The Dell 2309W Monitor – A Dream for Content Creation.

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This is a quick update on my new toy, the Dell 2309W.

So far in my technical odyssey into internet marketing, I have been using my trusty laptop. I bought this back in February (it’s just a Studio 15 from Dell) and I have since upgraded the hard disk and installed Windows 7 on it – ping me for details if you really care!

The only problem I’ve had with it, is the screen size. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good for almost everything. The trouble is, the only thing it is poor for is internet marketing and browsing….which is kind of what I’m doing. Doh!

The reason: as a result of the widescreen format, it only has an 900 pixel deep screen… and every man and his dog put their buttons somewhere between 900 and 1024 deep on the screen. That tiny amount of scroll is driving me mad.

As a result, I decided to “create an office” and buy myself something that wouldn’t kill my eyes (or give me tiny amounts of RSI all the time). So, I’m typing this up looking at my brand-new Dell 2309W monitor.

Have I turned into a raving Dell 2309W fan? Well, possibly but actually this is a stand-out screen for many reasons. I looked at Samsungs and others, some of them with TV tuners, some with better dynamic contrast. I learned a lot along the way but the thing that made it happen for Dell was the number 2048.

The Dell 2309W has an awesome 2048×1152 resolution and what that means in the real world is that I can have 2 standard 1024 width pages on screen at the same time. If you want to create new material this is a dream come true. The browser sits on one side for research, word sits on the other for typing….perfect.

If you haven’t got a fancy-schmanzy Apple and screen to match and you are looking for a new PC screen, do yourself the favour of at least looking at one of these before you buy. Make sure you get the high-res model with the W, it set me back around £200. Considering my old Iiyama square 19″ was around £1000 a few years back, you could definitely call me a happy bunny. All in all the Dell 2309W gets a “highly recommended” from me.

How Many Free Internet Conferences Are There?

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Alright, I confess. I was at another free pitch-fest over the weekend. Are these things on all the time? I missed a seminar about public-speaking that I would have chosen in preference (but didn’t hear about until it had already started).

This time it was the World Internet Summit down at Heathrow. I say Heathrow when what I actually mean is “in a hotel down a little alley, hidden off a side street, near Heathrow”. The Thistle Hotel Heathrow, really has to work on its image somewhat! As a result, this felt low-key in some ways and yet all the usual names were there.

I went down on Thursday and Friday before getting twitchy about actually doing some work and making money rather than listen to others tell me how/sell me their scheme.

Having said that, the chance to talk to others in the UK who are in the same position as me is always useful and I’ll follow up a couple of them with some ideas, so the time I spent wasn’t wasted.

Of all the speakers, two stood out for me. I think I have written about Steven Essa before, an Aussie who has really taken on webinars as a means to making money. This still piques my interest, even now, after several days of cooling down, as I used to do so many in the corporate world. I have at least identified a final goal of being back on the stage using my speaking skills and webinars come a close second to that. I may still follow up with Steven, he seemed like a genuine character.

The other speaker of note was a guy from the UK who I have not seen before. By trade Andy Harrington is a motivational speaker and his talk fell very much into that category on day 1 of the show. He delivered a great talk to motivate people out of their inactivity but what I liked about his talk (as I say as an ex-speaker myself) was his ability to lead folk down a path in his talk to the point where they were about to fill in his next sentence – and then come out with something at right-angles to that!  So, for example, while talking about fears, he talked about babies only knowing a fear of falling and being isolated at birth (I think…eek where are my notes?) He went on to list something like 10-12 other fears (failure, looking stupid etc etc) and then asked “Do you think these are fears we are born with?….No, they are…” and you could hear the audience say the word “learned”. Andy, on the other hand, didn’t say that, he finished his sentence with the word “Bollocks” – completely breaking the flow of people’s thoughts.   Quite Brilliant!  He did a few other things that left me in no doubt that these were all planned. I will be making sure I don’t miss him if he’s on again.

So, what are your thoughts on all this? Do these seminars serve a purpose for the man in the street? Once again I was staggered by just how low the low end of knowledge really is. People wanting to get into Internet Marketing with almost no knowledge of computers? Wow, that market is just open for training!