F.lux
I was working with Joanna this week, and all of a sudden I saw her screen turn this peculiar shade of yellow. I mildly freaked out, thinking that her computer was short-circuiting, and she introduced me to F.lux. From their website:
During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun. F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.If you put in your zipcode, it will know when the sun sets in your neighborhood, and adjust the tinting of your screen to be less straining on the eyes – your usual bright, blueish white in the daytime, and more of a tungsten shade at night. Looking at the two shades together is pretty extreme, but I have mine set to change over the course of an hour and don't even notice the difference.
Ommwriter
Lauren wrote about this one almost exactly a year ago, and I remember her freaking out about how beautiful it was. Ommwriter is an experiential writing application that takes over your entire screen with soft colors and ambient music. It's a really pleasurable writing experience that allows for little distraction. My personal favorite are the typing tones you can choose from – it brings back fond memories of the ICQ typewriter sounds from the mid-90s. I burned the midnight oil and wrote three stories for Laura's upcoming zine, NY _____.* using Ommwriter this week, and it was so pleasantly different from using Word or Pages.
What are some of your favorite tools to help make endless nights more productive?
* Please help fund, there are only a few days left to help make this (awesome) idea a reality!
