of course, is to take regular breaks every 1/2 or 1/4 of an hour, to focus on something other than the monitor. This gives your eyes a chance to relax a little bit.

  • I've often wondered about the relationship between eyestrain and focusing on a monitor ~2 feet away for hours on end.

    If I'm not mistaken, opthamologists set up your glasses prescription such that the convergence between the two lenses is set to infinity. This has got to put a major strain on your eyes.

    I'm wondering what the effect of changing the convergence to ~2 feet would be. Anyone have any feedback/experience on this idea?

  • I've really found your answers interesting, but I really don't have that much money to spend on a Matrox video card, or even a new 17'' monitor. I'll check out those tinted glasses tho. Keep on rolling those solutions...
  • Yes it all looks pretty at the highest brightness setting your monitor can muster, but it can really hurt one's eyes. I watch movies (Divx ;) and DVD) with my brightness around 85, which was how the monitor shipped, but for normal work it goes down to 30 or 40. It looked quite unusual when I first got the suggestion to do this, but white does look more white, and it's much less of a strain on my eyes. I also set the color temperature down to 6500K, but I'm considering moving to 5000K. It's not about high technology. It's about the first controls a monitor ever had (the Power switch is also very useful; turn the monitor off and go walk around for a few minutes every once in a while).

    Ambient lighting is also an issue; bright fluorenscent lights tend to glare a lot. If possible, turn off the light and use soft white incandescant lights, preferrably out of your direct field of view.

    When I first tried what I describe here, each setting hurt my eyes more, but as I got used to it they hurt much less. So make your changes gradually to avoid headaches.

  • This, my friends is good advice. very good advice.

    Do exactly what this man says.

    And if your monitor has on-screen controls, use them.
    they do wonderfuly magical things

    I CAN SEE AGAIN! THANK YOU!!

  • I find that a high-quality monitor and a Matrox card work for me. Crank up the refresh rate, tune the controls just so, set up the lighting around your workstation so it's comfortable, and you should be all set. Never mind with the rest of that stuff. Sunglasses seem like a good idea if your eyes do start to go screwy, though.

    I swear by Matrox cards, though. No, you won't get the highest possible FPS out of a Matrox card, if you care about that sort of thing, but put one side-by-side with some other cards and I think you'll see a difference. My office has two workstations with (surprisingly) decent Compaq monitors, one with a Matrox G400 and one with a TNT2, and the difference is pronounced. I couldn't work on the TNT2 machine like I can on the G400. YMMV, natch.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I agree with the above posts about refresh rate and (lack of) brightness, but don't forget about the color/reflectivity of your desktop. Also, the type and brightness of ambient light factors in.
  • You have been a programmer for 5 years and you are working; in fact you are busy 8 to 13 hours a day. Yet you don't have enough money to get a halfway decent monitor ($300 to $500) and good 2D card ($50 to $100)? Journeyman plumbers and auto mechanincs easily spend $5,000 at least on the tools of their much lower paying trades. Now I'm the last person to say that a programmer should make money a priority in choosing a career path, but in this case something just doesn't fit.

    Are you working in Bangledesh? Are you a BASIC programmer? Do you have seven kids and a dog who will die without an operation?

    Just wondering, that's all.



  • I actually work in Venezuela, i spend most of my day making statistical code for a NGO, so most of my work is non-profit. I could spend money on a good 2d card, yes, but hardware in this country is very expensive. Our currency is at 700 Bs per Dollar. Go figure.
  • Stop using Windows. That's bound to get rid of a lot of blue screens.

  • I just went through this issue when building my home office setup for programming.
    I found the most cost effective thing to do was was buy more screen real estate:

    Keep your old monitor

    Buy a dual-head Matrox g450 [matrox.com] (or multiple PCI Matrox video cards)

    Buy a high quality 19" flat screen CRT [iiyamadirect.com]


    Configure X to use Xinerama. You get more real estate with two 19" monitors than one 21" for the exact same price. In my case, I saved $450 by keeping my older, high-quaity 17" monitor. I keep it to the side of my main monitor for viewing documentation and other miscellaneous tasks. I use my new 19" for the actual coding, since that is what I am looking/staring at most of the time.


    Resist the urge to coax the greatest resolution out of your monitor. With the two monitors, 1280x1024 becomes 1280x2048! In my case, that means I have 16 bit color, and 75Hz refresh on my less used monitor and 85Hz refresh on my main monitor.


    Finally, be sure to read the XFree86 Font Duglification Mini HOWTO [linuxdoc.org]. Run TrueType fonts at 100DPI.


    By the way, no normal people can afford LCD screens.

  • thinkgeek sells a eclipse light that honestly does help a good bit. Other than that a good monitor despite the costs is more than worth it. I have a sony G400 and it is a fairly inexpensive monitor for the preformance. LCD monitors are very pricy, and will one of these days become affordable.
    You also might be sensitive to lower refresh rates, almost all cheaper monitors only skim 70-75hz at medium refresh rates. If you spend money on hardware every few years, rember that the monitor is what you stare at all day. (why do you need a faster cpu/video card for quake X, if you strain your eyes doing more important things)

    There are some eye exercises that help some, and also a good nights sleep helps allot. both of those are free... :) No mispelled words where harmed in this post.

  • You know the answer (Score:3)

    by morzel ( 62033 ) on Saturday December 23, 2000 @10:46AM (#542718)
    "
    keep my eyes from becoming fried globes from staring at code for more than 8-13 hours straight"
    Don't stare at your code for 8-13 hours straight. It's not only very tiring for your eyes, it's also very bad for your concentration, and hence for the quality of your coding.

    Even if you work on a cubicle planet, there are always options enough to take little breaks. Go for a little walk, have short meetings with co-developers on difficulties/problems, empty your nerf gun collection on the new intern... Get away from that screen now and then.
    It'll improve your mood, your eyes and your code all at once.


    Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.

  • But you should still make your health your highest priority, no matter what you do.



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