Please, please, please don't ask me to give up AOL. It's AOL or my wife! That being said, I just bought a 17" LCD monitor to replace my 15". All the windows XP display settings I had before had to be changed to accomodate my old eyes. Naturally, the start menu, task bar, etc. went and shrunk on me. :p One of the settings I changed was DPI from 96 to 125. Everything got bigger, problem solved. NOT SO FAST. The AOL welcome screen and various preference boxes suddenly had words missing or cut in half. After I narrowed it down to the DPI setting, trial and error brought me to 107% of normal size - 103 DPI. Even a touch more and the words start to go away again. By the way, using 1280x1024 resolution. This doesn't seem to happen with any other program. Is there any work-around?

I'm not quite sure if this is what you're looking for, but if you Right-Click on your desktop, slide down to Properties. Display Properties will open up...look under the Appearance Tab for Schemes and select one of the schemes with Larger Icons.

As far as the resolution, is there any reason that you need everything so fine? Unless your editing photos where you might want that kind of detail, web browsing at your stated resolution won't achieve much. Most of the websites were created to fit folks surfing at much lesser resolutions (800 X 600 if I remember correctly).

I also use AOL and run at 1024 X 768 and the detail appears sufficient for browsing and most common usage. As more folks are moving up to the 17" monitors more web designers are accommodating with HTML code that is directed to the 1024 X 768. However, with most folks still using dial-up, loading time is a concern.

You can always adjust the resolution for specific projects that might need finer details.

From what I've read, I was under the impression that LCD monitors were best if run at maximum resolution. Maybe I'm mistaken.

Yep, that is true. At max resolution and max refresh rate. However, using a magnifier program, you can view your text in whatever size is comfortable. I found that XP has a magnifier built into it that will allow you to read the text magnified at the top of the screen and since you have so much more screen to work with, it is not a problem. You move your cursor over the text you want to read and it "projects" it up at the top of the screen in whatever magnification you want. If you aren't using XP, I would check whatever version you are using and if still no joy, would go to www.pcworld.com to download a free version of some program that would do the same thing.

Of course, you could just change the resolution to 800x600 every time you use AOL, but what a pain....:eek: :rolleyes: :D

Budfred

Now Budfred, no pickin' on AOL! Or, or, Nooyawkah's wife will come over and clean your clock! :D

Sorry I missed the LCD scenario in your original question...

If you needs be running highest resolution...then I guess I would still head into the Appearance Tab and make my icons and their text a bit larger....

I've been playing around with it for awhile and maybe I can live with 1024 x 768. Not really bad. I read the manual for the monitor and it said 60 hertz was the ideal refresh rate. Ouch! My eyes hurt just thinking about it. I put that at 75. To hell with technology, my eyes are too old for this.

Please don't sic your wife on me, I wasn't putting down AOL, I was commenting on the hassle of changing the resolution. I have heard that AOL is a pain, but I have been spared the direct experience. I have used PCLink (long dead), CompuServe, Earthlink and Prodigy, but never AOL.

Budfred:eek: :eek: :D

Truth be told, AOL is a bloated, graphics-laden program and I'm not it' biggest fan...but then there's the wife.....