Be Excellent To Each Other

OK, before you tell me to red the (12 page long) manual or look on the help, I have and I have. I have also looked on t'internet for about an hour foe the stupidest thing ever.

My cousin helped get me a discounted iMac yesterday, which is all lovely and shiny and doesn't sound like a saying brontasaurus when I try and open up a text editor (like my old, unloved PC did). I'm used to having my little friendly macbook, which, when I press the smaller of the sun symbols starts to dim the screen and if I press it to the dimmest setting and one more makes the light on the display go off.

I like this, and I keep trying to turn my display 'off' on this iMac and it doesn't work

I don't want to put it to sleep to make a cup of tea, but I like thinking that my screen is blank. I don't know why, there is no-one else here, it's just a comfort thing, and I suppose I do it out of habit.

I know there are some mac users around, so -any ideas, possums?

Hit it with a hammer.

Admittedly it's a permenant solution, and possibly not what you're looking for.

I'm sure you could change this in the power settings (turn display off after a certain period of inactivity). My mac's at home, so I can't check.

No, and it probably wouldn't work - it seems a bit sturdy.

My cousin carried it from the store to the car, then from car to the foot of my comupter desk. Ii tried to set it up after he left and almost broke myself in two trying to lift it from floor to desk. I got the smaller one as well, I don't think I could have managed the larger one.

Yes, I think you can set it to turn off the display after however many minutes, but I like to be able to press a button and it go off. I don't know why - probably just habit, as I say.

What kind of bleedin' computer doesn't have a simple power button for the screen? Insane, who'd buy one? etc. rant moan.

This may help Mimi:
http://linestreet.googlepages.com/sleepdisplayapplication

Thanks Zardoz - it looks perfect, but I don't think it works with my OS (they keep naming them after cats - I can't remember which cat I am on now... )

I'll go to Asda and search some more when I get back.

I know why I like it - it's so that I can turn my screen off and yet still continue downloading things.

Comical G - it may well turn simply off - I jut haven't worked out how, yet

It probably has a button.

Who says size doesn't matter?



Malc

I was led to believe we'd be able to control computers with thought by now. Why hasn't that happened?

I'm also pretty sure Bill Gates said 10 years ago that voice recognition for everything would be the norm in 5 years time. I'm also pretty sure he said the same thing 5 years ago and yet my bastard DS still can't tell the difference between RED and YELLOW on brain training.

Almost certainly. I am just to dim to find 'the button'.

Do you have a very strong accent, CG? I always managed fine with the Brain training colour game but my sister was close to useless.

I have no particular accent of any kind Meems, I just found it a bit naff. I'd say 'Yellow' the exact same way several times and it would eventually accept it, even though I was saying it at the same volume and pitch.

BROO!

Googling suggests that you just can't do this, unforunately, not straight away. The best you can do is set your display to go to sleep quite quickly. I don't have a running Mac so I can't walk you to it exactly, but it's something like Apple Menu at top left | System Preferences | Energy Saver.

You should see a screen like the one about halfway down this page -- the 8th one down. The "put computer to sleep when it is inactive for" slider should be quite a long way over the right, this controls how long (after you walk away from the computer) it will run for before it shuts down. If you want it to download things or play music while you are away from it you need this to be quite a big number, and perhaps you want to totally turn that off by moving the slider all the way to the right. Then the other slider you can move all the way to the left, which will quite quickly (after just a minute if you take it down that far) black the monitor out when you walk away from the computer but leave the computer running.

There is no easy way, though, to just turn the monitor off, I'm afraid. Just a bunch of hacks and workarounds that all look rather clunky to me.

IIRC, if you don't have brightness controls on your keyboard, you have to go into the Display section of System Properties and muck about with the brightness settings from there.

Or maybe you could use that little app I posted above.

If it's privacy rather than energy saving Mimi, you could always allocate a corner in your screen saver prefs to quick start your screen saver.

It doesn't work with Leopard, Zardoz. MR SMUG WINNER FACE.

I think if you tickle it at the top of the screen, it will switch off.

MR BARELY CONCEALED CHILDISH SNIGGERING FACE.

Have you considered getting either a thick-ish black blanket to drape over the screen, or an opaque black dustcover?

This is a serious suggestion; I know folks who do these.

Yes it does!
\

Umm, it says it doesn't.

I know it doesn't. It does work with Brit Rockers from Sheffield though.

*Pours some sugar on myself*

Ah. I am Mr Point Missing Point Miss'ar it seems.

We can't all be awesome. Life is cruel.

Yes, I did reply t your suggestion, Zardoz - it was a great idea, but as has been said it doesn't work with my brand of cat.

I have set the display to sleep after thee minutes, Richard, so that's working at the moment. That way the screen shuts down but things are still running in the background, rather than the whole computer going to sleep, and that's fine with me. I don't have any work to protect, and don't actually have anyone else to look over my shoulder at what I am doing anyway - it's just an energy thing, and, also, if I turn my attention to something else for a little while the screen distracts me with it's 'oooh, look, you have an email' type taunting.

Overall it is very nice - that is the single one and only thing that I kind of miss, that and I keep on rubbing my fingers on my desk beneath my keyboard, where I keep thinking the trackpad is.

Yes Mimi, I know you did, I thought Richard had missed it (and I didn't realise what OS you were running, sorry).

Oh...Oh? I am confused, but thanks for the suggestion anyway - hopefully someone will make something comparable, soon.

Didn't I already sort of do that joke?

Malc

but why not just use sleep in the apple menu/or the appropriate shortcut?

Whilst not quite the same, you could set up a 'hot corner' in the screensaver preferences that switches the screen off.

Conversely, you can also set a hot corner that means the computer won't go to sleep when you're watching, say, a long youtube video.

@ Romanista - it's because I want to turn the screen off, not set the computer to sleep - if I am am, say, downloading something I don't want to have to put it to sleep as it will stop the downloading in the background. Turning off the screen lets me do that whilst the computer remians quiet and the screen darkened.

thanks for the idea, chrisc, I am going to try and figure out how to do that now

Chrisc - that was the perfect solution - I just move the pointer to the very corner and the screen goes off - it works perfectly, so thankyou so much

I have also set one up to disable the screensaver for DVD watching and iPlayer perusal, so thanks again for the tip

Ah, I love you guys

Glad I could help

We have one of the new iMacs at work (the Leopard ones) and it has a button on the back that when pressed puts the monitor (but not the computer) to sleep, and when held down turns the whole thing off.

Apparently. I don't work on it, but the one who does reliably informs me this is the case.

Um.....



Nice lady at work seems to be correct.








*Runs away, ashamed.....*

Also, you didn't even mention that it was a woman, did you?

*Runs faster*

No, hes a man, with huge muscles, that he is flexing right now in outrage at your assumption.

Hes not girly at all. Honest.

You're just talking about yourself now, aren't you?

GazChap is taller than many of our mountains, but I don't recall him being particularly muscular, so I guess not.

That said, we only embraced for such a teasingly short time that I could be wrong.

I'm sure he's been building himself up to impress you further, so that you'll gasp as his muscular new transformation during your next embrace.

Damn, rumbled again!

Utterly off topic, but I like your avatar. I am listening to it right now, and have been doing so very heavily for the past week or two since disvering it.