12 June 2010

How To Live With 1024x600 Screen Resolution

Although I didn't get my HP Mini 311 back this week, I'm still hoping I'll be getting it back within next week. My target is Tuesday but in the remaining days between now and that fateful day, I still have to live with the 1024x600 screen of my HP Mini 1000.

Computing with a hackintoshed netbook with this screen resolution is bearable, even quite good in fact. Although the netbooks' Intel Atom chip hardly trumps a G4 PowerPC in iBooks, the fact that the former can run Snow Leopard and are lighter, more portable than the latter is enough for me to prefer hackintoshed netbooks than real iBooks.

So using hackintoshed netbooks on a daily basis spells happy days. Err, until you find yourself with lots of open apps and open windows. That 600 vertical real estate has forced me to put my Dock vertically on the left side for more comfortable workspace.

There was this one time that I had activated Spaces to organize my open windows but then they're not that many and I find myself getting confused with where to find each one. This wasn't the solution for me, clearly.

And then I stumbled upon an article in OS X Daily; "Enable Single Application Mode". And before you react violently, NO, this is not anything like Windows XP Starter Edition, but rather it "is a way to force Mac OS X to show only the application that is currently in use, all other open applications and windows will be minimized into the Dock. Selecting another application from the Dock will then minimize the current application, and the new selection becomes the only thing on screen."

Here's what it looks like in action:


It kinda reminds me of Ubuntu Netbook Remix's behavior, which is quite nice. :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i go with spaces (and expose) though. Why? Got used to it already! :P

Anonymous said...

Why don't you plug the mini 1000 to a bigger VGA monitor (when at home)?

LeMaurien19 said...

^Uh, I use it for couch websurfing.
Reckon an LCD monitor would defeat the purpose of the entire couch setup.
Whilst my Mini 311 provides more screen real estate in still a quite compact package ;)

Anonymous said...

Ok, I understand.
Of course the 311c is better: I have an MSI Wind myself, and I decided to buy a 311c a few weeks ago, after seeing your blog. ;-)
Still, I think an iPad might be even better for your couch websurfing. ;-)

LeMaurien19 said...

The Ipad would be wonderful indeed :D