I finally went and bought my second LCD monitor a couple of days ago. As you can see, my four-foot-wide desk is starting to look a bit crowded.

The new monitor, a Digimate L1715, is the one in the middle.

Some stuff I learned, upon jumping on to the dual-monitor bandwagon:

1. With LCDs, it’s very important that you get the same brand and model of your second display. This isn’t as important with CRTs because practically any mid-range CRT will perform similarly regardless of manufacturer and make. LCDs are a far more finicky technology and if you want to save yourself some calibration headaches, get the same model. (As usual, I learned this from bitter experience, which is the reason for this article. My older LCD was a Samsung 173V, which displayed a smaller color gamut than the newer Digimate.)
2. Height-adjustability is a must. One of the Digimate’s handiest features is the ability to adjust the height of the display (and not just the tilt like on most LCDs or CRTs). This is important to me because most monitors sit too low for a work-desk like mine and what I used to do was place books underneath the stand to push it up an inch or so.
3. Although it’s a well-known fact that adding a second monitor to your workstation can increase your work productivity by 50%, this doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a while to learn to make use of 2560 pixels of available screen width, and to be honest, I’m still trying to get used to coding on one screen and previewing on the other. I’d gotten so used to alt-tabbing my way around that I sometimes forget that now all I have to do is look a couple of inches to the right.
4. There are at least 3 ways to make use of this second monitor, depending on the video-card you’re running. I bought an inno3D GeForce 6600GT to go with the Digimate and the included software allows things like Clone View (which means you get the exact same image on both screens), Horizontal/Vertical Span (your desktop is stretched across the two monitors) and DualView (which allows you to set separate resolutions and color-depths for each monitor; handy when your monitors are different sizes).
5. Customer reviews of the Digimate say that it’s probably the best 17" LCD you can get at this price range (less than PhP19,000, or about US$300 online), and I have to agree. It’s not stunningly good but it’s also several strides better than my old Samsung. It’s also sharper than any CRT I’ve seen that isn’t a Trinitron, and consumes only one-third the electricity (so yes, 2 LCDs use less power than 1 CRT).
6. Octagon Superstore (which disappeared from the public eye 3 years ago and suddenly returned by swallowing up Columbia Superstore) doesn’t suck, at least in terms of the monitors you can find there. I got the Digimate for PhP18,000 and found other good deals from LG (the 1730s, a 2003 model, is going for about PhP16,500 there).
7. The Digimate is a bit of an ugly duckling when compared with some of the newer stuff coming from LG (1740BQ) and Samsung (173P) but it’s cheap, sturdy and performs pretty well for the price. Overall, I can’t think of a better way to spend eighteen grand, at least in terms of the overall effect it has had on the way I work.

I’m not sure how I missed this album last year.

It’s the most charming, bitter-sweet, honest and absolutely brilliant collection I’ve heard all year, and if I had heard it when it actually came out, it would have almost certainly been my favorite album of 2004.

None of the songs in the collection displace "Closer" as the best Matt Pond PA song ever recorded, but it’s certainly the most consistently engaging collection you’re likely to find from these indie-pop gods.

from Signal vs Noise

If you are trying to decide between a few people to fill your position, always hire the better writer. I don’t care if that person is a designer, programmer, marketer, salesperson, whatever. Assuming your candidates are fairly equally skilled and qualified overall, always hire the better writer. This is especially true with designers since copywriting is interface design (more on that soon).

Good advice.

I know I like to complain a lot about my life and my poor excuse for a freelance career, but every now and then, cool things happen and I feel really good.

Case in point: one of my corporate clients have been dragging their collective feet getting the downpayment on this big project to me. It’s a moderately large amount (and I’ve been spending money like water recently) so I had gotten a bit sweaty under the collar waiting for it the past month.

Anyway, I finally got it today — whoopee — and as I was thinking about how to spend it, I came across this beauty of an LCD monitor from LG, now available locally (believe it or not):

This predecessor of the award-winning 1720B goes by the name 1740BQ and can be yours (and by that, I actually mean, mine) for an as-yet-unknown amount of hard-earned pesetas. (I’ll find out tomorrow when the stores open I guess.) Knowing LG, the artsy-fartsy design probbably means it’ll be on the high-end of the scale, but damn if it doesn’t look worth it. I hope it’s not too expensive though, because I wasn’t planning on spending over 30k on a second monitor (I still have a video card to think about, after all). Spec-wise it’s nothing spectacular, basically your average LCD monitor … except for the response time though, which is listed at 8ms (and should be no more than 12ms unless it’s an utterly shitty model).

My alternate choice is this rather chunky-looking (by comparison) Digimate 1715, which is supposedly a decent unit and goes for less than 19k, cash. You can actually get these at Columbia Superstores, which are oddly well-stocked when it comes to obscure manufacturers.

With less than a month to go before the third and final episode in George Lucas’ sci-fi saga, this fan-produced tribute film couldn’t have come out at a better time. Obviously, I haven’t seen it (less than a thousand people were around for its big-screen premiere last week), but I can appreciate the crazy dedication that went in to putting this US$20,000 40-minute movie together.

CNET writes:

"The most striking thing in watching the film is its technical competence. The computer graphics are easily as good as most TV science fiction programs, with complex spaceship battles and cinematic camera work. The sound is crisp and unmistakably Star Wars. The soundtrack is wholly engrossing.

"Most of this work was done by an ever-changing roster of 30 to 40 volunteers online, drawn from around the world, most of whom Felux had never met until the first real-world screening of the movie in Baltimore last week. The soundtrack was written from scratch by a British composer sounding very much like John Williams."

Open-source filmmaking at its finest.

I think I popped a vein in my forehead this evening; I was perspiring great big elephant-bullet-sized droplets, and when I tried to stand up, the floor switched places with the ceiling. My left side became numb, and my vision started dimming. As the world got smaller I imagined I saw a bright light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is all really about a photo-shoot.

@##@

Late last year, I was at a meeting with one of my older clients, discussing the future of their brand-spanking-new toothpaste (so new that it hadn’t even gotten BFAD approval yet). I was spinning another dream scenario, the way I always do with clients like these (read: rich), about how their product would practically leap off the shelves, making them at least 10 times wealthier than they already were. Of course, that was provided that they do 2 things, the first being to hire me, and the second being to fund a photo-shoot with four models which we would use to promote the product (as well as adorn the packaging).

Since those two keys to greater wealth pretty much went hand-in-hand, the project was up and running within the following week. What I lack in decision-making skills and rational thought, I make up for in salesmanship, I guess.

Here’s the part where the dream scenario starts to suck, so pay attention.

This client was cheap. And I don’t mean that in a demeaning, negative way. There are clients who know when it is necessary to part with a great deal of money, and unfortunately, that was simply not the case with this batch. It’s not a bad attitude to have, it’s simply unfortunate. What was bad was the fact that I didn’t recognize this sooner and bail out months ago. I won’t go into the specifics, but this photo-shoot was essentially being held together by spit, bailing wire and my unwillingness to just lie down and die.

Over the next 4 months I was able to find the 4 models that were willing to work on this project for the tiny fees that we were offering, and I was actually able to get people that fit the specs we needed to a tee (as opposed to simply hiring whichever one said yes).

It’s now Tuesday, the 19th. Our shoot was scheduled for Thursday, the 22nd. I had haggled to death with the photographer and makeup artist and got really decent prices from both. My profit margin for this gig is pathetic to say the least (let’s just say I make more money parsing Excel files into databases, and leave it at that), but I stick with it because … well, I’m a sucker for punishment, and I have this stupid notion that if you’re given a job to do, you do it until it either gets done, or you start shitting blood, whichever comes first.

Anyway, two of the models cancelled a couple of hours ago. One of them actually sicced her big brother on me in an effort to get me to buck up the talent fee. I explained to him as courteously as I could that it wasn’t my money I was spending and that although I would try my best to massage the client further, the deal was pretty much locked in. A couple of minutes later, they texted that they were no longer interested in the project.

Meanwhile, the other dude sent me a long (but not over 150 characters) SMS saying that he was sorry but that although he wanted the experience, he wasn’t going to be able to do it for that kind of compensation.

Now, I didn’t argue with either of them because there was nothing wrong with asking for what (you think) you’re worth. What sucked was the timing. To have half the group suddenly bail out two nights before the actual shoot was just unbelievably bad luck. And for a shoot like this, where the modelling talent aren’t exactly banging my door down to get their chance, that was practically fatal.

So now I have to explain why the models backed out, why the shoot had to be cancelled and why the entire friggin’ project collapsed, to a client that I don’t actually feel a whole lot of love for at the moment. (Here’s the part where I start feeling woozy.)

If anyone out there ever finds themselves in a position like mine, maybe they can learn from my mistake and save themselves a week in a hospital gurney. Basically, here’s what you have to remember:

1. If you’re going to hire models under 21 years old, make sure that they talk to their parents/guardians BEFORE you list them as "confirmed."
2. If your budget sucks, your chances are best with amateur or rookie models ages 21-25, because they will not need parental consent but will also appreciate the extra cash and/or experience it will give them. Rookie models who haven’t broken in to the industry yet will be particularly receptive because they know that a low-budget shoot won’t give them a hard time during the selection process.
3. Talk about the money ASAP, and make sure they actually say "YES." Repeat the agreed amount in subsequent meetings if you have to, but make sure they "get it." See #1.
4. Try to get reassurance one week before the actual shoot that these people are planning on showing up. At the very least, it will give you something to complain about when they decide to cancel your ass 48 hours before showtime (like "Dammit, last week you said it was OK!").

Lastly, and this is the one that will differ per client (but is good to remember anyway), don’t sell your client things you know they can’t afford. What usually ends up happening is they become fixated on that one particular thing and want to cram as much of it as possible into the available budget, even if it means delivering a half-baked, hodgepodge kinda product. Admittedly, this sort of thing is impossible to properly gauge, but you can read it as: it sometimes pays to be conservative and/or prudent with your recommendations.

Not that "conservative" or "prudent" have ever been part of my key personality traits.