It’s time for another Mac freeware feature! This round, the focus is on a a little app called Shades.

If you’re an iMac user like myself, you’ve no doubt noticed that the screen is VERY bright, even at the lowest setting. This is especially noticeable when working later at night, or in low-light conditions. Or, perhaps you use a desktop machine with a monitor that doesn’t allow you to change the brightness. This is where Shades comes in to play.

Shades is a small app that runs in the background on your system and allows you to fine tune the brightness of your display. It works by putting a solid layer of tint over your entire screen, much like tinting the windows in a car. The default tint colour is black, so of course this will simulate that your screen is getting darker the thicker you layer on the tint. You can change the colour to virtually anything that you choose, but honestly, I can’t imagine a situation where you would need anything other than black. Shades also includes hot key functionality and a couple of other small customizable features.

Shades is available as a free download for both PowerPC and Intel Mac users, and runs on OS X 10.5 or later.

Until next time!

Your beloved Scapegoat,

Mike Schumann, Owner/Operator

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Applications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.