Blog readers write in from time to time to ask me about the various gadgets at my desk, shown through the watchful eye of the J-CAM. I'm proud of the gadgets that I've chosen for my desks both at work and home; they help me do my work efficiently and allow me to monitor various data feeds. Today I'll explain what the large screen on the left does.

My W2306C Dell 23" LCD TV Display

Despite the fact that you often see a Windows or Mac display on the left, the hardware showing this is actually the W2306C Dell 23" LCD TV Display. At $699 retail, it's not cheap, but it gives you great flexibility for connecting computer and audio/video components.

When we moved our office from the AccuWeather Operations Floor in Spring 2006 to its current location near the front of the building, I needed a solution that would get rid of four bulky, heat-producing CRT monitors (one iMac monitor, a Dell monitor and two Dell monitors on my main PC) and also a 13" tube TV. This Dell LCD TV Display was half of that solution. (My main PC is connected to the wide-screen monitor on the right, and I'll explain more about that on another day).

The W2306C has the most inputs I've ever seen on a LCD TV or computer display... It includes DVI (my "test" Mac), VGA (my "test" PC), Coax (the in-house TV cable), RCA (from my VCR) and much more. Typically I will display the VGA PC screen in the main window with the TV cable (typically FoxNews or CNBC) in the Picture-In-Picture. The PIP is very customizable, including the size, position, and transparency. It has freeze-frame 12-screen or 3-screen PIP or PBP.

You can see below a J-Cam shot of RadarPlus being displayed on the PC (for some reason I had the PIP turned off this day). This is a United States Pressure gradient map, a closeup of which you can see here. It actually has wind speed, direction and radar overlaid on to the gradient, which is over an Infrared satellite picture. AccuWeather.com RadarPlus is available as a subscription service from AccuWeather, for Windows or Mac.

Overall I have been very happy with the unit -- the only thing I haven't been able to figure out how to do yet, and this may just be lack of time on my part, is show the VCR cable in the main window and coax cable in PIP. It seems to have some limitations regarding exactly what can be paired with what in the PIP. But there are a lot of inputs and the manual is online, so the next rainy day...

You can see the screen every day on the J-CAM but you can get more detail of the screen itself looking at this photo of my desk. Or, you can see a huge digital photograph of my desk on the blog entry where I posted sample images from my new digital camera this summer.

Why do I have a TV at my desk at all? This is a valid question; not everyone at AccuWeather does. Well, I guess it stems from the days when I was the first person to write the Weather Headlines (PREMIUM | PRO) back in 2001 or thereabouts, so I'm grandfathered in. These days, it helps me to monitor AccuWeather appearances on television, and to watch the news media for potential weather stories for this blog.

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