Filed under: Hardware, Apple, Rig of the Week
Rig of the Day: Romantic monitor

30 inch Apple Cinema Displays boost productivity, especially when they are hooked up to 17 inch MacBook Pros. It is a fact. This cool rig, the backlight monitor really does it for me, is spartan but some folks were crying out for simpler rigs. See, I do read the comments!
New Setup by pdsphil.
If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Due to popular demand we have dropped the 'Rig of the Week,' but sound off in the comments if you want it back.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tony said 12:23AM on 9-22-2006
Hmm.. very nice. But how can the MBP be running the screen when the sleep light is "breathing"?
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pdsphil said 12:46AM on 9-22-2006
Thanks for the RotD link!
I wondered about the light too, when I first unpacked everything and tried to set it up. At first I was not able to get the 30" to work with the MBP screen closed.
I figured it out after some trial-and-error. Aparently Apple wants you to put the MBP to sleep first by closing the lid, then plug in the 30" Cinema Display. You then wake the MBP by hittng a key on the external keyboard, which brings the MBP out of sleep mode and powers on the 30". The sleep light stays on while in this mode. I guess the MBP 'knows' a Cinema Display is attached and can drive the external display while appearing to be sleeping. Also, for power reasons, the MBP has to be plugged in for the 30" to run - it took me a while to figure that out.
I'm not sure how this would work with another display, like say the 30" Dell. Anyone tried it?
Phil
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Spence said 12:49AM on 9-22-2006
The MBP's light comes on when the internal screen is off. It doesn't pulsate like it does when it's sleeping, but the light is on when the display is off.
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devron said 2:40AM on 9-22-2006
Looks nice. Where'd you get that cool wallpaper from?? :-)
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Mr Lizard said 2:40AM on 9-22-2006
I'll second #3- it's just like the MacBook light. Whenever the lid is closed, the light remains on
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Tony Barnhill said 3:10AM on 9-22-2006
The only way to get a mbp to not sleep when the lid is closed is to have a keyboard, monitor, and mouse hooked up to it. I use it with my Dell 2405. I plug my apple keyboard and mouse into the USB hub on the monitor, then plug that and the DVI into the mbp. I have to open the lid to turn it on, then once it's booted up all the way, close the lid. It then goes to sleep, so then I just push a key on the keyboard and it wakes up with the Dell monitor as the primary/only monitor.
The light stays on the entire time.
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Tim Morris said 4:46AM on 9-22-2006
@No.4
The wallpaper is from www.digitalblasphemy.com.
I subscribe to it, so you may not be able to get this one free. They are really cool and well worth the $25 for a year!
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John said 2:10PM on 9-22-2006
seriously, looking at someones standard, unmodified cinema display with a lamp behind it is boring and certainly not blogworthy news or information.
this is poor content. STOP doing the rig of the day.
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dann said 5:10PM on 9-22-2006
if you find rig of the day boring just skip it, no one is forcing you to look at the photo
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