I don’t see all that well with low contrast. Blue on blue isn’t too good for me. And the thin outlines of the mouse arrow make it hard for me to find it.
Black on white is great, as would be bold typeface. And a mouse arrow with thick borders would also be helpful.
Is there any way to get such things done?
I use Internet Explorer.
I opened a thread recently on something similar to this. You might find some information there.
In Windows, you can change your mouse arrow’s appearance in the Control Panel, under Mouse.
As for the overall appearance of the boards, VBulletin has skins that the admins can make available for users; no idea why it’s never been implemented here at the Dope.
ETA: You can also click on “Show Printable Version” up at the top under “Thread Tools”, and it will display the thread in black-and-white.
What specifically do you mean by “Blue on blue”? (Where are you seeing that?)
One possibility (albeit a very clunky one) would be to go to the Tools menu, select “Internet Options”, and then click the “Accessibility” button. (This is on IE 6–I’m not sure if it’s different on other versions.) In the “Accessibility” dialog, there’s a section called “User style sheet”.
vBulletin defines styles that it uses to display the contents of threads. What you could potentially do is track down the style definitions, modify them to suit your needs, and save that on your machine as a .css file. You could then point the “User style sheet” to that file and it would take precedence over the default settings you get from the SDMB (I just checked this out and it works–I was able to show the standard text of posts in bold, for example).
Now, what makes this a clunky possibility is that other web pages on the Internet may use styles with similar names, so your .css file would also affect how they’re displayed, which may or may not be desirable. So what you might have to end up doing is set the “User style sheet” setting on and off whenever you go to or leave the SDMB. This is something that you’d need to play around with.
Note to other Dopers: It might not be a bad idea to give David Simmons at hand at crafting the .css file. My .css skills are pretty rusty, so if someone else wants to take a crack at it, I’d appreciate it.
'Show Printable Version" just showed all of the urls in the same old blue on blue in my machine.
With your tip my mouse pointer is a tad better. Using pointer trails helps locate it better. All of the options seem designed to make the point visible but not intrusive. I need an intrusive pointer, dammit.
Ok, board tsars. How about an option for black on white?
As was said previously we have no current plans to change the layout or design of the SDMB
You can tailor your preferences to suit yourself on your own computer. Absolutely check out the “Accessibility” options in your computer’s Control Panel settings – and be sure you have all the ones you need loaded, you may need to use the “Add Windows Components” function to get all the ones you need.
Hope this helps you. Sorry to hear you’re having problems.
The problem, of course, with a general Windows setting is that it applies to every site.
I’ve set every possible setting for maximum visibility and as of now, with the pointer trail switch “on”, things aren’t bad. I think I’m good for another year or two.
Having settings apply to every site doesn’t bother me. I need to see in all of them.
Thanks.
If you use Firefox, there might be an extension or Greasemonkey script that does the site-specific color change.
I just did ‘show printable version’ and I get black text on white background… where’s the blue on blue?
nevermind
In IE 7 under Page there is a “zoom” option and “text size” option that may help.
ETA: Oh, and IE7 uses something called ‘clear type’ for all webpages, it may help as well.
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I found this, which may help. I can confirm that the bookmarklet turns the SDMB to a black background with grey text in Firefox, though you do have to click it for each new page you visit. I haven’t tried the greasemonkey script that they also offer at the site.
I confirm the Greasemonkey script works as advertised. I must be psychic. 
The “stylish” extension mentioned in the comments on Lifehacker looks promising, too.
“Show printable version” under thread tools doesn’t give me a white screen with black printing. I get the same dark blue letters on pale blue background that I get on the normal screen.
I can get along with what I have now. I’ll check back in another couple of years if my eyesight goes downhill any more.
Thanks all.
That’s weird - I can’t quite understand where the ‘blue on blue’ thing is coming from at all - I haven’t seen it anywhere, in any browser, on any machine 
Are other windows similarly affected (such as your word processor)?
My screen shows white border, with pale blue background for where posts go, with royal blue posting names and sort of a duck-egg blue separator. Black text. So, black on blue on blue on white.
Hope that helps.
I’ve never seen this blue-on-blue thing, either. On every computer I use, SDMB text is black on a white (well, nearly-white) background.
Huh, mine is black font on a white background as well.
The only blue that I see is a narrow darker blue dividing line between posts followed by a wider pale blue dividing line where the post time and post number is located. The only other blue I see is a very pale blue background in the Reply box. EVen there though, the text is black font.
Ditto here. I don’t see blue on blue anywhere.