April 5, 2009

Tips for working outside on a Macbook

It’s beautiful outside and I’m reading and writing from a patio café in Raleigh. I’ve always preferred working outside, but squinting to read my Macbook’s screen in the sun always deterred me. I looked into those photographer’s shades, but those are bulky and weird for café culture. However, I found the winning strategy in OS X’s Universal Access.

Universal Access is designed as an accessibility tool for disabled users. But I’ve co-opted it as a way to get a tan while still catching up on work. Here’s what to do:

1. Turn on Universal Access. Go to System Preferences > Universal Access. Under Seeing > Display, click the radio button “White on Black.” This inverts the screen’s chroma and keeps it from getting washed out.
2. Upsize your cursor. Under Mouse and Trackpad, crank up your cursor size so you don’t lose it. Because you will.
3. Zoom the Display. Text still kind of small and hard to read, no? Now you need to zoom the display. Hold down Control and do a two-fingered swipe up. This embiggens things. Zoom out by doing the opposite. (If the constantly panning display makes you seasick, you can change this in Universal Access > Seeing > Zoom > Options.)
4. Use Spaces: Resizing windows can be a chore. I use Spaces and put each window in a separate virtual display. Moving between them is a keystroke away: Control + arrow pad.
5. Learn Keyboard Commands: You should be doing this anyway, but if you’re not, here are a few good ones to get your started:
   • Switch between apps: Command + Tab. Use the left and right arrows to cycle between the running apps.
   • Access the Safari / Firefox address bar: Command + L
   • Access the search bar (Firefox): Command + K
   • Scroll the page down/ up: Spacebar / Shift-Spacebar, respectively.
   • Go back in Safari / Firefox: Delete
6. Did you remember to put on sunscreen? Rub the lotion on the skin.