John Gruber mentioned in a recent post about Apple's Snow Leopard list of Enhancements and Refinements that one of the small adjustments to Snow Leopard will be that the default gamma on displays will switch from the typical 1.8 value to 2.2, which is what is used on TVs as well as being the long-standing default gamma value in Windows.

Gamma affects the visual contrast you see on your screen, and a higher value indicates a higher level of contrast. The cost of this higher contrast is that you lose some detail on the less luminous parts of your screen.

If you're interested in seeing what this is going to look like in Snow Leopard, or switching your gamma setting now so that you're used to it ahead of time, here are the steps to do it using the Display Calibrator Assistant:

1. Head into System Preferences, and click on the Displays icon.
2. Click on the Color tab, and press the Calibrate... button.
3. On the Introduction window that opens, click Continue
4. On the next screen, "Select a target gamma", choose "2.2 Television Gamma"
5. Click Continue leaving your Target White Point set to Native (or whatever yours is set to)
6. Now name the new profile you've created, click Continue and then Done.
7. Lastly, you can now choose to switch between your default color profile, and your newly created profile with the gamma set to 2.2.

I realize this might seem terribly obvious to some users, but for others playing with color profiles is not ground they've previously covered. If you're one of those people, this tip is for you.

Some of the unsung wonders of working in Mac OS X are the features influenced by Fitts' Law. I first saw this concept mentioned and articulated by John Gruber in his Fitts's Law and the Apple and Spotlight Menus portion of a Tiger Details page he was maintaining after the launch of 10.4. In fact, I might as well just quote John for a summary on the basics of Fitts' Law:

The gist of Fitts's Law is that the time it takes to point to a target - in our case here, with your mouse or trackpad - is a function of the distance and size of the target. Bigger and closer targets are easier to hit.

The beauty here is in how Apple has leveraged this concept with Mac OS X's UI, right down to the reason behind the menubar being pinned and always accessible at the top of your display. Basically speaking, there are five primary targets that are dead simple to hit, without even having to look at them: the four corners of your display and the menubar (and sure, the Dock could count as a sixth, but I'm leaving it out for now). You can easily just fling your mouse 'up' and hit the menu that governs the application you're working in (or any you can quickly switch to); it might seem like a minor detail, but it's one that makes it a lot easier to land on the menu you need and keep working.

The four corners of your display are even easier, according to Fitts' Law, since they are what John called 'infinitely large targets.' You can close your eyes and fling your mouse 'down and to the left' and know that you've hit the lower left corner of any display. Attach an action like invoking Dashboard or an Exposé view to those corners (accessible via the Dashboard and Exposé System Preferences pane) and you have just enabled a powerful way to access information and organize your windows. Tack on a 3rd party tool like MaxMenus, CornerClick (a download is available but their site is under renovation) or Spanner and you open up even more possibilities for using these incredibly easy targets to enhance the way you work.

John Gruber has penned an interesting observation of how Microsoft might very well have missed the mark from the get-go when they made the strange decision to take on the iPod and iTunes. Since the player's initial wiz-bang sales period is essentially over (as in: it more or less set a decent sales barometer, at least for now), John wrangles some interesting statistics from Amazon's charts on exactly where the Zune stands in comparison to Apple's players (including year-old models), as well as its ranking in the overall electronics category. To spoil the surprise: the Zune isn't doing so well. We've looked at Amazon's charts before, but as of this writing, a record player is beating out the best selling Zune on the electronics list, while iPods - specifically the small, flash-based nano and shuffle - dominate most of the top 10 spots.

John then uses this data and good ol' fashioned people watching to conclude that Microsoft shouldn't have taken what could be their only swing at the plate in producing a hard drive-based iPod; they should have cranked out a flash memory model to go head-on with the nano - inarguably the home run slugger in Apple's lineup. While I tend to agree with John, I also see a problem with going down this road: Microsoft would likely have had even less room to maneuver, and even fewer things to market ('Beam your tunes') and invent lame, dead-end lingo for - they actually refer to sharing your music wirelessly as 'squirting'. Who wants to bet how excited Steve Ballmer's kids are to 'squirt' at school?

Sure, when you look at what you're up against in the DAP market, Apple's iPod nano and SanDisk's respectable 2GB Sansa player (expandable via an SD slot, and at #11 on Amazon as of this writing) are the top dogs to beat - but what could they have offered? I highly doubt they could have fit their DRM-crippled and arguably worthless (though admittedly buzz-worthy) Wi-Fi sharing feature into a nano-sized player, even if they made it slightly larger and uglier like the Zune is to its 30GB iPod rival. A 'Zune nano' with nothing unique to offer would dry up on its own in a market already dominated by Apple, SanDisk and Creative, and Microsoft's exclusive, 3rd party bitch-slap of a music store would have even less of a leg to stand on.

In summary: I think John's right - Microsoft made a bad move in copying the 30GB hard drive-based iPod, but it was the only move they had. In this light, it kinda makes you wonder why they bothered in the first place.

Brian Ford at Newsvine has served Mr. Gruber with 7 questions, all inspired by various DF posts. Spanning topics such as John's guess on the Macalope's identity, weekly Jackasses and just how useful the rumor business is, it's a short but interesting read on one of the Mac web's most intriguing pundits.

John Gruber has released a command line tool called BBColors which allows BBEdit and TextWrangler users to save, reload and even share customized color schemes. BBEdit, like many code-friendly text editors, has offered a coloring system for some time, but it still doesn't allow users to save and swap out schemes for, say, different languages or simply different days of the week. John's free utility not only brings color swapping to these app's tool belts, but he also posted a few examples to help get your feet wet. DeviantART, eat your heart out.

Instructions for installation and usage can be found on Mr. Gruber's project page for BBColors.

The second round of voting is under way over at My Dream App. Vote and let your voice be heard! Plus, when you vote you get a free copy of Mori, Hog Bay Software's document organizer.

This round's judges are the cream of the crop of Mac bloggers including John Siracusa of Ars Technica, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. Oh, and somehow yours truly got invited to be a judge. Go check out the apps and vote for your favorite.

My favorite idea so far? Blossom, I've never seen an app like it and I sure hope it gets some votes.

Maynor and Elich's rewards just doubled, though the odds remain the same: Jim Thompson, a blogger who has been doing a knock-out job of dissecting this MacBook Wi-Fi hack fiasco, has offered a second MacBook on top of John Gruber's challenge to the dynamic duo. After all, what are two guys going to do with one MacBook?

In an update post, Mr. Gruber announced the doubled prize for the challenge (which hasn't been accepted yet, by the way), and apparently had to publicly explain why he believes the challenge is actually fair. Check out the post for some key snippets that lay the breadcrumbs for what could likely be one of the most significant security-related showdowns of Mac OS X's career - if the visiting team ever actually makes it to the field, that is.

John Gruber is at it again, and this time he's taken the MacBook Wi-Fi hack drama to the cleaners with perhaps the most in-depth play-by-play analysis I've seen to date (would you expect anything less?). Mr. Fireball starts at the top, even including an explanation of the various components involved (card, driver and 'third party') to make sure everyone can follow along. He covers the sensationalizing "Hijacking a MacBook in 60 Seconds or Less" article blog post from Brian Krebs of the Washington Post that started all this, mixes in some he-said she-said from the likes of SecureWorks (the company who sponsored this supposed hack at the Black Hat hacker conference) and Apple's PR response, and even finds time to toss in some thoughts on George Ou, a ZDNet blogger who is valiantly determined to go down with the ship. It's yet another fantastic read from Daring Fireball, a site to which I'm glad to say I've purchased a membership. Check it out.

John Gruber, a man who knows his cheesesteaks as well as his Macs, is on the scene at WWDC and is armed with his camera. He took the picture above and posted it to Flickr. Notice it says, 'Please ensure that your communications with others outside WWDC 2006, including your blogs, do not contain any Apple Confidential Information.'

We have made it people, Apple fears blogs. Or something.

Conrad Quilty-Harper, a writer for Mac site TUAW.com, has decided to continue using his Macintosh computer, countering the recent trend for high profile Ubuntu switches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom (July 26th, 2006) - Conrad Quilty-Harper, a writer for the popular Macintosh blog, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, has announced a bold plan to continue using Mac OS X for the foreseeable future. According to Conrad, this move is partly in reaction to the recent trend for relatively high profile figures across the web to announce their plan to switch away from the Mac OS operating system to Linux-based operating systems, in particular Ubuntu.

On the subject of Ubuntu switchers Cory Doctorow, Mark Pilgrim and now Bryan O'Bryan, the owner of Mac modding and hacking site ResExcellence, Conrad said, "I just don't care." He also poses the question, "Since when did a person's computing platform of choice become a matter that must be announced to the public?"

As an example of his extraordinary resilience, Conrad says that he will continue to use the Mac until either his needs exceed the Mac operating system's capabilities, or he gets a life and decides that he didn't need a computer anyway. Conrad also states that he agrees with John Gruber's point of view regarding the Ubuntu switching trend. "I defend the right of others to switch to other operating systems, and even to point out the shortcomings of the OS they are switching away from, but please, can we stop the whole 'NEWSFLASH: random dude switches away from the Mac!' nonsense?"

The Zune is coming, the Zune is coming! We all know that Microsoft has announced (but not shown off a working model) their iPod competitor (I noticed that most articles about the Zune aren't calling it an iPod killer, so I won't either) that will have WiFi, a social component, and quite possibly double as a cheese grater.

What's a Mac pundit to do? Why, pull out your Magic 8 Ball and start answering some questions about Zune, at least that's what John 'My Fireball is more Daring than yours' Gruber did today. Head on over for an entertaining and informative read. You'll be glad you did.

John Gruber has published a glaringly well-written piece that dissects the iPod's unstoppable success, why things are going so well and why analysts should simply remove the term "iPod-killer" from their vocabulary. While it might be a bit lengthier than your typical "iPods are great, Dell sucks" blog post, it is a wholly educational and darn solid argument worth every word.

So head on over to Daring Fireball (click the Read link below) to find out why Apple can't make the same mistakes they made in the 80's, how Apple is out-innovating everyone despite their monopoly, and to hear an actually compelling case for why the iPod's competitors should just close shop - especially since one already has.

John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, or 'the Grubs,' as I like to call him, has posted a lengthy review of this year's Macworld. He goes over what he expected to be announced, what was announced, and what he thinks of the whole thing.

It is nice to see that we weren't the only people surprised by the Intel iMac announcement. Oh, Apple, you are a cruel mistress.