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Freeware Files: Widescreen Mania! Make the Most of your Monitor's Real Estate!

David Murphy — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:30:35 -0600

Widescreen monitors are, in a word, awesome, and not just because they offer some kind of enhanced quality over their four-by-three ratio brethren. Depending on what you're using them for, like movie-watching, you'll simply see more of a given scene than you otherwise would on a standard display. The increased screen real estate (on the horizontal plane) also allows you to make more effective use of your desktop... provided you have the right software tools to create this enhanced productivity.

In fact, one of the biggest complaints surrounding the use of widescreen monitors is just that--the elongated desktop space is just too hard to navigate, and applications frequently don't make the best use of this additional room. I can't promise that everything out-of-the-box (or out-of-the-browser window) will look great on your widescreen display. However, what I can do is offer you a suite of tools designed to make your 16-by-9 or 16-by-10 experience as great as it can be. I've been using widescreen monitors for quite some time now. I know how it feels. That extra background space on the sides of every Web page you load? Maddening.

But I digress. Let's take care of that issue, and more, with some awesome widescreen monitor apps.

MiniMIZE

What's so great about MiniMIZE? If you have the extra screen real estate--and you do, if you're using a widescreen monitor--then why bother minimizing your applications to a tiny icon on your taskbar? The heck with that. Take that additional horizontal space on your desktop and pack it with big ol' thumbnails of the very programs you've minimized. It's a prettier treatment for organizing your active windows, although it would be nicer still if the desktop images of your windows were actually live, much like Windows' live taskbar previews.

Since this program is super-old and hasn't been updated since its third beta, you'll want to make sure that you're running it in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 2), else you will see no new icons on your desktop whatsoever.

Download it here!

Widescreen Fixer

There are apparently a number of popular games that just don't approach the issue of widescreen displays with much tenacity. And by that, I mean that a batch of titles--including BioShock, the Call of Duty Series, and Wolfenstein--don't properly adjust the field of view when you switch to a widescreen mode. This results in your picture getting cropped, which gives you less visible playing space than a person playing on a 4:3-ratio display. Yuck.

Widescreen Fixer does exactly what its name suggests, correcting the field of view issues for these games (including those with PunkBuster-based multiplayer, which isn't apparently bothered by this utility) and opening up around 20 percent more of the picture than what you'd otherwise see on a 4:3-ratio display. More picture means more killing--or, to put it in friendlier terms, you unlock a greater hunk of the game's scenery to admire while you're dodging bullets from your online adversaries.

As for the picture above, The normal-looking part of the image is a shot of Battlefield 2141 in a typical 16:10 mode. The blue chunk of the shot is what you would see if the game was running in a default 4:3 resolution, and the red chunk of the shot is what Widescreen Fixer unlocks for a 16:10 display.

Download it here!

Edgeless

It doesn't get much lazier than this. So, you have this new widescreen monitor, and you've noticed that it takes a lot longer for you to traverse from one end of the rectangular screen to the other. You're tempted to turn up your mouse's sensitivity settings, but you just can't adjust yourself to the new sensation. What do you do? You install Edgeless, a little utility that removes the virtual borders of the left and right sides of your display. Like Columbus, your monitor has now turned from a flat map into a three-dimensional world. Move your mouse off the left-most part of your screen and it'll appear on the right. Move your mouse off the right-most portion of the screen and... can you guess what happens?

Edgeless 2 also allows you to wrap your mouse around your screen vertically. However, users below have noted some potential antivirus issues with said program. We can't determine whether this is a false positive or a warning flag, but if you've already installed this utility, then you'll want to run a quick anti-virus and anti-malware scan on your system just to be safe (in fact, let us know if anything pops up). As for the app, your best bet is to pick up the original, problem-free Edgeless utility. If you're running Windows 7 on a 64-bit operating system, you might need to drop this app into Vista compatibility mood for it to work.

Download it here!

WinSplit Revolution

To truly organize your widescreen desktop, you can always try partitioning it into zones. WinSplit Revolution is a handy little application that allows you to snap windows into preset configurations using a bevy of keyboard hotkeys. But don't think you're stuck to a basic, say, two-by-two grid of windows. You can have windows span multiple "sections" either vertically or horizontally, and if you find you need more room for more windows, you can quickly make space for an additional row or column using the built-in hotkeys. Although this application is really designed for the keyboard fanatic, an experimental "drag'n'go" mode lets you move your window around the screen while the program highlights the different places your window could end up.

Download it here!

Always on Top Maker

The site isn't the prettiest, but don't let that deter you from the simple functionality presented by Always on Top Maker. If you don't want to fiddle with applications that split your screen into sections, or applications that dump your windows into icons on your desktop, or any other software craziness, then Always on Top maker is the no-frills utility for you. After all, the best way to make use of your widescreen desktop is to simply park something on one side while you do something else on the other--like, say, watch YouTube videos while you write freeware roundups. This normally results in your active window taking precedence over your inactive window and makes such a task impossible unless you literally isolate one program to one side, one program to the other.

Always on Top Maker lets you stick a window anywhere you want on your desktop, which will always remain on top of the active window you're working in. You toggle this functionality on and off with a simple keyboard shortcut. That's it. It's simple, it's easy, and it's a great way to multitask on your widescreen display without having to resort to fancier organizational applications.

And, no, this doesn't work to stop Plants vs. Zombies from auto-pausing your game when you switch to a different window. Sigh.

Download it here!

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. Befriend him on Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!

Alienware Launches 21.5" 1920x1080 Monitor

Paul Lilly — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:00:49 -0500

Alienware, a boutique OEM vendor who made a name for itself building high end gaming PCs offered in distinct looking cases, has just released its first monitor, the OptX AW2210, and it doesn't have any tentacles or other alienesque features protruding from the side.

"The ultimate gaming experience requires more than just a great PC," explained Frank Azor, Dell Gaming. "Alienware is building an ecosystem around our machines to give gamers the complete gaming experience."

It's not too surprising to see Alienware release a monitor, considering that Dell, an active player in the LCD display market, now owns the OEM.

The 21.5-inch widescreen TN panel boasts 1920x1080 full HD resolution, a 2ms response time, 16.7 million colors, an 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, two HDMi ports, four USB ports, and a titl/swivel/height adjustable stand.

It's available now for $299 direct from Dell.

Image Credit: Dell

NEC Releases Pictures, Price For Beautiful 43-Inch Curved Monitor

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:30:24 -0500

This week NEC announced a 43-inch, curved monitor that will sport a 2ms response time.

The CRV43 “ultra-widescreen” display will pack a native resolution of 2880x900, and thanks to LED backlighting, feature a response time of just 2ms. For those of you that are looking to get one of these for yourself, start saving now – it’ll cost you $7,999.

Though, for those of you that have gaming running through your blood, no length is too great in order to have the baddest rig on the net. And, adding this to your setup will without a doubt put you near the top of the stack.

Image Credit: NEC

NEC EA261WM

Tom Edwards — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:45:22 -0500

Our initial impression of NEC’s widescreen 26-inch EA261WM LCD monitor was overwhelmingly positive, primarily due to the thought put into its ergonomics. What puzzles us most about monitor design is why—even with obscenely expensive panels—user comfort is so often overlooked. If you’re planning on shelling out a load of cash for a monitor, something as simple as height adjustment (rather than the default homebrew solution of piles of books) seems like an obvious feature. The EA261WM includes not only height adjustment but pivot, tilt, and swivel adjustments as well, making it easy to share information on your screen with coworkers or even switch to a portrait configuration, should the need arise.

The EA261WM is also one of only 26 monitors to achieve EPEAT’s gold rating, the highest standard for environmental friendliness. To further emphasize its green attributes, the monitor includes an ECO mode, which lowers power consumption, and a carbon-footprint reader tells you just how much you’re doing to save the planet by lowering the brightness on your monitor.

While we’re all for good industrial design and eco-consciousness, we’re not interested in gaining these attributes at the cost of performance, and we continued to be impressed by the EA261WM after we loaded up a collection of high-res images. During our high-def side-by-side image comparisons, we were happy with the panel’s ability to display deeply saturated colors which, while rich, never slipped in to the realm of cartoonish. But while we found the monitor’s color depth top-notch, the EA261WM had serious issues differentiating grayscales at the dark end of the spectrum. We observed a strong loss of detail in both black-and-white and color photos. In portraits, people’s hair lacked detail, looking like a single-colored mass, where other displays showed off more texture and slight changes in color. Similarly, the tree line in a sunset landscape looked like a solid mass rather than the individual tress that appeared on other monitors.

This same issue presented itself in our movie test—some particularly dark scenes in V for Vendetta came across as a mass of black, rather than a range of black and grays. Utilizing the monitor’s video mode helped with this issue by increasing the contrast ratio; however, the preset also ratcheted up the brightness so much as to make some night scenes look as if they were taking place in the daytime.

Our DisplayMate (www.displaymate.com) tests backed up what we saw in our real-world benchmarks. The EA261WM performed admirably at the white end of the suite’s grayscale test, showing good distinctions between colors almost to the end of the scale; however, at the dark end of the spectrum, the monitor failed to shine, showing little differentiation through eight steps in the test.

With its wealth of ergonomic adjustments, we could see the EA261WM being a hit in the workplace, particularly if you need to share what’s on your screen with people close to you; however, while the panel’s rich colors impressed us, we found its trouble with darker shades to be an issue, making it a poor choice for people working with photos or video.

"Thin is In," Says Lenovo with its New "Y" Series IdeaPads

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:28:19 -0600

Don't want to trade power and and versatility for light, thin, portability? Lenovo says, 'Why should you?' with its new Y-series IdeaPad laptops. The new IdeaPad Y series features three different models, all of which include:

16x9 HD screens
Up to 500GB hard disks
Lenovo OneKey Theater display and sound effects settings to optimize gameplay or movie watching
Intel processors
Up to 4GB of DDR3 memory
VeriFace facial recognition technology
OneKey Rescue system recovery
Multi-touch touchpad

Optional features include NVIDIA GFX graphics and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

The IdeaPad Y650 features a 16-inch screen, is one inch thick at its thinnest point, and weighs only 5.6 lbs. It includes JBL speakers and an ambient light sensor to adjust screen brightness. Smaller models include the Y550 (15.6-inch screen) and the Y450 (14-inch screen).

These PCs will hit the market in March, with the Y650's starting price coming in at $1,199, and the other models starting at $829.

YouTube Finally Lets You Broadcast Yourself in Spacious Widescreen

Paul Lilly — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:30:36 -0600

If you've logged into YouTube today, you may have noticed that the embedded video player looks wider. That's because it is. In a blog post, YouTube announced it has widened the width of the page to 960 pixels in response to customer feedback, but that might only be part of the story.

According to reports, YouTube is looking to offer feature films by as early as next month and has already convinced one major Hollywood movie studio to jump on board. By upgrading its video player to support widescreen content, YouTube puts itself in a better position to pitch its service to even more content producers and better compete with other video sites like Hulu. Hulu, despite trailing YouTube by a wide margin in the number of viewers, is on track to catch up to YouTube in advertising revenue next year.

In the meantime, for those that prefer to watch crappy amateur videos in the 4:3 aspect ratio, YouTube ensures they will play just fine in the new player.

Good move for YouTube? Hit the jump and post your thoughts.

Matrox Soups Up TripleHead2Go Digital Edition: Up to 3x1680x1050!

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:35:02 -0500

Matrox's TripleHead2Go Digital Edition, which enables you to drive up to three digital monitors from a single DVI port, has just received a significant upgrade.

We last encountered TripleHead2Go Digital Edition in our January 2008 review of the Hypersonic Sonic Boom OCX flight simulator PC. Hypersonic used it to drive three 1280x1024 digital monitors for a 3840x1024 panoramic view of the wild blue virtual yonder.

So, what's new with TripleHead2Go Digital Edition? Now, you can run up to three widescreen displays at 1680x1050 or 1440x900 resolutions. 3x1680x150 gives you an eye-popping 5040x1050 desktop, while 3x1440x900 provides a slightly less stunning 4320x900 desktop (and, it also supports WXGA's 1366x768 resolution).

And, the best news is that you don't need to buy a new version of the external box: if your graphics card has an ATI or NVIDIA DirectX 10 GPU with the latest graphics driver and a dual-link DVI connector running on Windows XP or Vista, all you need to do is:

Upgrade your TripleHead2Go Digital Edition's firmware to version 6.52 or later
Install the GXM software suite 2.03.02 or later
Choose your monitors' resolution from the display.

If you're not sure you're ready for the upgrade, the upgrade page also offers a link to the GXM System Compatibility Tool.

Unlike Matrox's graphics cards, which aren't designed for gaming, TripleHead2Go works with your existing graphics card to provide a wider desktop for gaming or other tasks. If you're already using one, or think you'd like to give one a try, tell us what you think.

Update 8-08-08: A hat tip to reader spaced_out_monkey, a user of TripleHead2Go, for pointing us to the Matrox Surround Graphics website. It offers a list of over 250 games that work with TripleHead2Go, downloads, wallpapers, tech tips, and more.

Product image courtesy Matrox Graphics

Goodbye 16:10 - 16:9 Widescreens On the Way Now

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:12:40 -0500

With today's widescreen monitors and laptop panels providing 16:10 ratios, but tomorrow's monitors and laptop panels switching to the HDTV 16:9 standard, it's time to prepare for the future - now, warns market research company DisplaySearch. In the next 4 years, 16:9 panels will almost completely replace both conventional 4:3 and current 16:10 widescreen displays in both desktop and laptop applications. To learn more, see the report summary.

Image courtesy Microsoft