The Empty Soda Can

I’ve been using AppleScript for years now, but I’ve never had the opportunity to become really good at it. I can do a few simple things, but once I get beyond that, I pretty much have to turn to the web. So it was, this morning: my office has two large windows in it, so the ambient light varies quite a bit from day to day and hour to hour. I finally decided that I’m sick and tired of adjusting the brightness on three different displays—not to mention hoping that they’re all exactly the same—on a regular basis. So as usual, I turned to the web. After a few less useful hits, I finally came to an old blog post called “ Change Monitor Brightness Using AppleScript .” It was exactly what I needed, with three exceptions: Since it’s four years old, it hasn’t been updated for Mountain Lion. It isn’t designed to change multiple displays concurrently. It doesn’t include the ability to specify the brightness level, on the fly. Having solved all three of these problems, I post my resu...

Well, long-time readers, it’s finally happened: I got a new computer! After years of agonizing over which would be best while waiting for it to finally become necessary, I settled on a solution: get a cheap Mac mini to use as a server, plus a MacBook Pro to use as my main machine. Along with the MacBook Pro, I plan to get two 27″  Thunderbolt Displays . Those grandiose plans aside, though, we’ve only received a small portion of our tax refund due to some government red tape. My new client, however, has specific needs that require me to have something newer than my 8½-year-old Power Macintosh G5. As such, I took the plunge: I picked up a cheap Mac mini—as planned—and a single Thunderbolt Display. (It’s actually pretty neat, going from a 20″ and 17″ to a single 27″ display, but to be honest, the biggest difference is Mac OS X v.10.7 Lion and the things it does differently. Not badly, just differently. I’ll adjust.) :-) Of course, amidst all this, I had to retire my old d...