New Toys

I don't buy things for myself that often. And usually when I do, these days it's almost always business related in some form. That's good right? It's a tax write-off. Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode:

Jerry: "Do you even know what a write off is?"
Kramer: "Do you?"
Jerry: "No I don't"
Kramer: "But they DO, and they're the ones writing it off"

I digress again.

Anyway, I got 2 new toys today for work. One's a stinkin' home phone. Whoop de doo. No need to make a big fuss about that. My current phone holds a battery charge for about 5 minutes off the cradle...which stinks. So we had to find a replacement pronto.



My other toy is this Huey thing to help color calibrate my monitor. You'd figure as a graphic design "professional" I'd have calibrated my monitor long ago. Alas (who uses "alas" anymore? I read too many fantasy books as a kid), I regret I pretty much faked it all this time. I knew something was always wrong when my print colors don't quite look the same like my on-screen ones.

Having your monitor calibrated isn't essential. But you'd be surprised how "off" your monitor might be. You know when you go to the TV store and you see how different the TV images are when they're side by side? Well, at home you don't have the luxury of comparing your TV or monitor to something else. So how do you know it looks right?

Are your whites really white? Is the color of that rose on your screen truly red?

Anyway, that's what I sought out to find. I bought the Huey because it was the cheapest entry-level device I could find with decent reviews.

I popped it in today and about 10 minutes later my monitor is showing really drastic results. Everything looks different to me....I might even say it looks weird. But that's probably because I've been so used to staring at my monitor uncalibrated all this time. My whites look much cooler then it did before. Where I'm most impressed with the results though is in the contrast...images that looked like it had only black backgrounds before now turn up with some extra details I never saw before. So I guess this is working as intended.

I'd say it's worth the price of entry. It's about $80. If you check a lot of photos in your computer I think spending $80 to make sure it looks good on your screen isn't too much to ask.