Fire and Knowledge

There’s a simple and free method to make your iMac screen glare-free that I haven’t heard anyone recommend or discuss yet. It’s so easy that I can’t believe no one has mentioned it.

Maybe because it’s crazy?

Anyway, glossy screens are great for looks. But if you’re sensitive to reflections or struggle with headaches and eyestrain, you do not want a glossy screen. Good God, anything but staring into a glossy screen all day! In spite of that, for some unfathomable reason — and even though their customers want it — Apple has stopped making iMacs with matte displays.

Anti-Glare Add-On Filters Suck

When I got an iMac, I purchased the best anti-glare filter available (by Photodon) which I thought would fix the glare issue. It was laughably bad. It made the image grainy and the screen sparkle as I moved my head. There was no way I’d be able to use it without losing my mind.

I called support. They acknowledged the issue and said that “photographers and graphic designers wouldn’t like it.” I can’t see how anyone would like it, unless they enjoy a screen that sideshows as a kaleidoscope.

I returned it.

The Secret

Then I figured out an even easier and far more effective way to make my iMac screen anti-glare. No, I didn’t replace it: I removed the protective layer in front of the screen.

It ends up the front layer is the main source of gloss — the screen itself has very little reflection! According to my tests, it has about 50% less reflection without the front layer.

Removing the Protective Layer

Removing the layer is surprisingly easy:

1. Get a large suction cup.
2. Attach the section cup at the top left of the screen, then gently pull.
3. With your other hand, pull the right part of the screen and it’ll come right out (it is held on by magnets).
4. Finally, gently pull the bottom toward you until it pops out.

That’s all there is to it. You now have an anti-glare screen!

Here’s a howto video on how to remove the protective layer:

But It’s Not Purdy!

Yeah, that’s true. It doesn’t look as good without that sleek black bevel and the screws exposed. But for me, a little less beauty is a fair price to pay for less headaches and eyestrain. It’s the best way I’ve come up with, but if anyone has a better idea please leave it in the comments.

I’m sure it’s possible to mimic the black bevel border with heavy black paper or plastic, but I haven’t had time to try that yet.

Here’s a business idea for an entrepreneur: Get someone to make a black border that snaps right in and then sell them for $50-100. I’d buy one. And if I had time, I’d have someone make and manufacture it. But I don’t, so it’s up to you.

Newspapers have a love/hate relationship with Google. They love the traffic it brings, but hate that it seems to be destroying their print profits. Consider what Robert Murdoch said:

“Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?” asked the News Corp. chief at a cable industry confab in Washington, D.C., Thursday. The answer, said Murdoch, should be, ” ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ “

Danny Sullivan gives the solution that’s been around for over a decade:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

That little bit of code would stop Google from indexing their site. Their complains would be over.

But they don’t really want Google to stop “stealing their copyrights,” do they?

If you are a one-person company, you must spend at least 60 percent of your time getting and keeping customers. Companies do what the boss does. So, if you are the CEO of a 10-person company or a 100-person company you must spend 60 percent of your time getting and keeping customers. You must do this so everyone else will do it. You must do this continuously, regularly, vigorously.

—Jeffrey Fox, How to Make Big Money In Your Own Small Business (2004), p. 27.

Remarkable coincidences are rare. But they do happen.

I ran into this one the other day. Puzzle expert Cory Calhoun noticed that this text from Shakespeare:

To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

can be rearranged (anagramed) into:

In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.

Sometimes remarkable coincidences are, in fact, just remarkable coincidences.