Today's Tip: Blinkers (again)

[Rebecca Petris]

Overheated, dry air... that time of year again, when everything we have to do for our dry eyes we have to do MORE of. Including cultivating better blinking practices when staring at the computer!

Remember to do nice, slow, full blinks and to consciously blink more often than you would do naturally when you're at the computer.

For newbies not familiar with it, here's our handy Blinkers tool (courtesy of The Almighty) to help you remember!

[Eyeproblems]

I really like these things, I am no computer expert but sometimes doing homework they can be a hastle. Would it be possible to have these things embeded in the tool bar at all? I often try to put them in the corner, but sometimes if you click outside the blinkers will minimize, and its hard to keep them up in a seperate window that alone can be a struggle, especially moving around into different programs. Or maybe even an icon in the taskbar that blinks.

It would be nice if there was a toolbar blinker or something, integrated in. But I dont know how possible or easy that would be.

[Guest]

Blinkers in the taskbar? Uhhh . . . no.

It would be nice if there was a toolbar blinker or something, integrated in. But I dont know how possible or easy that would be.

Embedding the Blinkers in the Windows taskbar would be a great solution, but alas, there are some things even the Almighty can't do. I previously issued a challenge for a solution to the Blinker limitation; so far, no takers. Earlier in that thread, Homes demonstrated how to tile your windows, which handily addresses the problem if you're only using your browser, but if you switch applications frequently, you may still lose sight of your Blinker.

Lest The Almighty squander another opportunity to plug the Mac (God's gift to Microsoft-oppressed humankind), I should mention that there is a solution available to the enlightened. The Mac's equivalent to Windows' taskbar is called the dock. When you minimize a movie or other window to the dock, the movie keeps playing (at a reduced size) in the dock. So when I minimize my Blinker, it keeps blinking right on schedule. The size of minimized windows is adjustable, as well, so I can make my blinker as large or as small as I want. Interestingly, I have found that even a very small blinker achieves its purpose.

Of course, The Almighty does not advocate buying a Mac solely due to its convenient Blinkerability, but it is one more reason for the Mac faithful to be thankful they have been redeemed from the blighted masses.

[Rebecca Petris]

Time for another reminder about blinking more frequently when you're on the computer.

If you don't yet have a Blinker, choose a color now!

Click here for blinkers.

[Steve]

5, 7 sec versions?

I dunno about you guys, but I couldn't keep my eyes open for 10 seconds if I tried, when I'm feeling dry-eyed.

Could you perhaps post 7-second and even 5-second versions for those of us who need them?

[Rebecca Petris]

LOL. Neither could I. The blink frequency was not meant as a suggestion of how long to wait before blinking.... Actually, we played with more frequent blinks and ended up thinking that it was a little too distracting. That was a long time ago though. I'll see if I can get the Almighty to make a few new ones that blink more often!