Our recent addition to our home has been this monolith, 24-inch iMac, and I think I am finally getting comfortable with fitting it into the overall scheme of things. Since about April of 2003, I’ve been a laptopper, getting one of the first versions of the 17-inch Powerbook[wiki] when they came out. It’s still going strong, but the processor, hard drive, and screen real estate cannot compare to what I have in front of me right now.
Having two machines to work with can increase your productivity greatly, but I find myself getting increasing concerned with not remembering what is where. I’m slowly discovering the little tricks that the Mac OS can do to handle this, but there isn’t a lot of time to spend on learning everything, not to mention the downtime to undo what you could potentially hose your whole operation with.
The big thing that was bugging me with this machine was being able to turn the screen off. You can have the computer automatically shut off the monitor after a period of time, without going to sleep or shutting down, but I need this at my fingertips. Thinking green, I like to help cut down on energy consumption as much as I can.
I found this really nice widget for Dashboard on your iMac. Sleep Display does exactly what the name says. One click, wait three seconds, and the display turns off. You can adjust a few settings, and I can sleep easier now.
No, seriously. If you leave the display on in our apartment, the display is so bright that the light shines slightly annoyingly into the bedroom. This widget actually allows you to sleep, especially while the machine is busy downloading our “entertainment” overnight.
In my IT/RF days at WSUI/KSUI, I was pretty used to bouncing between desktops and laptops, not to mention the PC platform that prevailed there. When you toss the personal factor into the mix, it throws you for a loop. I’ll get used to it, but the Powerbook will always be that saving grace when it comes to being mobile.