Jul 31st, 2013

Author: marionmccune

Are Cats Conductive….

A few weeks back I think I had been reading too many articles about Windows 8 (which I have been running since the Consumer Preview) and touch. So I thought it would be an excellent idea to buy a proper touchscreen monitor for my desktop. It could sit on the right hand side of my desk and host the start screen plus any Metro (slap – Modern) apps I am running. The other two monitors could host the Windows Desktop, MS Office and my testing tools.

So I bought a Dell ST2220T 22″ touch panel and duly installed it. What a lovely monitor, the colour depth is stupendous, the contrast great, and it has touch which is really useful for the start screen. All goes well for a few hours, then I am deep in a report, go to the kitchen for a coffee and leave File Explorer up on the new monitor. I return five minutes later to a message on the screen ‘You cannot move a directory to a sub-directory of itself’. How strange. And Tora is sitting in my chair with that ‘I’ve been here for hours’ expression on his face. Hmmmm….

Next day. In IE on the new monitor. Cat comes through Window. Tail brushes against Monitor and display zooms to 1600%. Spend 10 minutes trying to put it back. Close Window and put cat on floor. Cat jumps back up and sends half completed email to customer with tail and then has a spirited attempt at formatting the hard drive with his nose.

 

So I would never have believed it – but the furry parts of cats are actually sufficiently conductive to operate capacitive touchscreens, rendering an expensive monitor a lot less useful for what I wanted it for. It has had to move to the middle slot on the desk where it is not so good for the touch screen, but isn’t in the way of the all important route to the window.