Large fonts are OK

Or so I keep telling myself. I have always been a fan of small fonts. Maybe it was just the old school web designer in me, or maybe it was because for years I have tried to cram as much real estate onto my desktop as possible. I remember looking (and sometimes laughing) at screenshots of other desktops with their seemingly HUGE 16 pixel typeface and thinking, “Jeesh, they can barely fit one application into a space where I have four!”

Well…that all changed for me recently. For the past two months I have spent a great deal of time in front of my 15″ laptop screen–juggling four on-line courses, paid design work, and my usual duties as an Arch Linux developer. A few weeks ago I noticed I was getting headaches much more frequently than I’m used to. I also became aware that their intensity was directly proportional to the amount of time spent ‘at the keys’.

For a bit of background, my desktop consists of a 15″ widescreen LCD at 1680×1050. It is normally set to 100 dpi, with Arial 8pt for GUI stuff and Dina 13px for terminal applications.

I began experimenting with my desktop config last week, trying darker and low contrasting colour schemes in a vain attempt to ease the strain on my eyes. After each significant change, I’d go back to my routine for a couple of days to get acclimated. Despite this, nothing seemed to help and before long another headache would set in.

At some point I realized it wasn’t so much the contrast level that was bothering me, but rather my ability to focus on large blocks of text for extended periods of time. That’s when I decided to tweak my fonts.

The result? It’s been about a week now and I haven’t suffered a single headache. Not only that, but I can now sit comfortably in my chair without unconsciously leaning over my keys! And In case anyone is wondering the obvious…yes, I already wear glasses–a very light and up-to-date prescription.

For anyone interested, here’s what has changed:

I bumped the dpi/ppi from 100dpi to it’s natural setting of 124x125dpi (determined by X’s DisplaySize settings and the physical measurements of the screen (13″ x 8.3″)). This made an enormous difference for most GUI applications, with the exception of Firefox.

For Firefox, I have forced the minimum font size to 13, though I may bump it to 14 in the near future. It is not an ideal solution as there are several instances where small fonts are appropriate (sidebar text, etc.) however there’s no easy way to discern the body of a page from peripheral elements.

Lastly, for the terminal I’m still using Dina, but now at it’s maximum size of 16 pixels. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a decent console font any larger than that without jumping up to a 20px Terminus.

Posted by Thayer on November 10, 2008     0 Comments    

Squeeks in the night

Talk about life changing… in the last 24 hours our world has been turned upside down by the arrival of a 12 lb, moustached baby we finally agreed to call — Guinness.

We’ve been wanting a dog for a while but when we heard about a 17-week old, Miniature Schnauzer who was a purebred, registered, chipped and already house-trained puppy, we just had to see him. We spent most of the day with the pup and the breeder getting instructions on bathing, clipping and basic commands. After an overwhelming amount of information about his parentage and breed, the owner sent us on our way to go outfit our home with everything our new pup would need.

(It should be noted that the last time we seriously bought anything from a pet store was at least ten years ago and so it came as quite a shock to see bejewelled leashes, dishes, bedding and every funky treat and toy imaginable. We had to dig through mountains of neoned coloured brushes and leashes to find something plain… no foo-foo stuff for our guy!)

So with a trunk full of must-haves, back we go to pick up Higgins, MacDubh, Saxon, Barley, Murdoc, Duncan, Dougal, Lochy, Madagen or Guinness. At one point we took a break from all the shopping to sit down over a beer and discuss the serious ramifications and stigmas of picking a name. We originally liked Saxon a lot, but thought calling his short name might be construed as yelling for SEX, which might be fitting for some, but after looking at his little face and noticing his stoutness of character and stance, we agreed on Guinness.

Well Guinness puked in the car on the long journey home (poor little guy) and I in turn just about joined him (poor little guy). The last 24 hours have consisted of us doing nothing else but getting him set up: a poop area in the yard (yes we even brought home a baggie of his poop from the breeder, so that he could recognize his scent on our lawn) with multiple trips in and out just to make sure. The biggest trick is to get him used to his new name and his surroundings, so we have basically alternated sitting with him in one area of the house. The first night he cried a bit but seemed to sleep through, even if we didn’t sleep as well. We had to go out to the pet store again the next day to get a better cuddly and of course it was a well-debated decision — should we get the giraffe or the ducky? He’s very interested in chewing plants, walking between our legs, getting behind furniture and exercising those baby teeth on our fingers.

I had somehow assumed we could bring him home and quickly settle back into regular life, like homework, reading, computing, cooking and the usual day-to-day stuff, but it is not happening. In fact we have neglected just about everything else to talk about how cute he is, how temperate and smart he is and to marvel at his poops in the yard. Ah crazy pet owners. I hate those people who talk about their pets like they are their children, and we don’t want to be those people either but it’s hard not to want to show him off! By the way, we bought the ducky….Check out our little bundle of Guinness at: Flickr

Posted by Libby on September 21, 2008     0 Comments    

What doth make a newbie?

The term “newbie” is now in the dictionary, but we all know what it means. Not surprisingly, it is used blatantly throughout the internet, but yet surprisingly it is the subject of constant and heated debate in community forums. Since the term has become so mainstream, I have been pondering what doth make a newbie?

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Posted by Libby on August 27, 2008     0 Comments    

Screenshot conundrum

It started off as a lark, a bit of a jolt to the mainstream just to see a reaction, if any.  As it turns out the non-reaction said more than any comment could.

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Posted by Libby on August 7, 2008     4 Comments    

Idiot’s Guide to Dummies

I recently made a pit stop into our rather large Canadian bookstore and was discouraged to find that books for “Dummies” and “Idiot Guides” and have spread over the bookshelves like our resident pine beetle attacking our pine forests. The infestation was more than I could have imagined however as almost every aisle, from cookbooks to computers, were littered with those bright yellow shiny covers breaking down subject matter into tidy snippets of residual information.

This influx must be due to the ‘want it now’ generation where people can’t stand to spend more than a few minutes on one thing before losing attention. Want to learn about Italy? You can now find out everything you need to know, not by reading a travel guide written by an experienced traveller, but by quick facts summarized by a computer, with cute little diagrams to keep your attention. These invading, generic and shoddy attempts at information could be called the Walmartizing of books.

A while ago, I noticed this invasion of Dummy books at our small,local book store where the computer section is nothing but “Windows for Dummies”. There was not one independently written book on anything other than mainstream technology.*blah*

It is discouraging to realize how popular and how invasive these books have become, while independent writers are pushed aside by these seemingly informative and digested knock-offs.  It is sad too as I realized that over time, our wonderfully diverse bookstores will become one big yellow store for dummies.

Posted by Libby on August 4, 2008     3 Comments