Following on from tk's post, I'm obviously not alone in being a bit, well, baffled by the developer's claim to have come up with a software control of a hardware functionality.

I've used the donationware f.lux ever since US ophthalmology researchers Lorna and Mike Herf released it several years ago:

https://justgetflux.com/

On which basis then, many thanks to today's developer Daniel Georgiev and GOTD for bringing to the attention of many the issue of eye-strain and, crucially, the effect of different wavelengths of light on mood and sleep patterns.

PS: special kudos to Daniel for generously acknowledging f:lux in his product description, something which the Almighty Apple has -- disgracefully -- flatly refused to do. But then, a mere husband-and-wife team like the Herfs have no chance when the fruity monolith claims its much-touted 'NightShift' is all its own work. . .

MikeR  –  6 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+33)

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Not meaning to carry wholesale judgement on the product, but when I installed it, it immediately changed my mostly white screen into a darkish orange. The first thing you try to do, then, is find a menu, a command, something, to undo the unwanted change, before you even begin to examine the program. Alas, there's none available.

I mean : no obvious command, such as "undo", "normal", "default settings", "adjust colour", "bring back an honest-to-God white screen, you moron" -- you get my drift. Only some cryptic things like "automatic". I don't remember what I did to kick out that stupid orange glow. Probably exited the program. Then I think my screen reverted back to normal -- however it might have become bluer than before, I don't know. I'm sure there was no message such as "Iris restored your previous settings" -- an obvious requirement.

A bit later, I tried to determine whether the program was installed or portable. It turns out it "installs" itself... no questions asked... in the AppData folder ! And not even in my own AppData : I follow the recommended security practice of using a non-administrative Windows account all the time, but software installing themselves obviously ask for administrator privileges. So this program stupidly thought my user account was the administrative account, which I almost never use.

Developers of such programs needs to understand one thing : they should live by the doctors' most sacred obligation : above all, do no harm. Maybe your software is the best thing since sliced bread, and maybe it will change people's lives. Maybe. However, you need to be humble and take care not to disrupt your users' workflow and habits. Realise people out there have spent long hours calibrating their screens to an acceptable setting. Don't begin by breaking everything just to get noticed. If, by accident, you do, give people an easy way out.

Generally, be discreet. I'm sorry to break the news to you, but even if your screen-adjusting program is absolutely terrific, it will be used 1 per thousand of the time. So your first duty is to get the hell out of the way. And provide obvious, user-friendly commands for the rare instance when your product will be needed.

One strong point of this program is its detailed online user manual. You can see, there, that the developer sincerely thinks that at 3 pm your whites should be a dull pink, and that by 10 pm all you should be permitted, instead of white, is that disgusting brownish orange I was talking about. I suppose this is adjustable by the user, but if the first thing a program does is stupid choices you need to manually correct, that's moderately encouraging. Hint : adjusting screen colour temperature is about nuance. Slight changes. Almost imperceptible settings. It's not about pouring a pot of paint over the screen.

I uninstalled Iris, because it gave me such a bad start that I really don't have the motivation to investigate whether something better lurks deep inside.

Clairvaux  –  6 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+23)

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That's what I like to see: software so cheap that if you miss the free window you can still afford to buy it!

Sesquipod  –  6 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+17)

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True pulse width modulation (PWM) adjusts the mark-space ratio between the time spent on and time spent off within the base cycle length, it does NOT alter the frequency AT ALL! If your LED backlight flickers at low brightness then the PWM frequecy is too low to start with OR it is not using true PWM. Backlight LED's do not have to use PWM to alter brightness but it is the most power efficient way to control the power dissipated within an LED. There is no way that software can control the PWM rate faster than the actual PWM clock frequency set in hardware and trying to without being able to sync the software to the PWM clock is likely to generate random flicker in itself like a video signal that loses it's horizontal or vertical sync... the picture becomes a mess!
6 or 7 click the signs reCaptchas is a row to post this! insane!

TK  –  6 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+14)

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