you now have to move the HD out of the way first

Yeah -- the link that went to that page recommended getting the extra memory with the box, but that seems a bit overkilly.

So, it's time to chuck this old CRT and get myself an LCD monitor. What is recommended by the hivemind?

What kind of computer?

I think one of the biggest questions is: do you wanna get one with a digital interface (DVI)? It costs more, and unless you have a recent graphic card you'd need to get a graphic card with DVI output to take advantage of it. (You could still use an analog VGA interface on a DVI monitor.)

You gotta pay more for a DVI monitor, but personally I think it's worth it - the picture is much sharper than many analog VGA LCD monitors.

What kind of computer?

PC. And I forget all my stats at the moment. 1.2 GHZ processor. At least 512 MB RAM, maybe a gig. Running Win2K. It was built for me in 2003, so that's how old the graphics card would be.

I don't know what a DVI is. Really, as long as the picture quality is at least as good as a CRT, I don't mind so much. It's more of a convenience/space issue. Plus, easier to move. Also, my Proview monitor blows. I'm not going to trust a second-rate monitor this time.

I don't know what a DVI is.

It's about what kind of video card you have. You should check. It could make a difference.

I have a Viewsonic, and it's treated me very well, except the driver and my card sometimes pretend to not like each other. Never for too long, luckily.

O mighty hivemind, I have a Minolta Dimage F200. It finally sustained a fair amount of damage from wear and tear and I sent it in to be repaired before Konica-Minolta complete gets rid of their camera dept. The estimate/bill is $110.

Can I get a newer, better camera for not too much more or would I be better off repairing the one I have?

Here's a picture of a DVI to VGA adaptor. [link] The thing on the top is the VGA part, and the DVI is on the bottom. (The DVI end is male, and if you have a DVI video card on your computer you'd see a female DVI. But you can see the difference from this picture.)

eta: The main problem with conventional VGA is that it's analog, so your video signal gets converted from ditital to analog and back to digital. So there's a potential loss of video quality/sharpness, etc. How much quality you actually lose can vary depending on your monitor, cable, etc. You might not get very mucy loss of quality at all.

I have a Viewsonic, and it's treated me very well, except the driver and my card sometimes pretend to not like each other. Never for too long, luckily.

Here is a list of things my Proview monitor has done in my absence:

• Turned yellow for no reason until I degaussed it
• Faded color on one side of the screen for no reason
• Inwardly stretched the picture for no reason
• Displayed nothing, effectively freezing because none of the buttons do anything

And more, I think. It has at least one incident every one or two months.

Adium does not work with the iSight, unfortunately, as it uses Gaim for its backend (rather, libgaim) and Gaim doesn't have video support yet. Of course, I don't know anybody I'd want to video-chat with who has one, so not a huge deal for me at least.

I want my mommy to get an iSight so I can test my new built-in one, though!

Played briefly with iWeb, the newest iLife toy. It's pretty neat - basically, you make simple webpages like you make a keynote presentation, using templates that iWeb provides where you can add your own data, pictures, titles, and cetera. Gives you a directory structure to put on your web host, or it can publish to .mac for you if you have an account.

If I had a bunch of photos in iPhoto, it would be a nice way to create a slideshow for my friends without needing to invest in a flickr account.

This is slightly out there, but does anyone have any experience either selling on eBay as a charitable user, or using auction software/scripts on their site?

Anyone heard of this? [link]

It's open source, which I like, and I'm fairly sure my brother could set it up. On the other hand, eBay seems to donate the seller fees to your charity, so it's hard to find a downside there.