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There are several things going on here:
* Interference on your phone is caused by RADIO frequency emissions.
All electronic equipment emits some amount of RF noise. Some things
(cordless phones, etc) are INTENDED to create RF, while others do it
as a side effect of how the electronics works -- sort of "electronic
pollution." Your PC's CPU is a fabulous radio transmitter, as is the
video controller card in your monitor. Most of this RF noise gets
shielded inside the PC/monitor case, but some leaks out. Changing to
a different screen resolution or refresh rate changes the frequencies
the monitor generates, and apparently your phone "hears" the new
frequencies better. RF is reasonably safe, or at least the RF from
your monitor is not likely to be a big additional risk. We all live
in a sea of RF, unless you abide in a mountain cabin without
electricity. Your monitor's RF won't hurt you. If you're worried
about RF, I'd be a lot more concerned about your cordless phone,
cellphone, cellphone towers, local radio stations, power lines, etc.
* The more dangerous emissions from CRT's are generally X rays and
other high-energy radiation. Most modern CRT's are pretty well
shielded from this (there are strict regulations for it), but there
is still some hazard. There are still many who feel that the lower-
energy emissions from a CRT can harm you or stress you, and that may
very well be possible. Personally I suspect a lot of the gizmos to
"protect" you from CRT emissions are snake oil -- how is a little
pendant supposed to block/absorb all RF in the area!? -- but I can't
say for sure.
* A very likely cause of stress from your monitor is eyestrain caused
by the refresh rate. This is how often the electron beam sweeps down
the screen to repaint the picture. Like your TV screen, this has to
happen many times a second. The faster the refresh rate, the better.
If it's too slow for you, you can get eyestrain and headaches. Some
people don't object to CRT refresh rates as low as 60 Hz. Others are
sensitive to it as high as 72-75 Hz or more. You'll notice it more
if you use a light/white background on your charts, and often you can
notice it more out of the corner of your eye. Set your refresh rate
for the highest possible supported by the resolution & color palette
you want to use. More color, i.e. 65k colors vs. 256 colors, or
"high color" (16M colors) vs. 65k colors, requires more RAM per
pixel. If you set one too high, the other one will automatically
decrease. But I don't think colors affect refresh rate. Higher
resolution means the video card needs more RAM to hold all the
pixels, so it interacts with the color setting. But more pixels
means there's more dots to paint, and the video card maxes out in its
ability to paint dots, so more resolution again usually means the
card has to "downshift" to a lower refresh rate.
* I run a 1600x1200 desktop (I like LOTS of stuff on my screen :-) on
a 19" display, with 65k colors and 75Hz refresh rate. If I was
getting eyestrain I'd try moving it up to the next higher refresh
rate, 85 Hz, though that would require me to go down to 1280x1024.
* The ultimate solution, as Bob H. said, is a flat-panel display like
an active-matrix laptop screen. Not only are they smaller and sexier-
looking, they require less power, run cooler, are sharper than CRT's
(no convergence/etc problems, and no signal distortion from the video
card, because they don't USE a video card), emit virtually ZERO
radiation except a bit of RF, have none of the visual distortion
issues endemic to CRT's, AND they have no refresh issues. All pixels
are on at all times. They are the BEST thing for someone who stares
at the screen all the time. Their only real technical limitation
that I know of is that individual dots can go bad on them, just like
the screen on a laptop. Unfortunately they cost about 2-4x as much
as an equivalent CRT. :-( But you shouldn't need as big a screen as
you're used to -- I understand a 17" flat-panel is exactly equivalent
to a 19" CRT, or thereabouts. Apparently they measure them
differently.
Gary
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