I just purchased the Viewsonic VA2226w 22 inch Widescreen LCD the other day. There was a boxing day special on at Best Buy for $229. The monitor is pretty sweet compared to my 17 inch square LCD that I had before.

It gives way more screen real estate to work with. It is a 21.6 inch viewable area screen. I don't need to run my web browser in full screen mode any more because the content fits in the browser when it is only a little over half of the screen width. I can have another screen open on the right side or even a video playing.

I run the screen in 1680x1050 resolution which looks quite nice as well. With a screen that size, the icons and text are still a really good size.

Viewsonic VA2226w Features

It is pretty nice monitor and here are a few things I wanted it for.

• It is one of the cheapest 22 inch monitors on the market.
• There is HDCP support so it will be able to handle encryption (BluRay) in the future if I hook up another device to it.
• Very light. It is lighter than my 17 inch LCD.
• DVI and the old D-sub (VGA) inputs.
• 2000:1 contrast ratio.

Here is the Viewsonic VA2226w Product Page.

Viewsonic VA2226w and Widescreen on nVidia GeForce FX 5200

I wasn't sure if it would work with my current video card either, but turns out it works just fine. The nVidia GeForce FX 5200 can support wide-screen modes up to 1680 x 1050 just fine. How well the FX5200 will handle games with the higher resolutions will be another story I will write about.

If you cannot get the setting for 1680 x 1050 then you need to download the latest drivers from the nVidia Driver Download page. Just install the drivers, restart your computer, and you will have the option in your display configuration page to select the higher resolutions.

I also found this article on getting FX 5200 to do widescreen.

What Is Bad About The Viewsonic VA2226w

I can't think of much right now. It is a very basic monitor so I might find it lacking in the future. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of a lot of monitors and most notably it is missing the following.

• No Speakers
• No Webcam or microphone.
• No HDMI input. With no speakers this kind of makes sense.

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This boys were washing clothes in the river. I was traveling down the river from Batdambang to Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia and I originally thought the entire trip would be just the shoreline with nothing there. There were families living the entire length along the river.

These boys had some sort of motorized device to wash the clothes and then they would take them out and hang them to dry back at the house along the river.

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I am happy to announce I sold my first permanent link placement on this blog. I am always looking to have more passive income on this blog to increase the revenue each month without increasing my own workload and this will do just fine.

The link sponsor section is in the right column near the top. If you are interested in purchasing links on my blog to increase traffic to your own site, please contact me using through the Advertising page.

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On the northern tip of Saltspring Island off the west coast of Canada is a neat little bay. The view was fantastic and boats could be see sailing through the passage between Saltspring and the next island to the north. This was taken using the Canon S50.

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The floating market an hour or so outside of Bangkok in Thailand is a very popular tourist destination. Boats fill the little canals and people boat along and can buy goods of vendors in their own boats filled with produce and other goods.

Taken with a Canon S50.

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This is a picture of my wife before we were married. I like this photo. She is staring out to the ocean on a beach on the north tip of Saltspring Island just off the coast of Vancouver Island.

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I purchased the Logitech V400 Notebook Mouse about a month ago after my regular mouse died on me. I have been quite happy with it so far. It is a wireless optical mouse made by Logitech for notebooks.

It is quite compact and has pretty fine control. It retailed for around $40 when I first found it, but I ended up finding it on eBay for around $15 plus shipping so I was pretty proud of my purchase.

Features Of The Logitech V400

• Compact - I do like the size of it. Not too small or too big.
• Wireless - It come with a little USB receiver.
• USB Receiver Storage - It snaps into the back of the mouse and clips into place.
• One Battery - Only takes one battery.
• Page Up/Page Down buttons - They can be configured I believer.
• Scroll wheel also acts as a left and right button to move horizontally on the screen.

I don't have any real complaints so far. Excellent little mouse with the extra features to make it handy in various situations.

Here is another review of the Logitech V400 that I liked.

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