Computer Screens and Colors

[Bill Drew]

All of our public terminals are set to 800 by 600 pixels.  We have 15
inch monitors on most of our machines.  Setting to kihger resolution can
make it harder for visually handicapped and a database we will soom be
subscribing to uses special Netscape plugins that require 800 by 600
resolution to display a special proprietary document format (RepairLine
from Mitchell's for our automotive tech program).  I try to desgin our
public pages for 800 by 600 format.  I also reduce the number of colors
in JPEG files when I use them.  

Morgan Paul wrote:
> 
> Dear Bob,
> 
> I understand your problem, but at my library it is a little different
> problem.  I recently had a rash of trouble calls all on the same day with
> several staff computers.  It seems that some of the staff loaded a program
> that required the colors to be 256.  So anything that was using higher
> resolution either looked terrible or was a black screen.  The program they
> loaded wouldn't work unless the color was set to 256.
> 
> I know that I have most of our public monitors set to 16bit color.  This is
> NOT the case in the children's room.  For some reason their software
> requires 256 more than other software.
> 
> Does anyone know of a workaround for this?  I just made the staff aware of
> what was happening and they change their settings as needed.  I can't do
> that for the public computers.  Those settings are locked - intentionally.
> 
> Morgan Paul
> Carnegie Public Library
> East Liverpool, Ohio 43920
> paulmo at mail.oplin.lib.oh.us
> 
> >Another thing I noticed was that the monitor being used was capable of
> 1280 x 1024 resolution at 24-bit color yet was configured to run at 640 x
> 480 8-bit color.  This raised a question:  Why spend all those precious
> dollars on display controllers and high-resolution monitors if you're going
> to run them in a low-resolution low color mode?  It seems like a waste of
> resources to me.
> >
> >I'd like to hear from libraries who have intentionally setup their systems
> for 640x480 256 colors to better understand why this is.
> >

--
Wilfred Drew (Call me "Bill"); Associate Librarian (Systems, Reference)
SUNY College of Ag. & Tech.;   P.O. Box 902;  Morrisville, NY 13408-0902
E-mail: DREWWE at MORRISVILLE.EDU powwow:drewwe at wedrew.lib.morrisville.edu
Phone: (315)684-6055 or 684-6060 Fax: (315)684-6115
Homepage: <http://www.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/>
Not Just Cows: <http://www.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/njc/>
LibraryLinks: <http://www.morrisville.edu/pages/library/>
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