A Better Mac Series: Dim Vision Be Gone!
My PowerBook has an annoying habit, one that seems all the more noticeable under Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger): dimming the backlight "part way" whenever I linger too long reading an article.
This dimmed state, about halfway between fully on and fully off, goes away the instant you move the touchpad or touch any key, but it is oh-so-annoying for people who actually read articles on their computers.
Some searching and playing around yielded the answer to this "half dim" dilemma, and banished my dim vision from the PowerBook forever! Read on if you'd like to solve this problem, too.
The answer to this problem lies in the Apple Power Manager settings. Many of these settings can be changed via various System Preferences control panels, but not all. Alas, this dimming feature is one that appears to require some work with the command line.
To change this setting, you will need to open a Terminal Window, and prepare to use the "pmset" command, which gives you direct access over many power-related settings.
To begin, enter the pmset command with the "-g" option, which will simply list your current settings:
pmset -g
This will list your power profiles (by default, you should see "Battery" and "AC Power"), followed by all the current settings. Among these, you should see a setting called "halfdim" with either a "1" (active) or "0" (disabled) next to it. After making sure that the current setting is "1," you need to enter the following command to turn off the "halfdim" feature at all times:
sudo pmset -a halfdim 0
You will then need to enter your administrator password for the computer, and voila! You are done.
Note 1: the "sudo" is necessary because pmset must be run as the superuser to change any settings.
Note 2: the "-a" option sets the halfdim setting for all profiles; that is, it will be the same whether you are running from battery, or from AC power. You may limit the change to just one profile by entering "-b" for battery or "-c" for charger (i.e., AC power).
I recommend executing another "pmset -g" to verify the setting has been changed; you should now see "halfdim" with a zero next to it. From now on, no more dim vision!
"A Better Mac" & "A Better PC" are each an ongoing series of articles to bring attention to some of the things that can make your overall computing experience more enjoyable and productive. All the tips in these series are actually in use by me on a day-to-day basis, and have proven useful, fun, or just plain "gee whiz" enough to bear repeating!