Vakkotaur

I've been using linux on one of jmaynard's old laptops for a while and I generally like it, but there are a few things that could be a bit easier, such as getting wireless to work fully. One way out of that would to go to a newer machine, and that's possible as Jay has a Mac laptop that he isn't using. That brings with it a different problem: Steve "do it my way only" Jobs rigid user interface design, as far as I can tell.

I was with a few folks visiting an Apple store today and I tried to change the user interface on one of the display machines. There were two settings that pretty much did nothing. One changed a few blue highlights to be gray highlights. The other did the same thing for different highlights. Nothing I could find let me change the retina-searing white-hot default application background to something more tolerable, nor could I change the color of the type. ANY type. I asked the person who had come over to help our group and evidently the question had never come up before. "I'm sure there must be a way." But if there was, it was not revealed to me.

Jay did mention some means of switching everything to be a negative, but that's not what I want. It's like the UI designer figured "Oh, they want it different, well, this IS. So there. Now go away." Alright then, maybe UI sanity has to be set on a case-by-case, application-by-application basis. I looked at Safari. If there's anything that lets me change more than typeface sizes that isn't, "Go write your own CSS page, kid." I have yet to discover it.

For a system that seems to get so much right, this seems a rather jarring omission. I don't think I'm asking for that much to have a user interface that isn't only a choice between eyestrain and eyesore. So, is there some way to get a Mac, one using OS X, to do what I want it do, or does using a Mac mean being tied down in Jobsian interface bondage?