Screensaver | Technology Blog

Run Screensaver As Desktop Background

December 5th, 2008

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Animated desktop backgrounds are a hot topic since Microsoft made them popular with the release of Dreamscene for Windows Vista Ultimate. We covered ways to use screensavers as Vista wallpapers in the past but the following method works both in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Screen2Dream is a portable application for Windows XP or Windows Vista that requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. The software program will automatically provide the means to turn any installed system screensaver into an animated desktop wallpaper.

This is done by pressing by selecting one of the available screensavers and pressing the start button in the program’s interface afterwards. Each screensaver is shown in a small preview window in the interface as well to aid the user in the decision.

Wikiquote Screensaver

November 16th, 2008

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We have covered the Wikipedia Screensaver in the past which displayed and rotated through random Wikipedia pages. Some users did not like the randomness of the screensaver which could bring up inappropriate content on the computer screen.

The Wikiquote Screensaver makes use of yet another Wikipedia site but gives the user more control over what is actually displayed when the screensaver activates. Wikiquotes provides access to a large collection of quotations in several languages.

The screensaver makes use of an interface that can be used to add quotes to the screensaver. At least one quote has to be added before the screensaver starts working at all. This is done by searching for a name or term. A list of matches will then be displayed. By default all are selected to be added to the screensaver’s rotation.

Use Screensavers As Vista Wallpapers

September 30th, 2008

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Windows Vista Ultimate comes with the Dreamscene extra which can turn videos into background screensavers. Several other applications like VLC offer this options as well. A tip was posted over at Tech Recipes today that mentioned a hidden setting in Windows Vista that makes it possible to use any screensaver as a Windows Vista wallpaper.

This hidden setting works in all versions and editions of Windows Vista. All that needs to be done is to execute a single command to execute the screensaver as the Vista wallpaper. The best method is to test run the feature with the default screensavers that are shipped with Windows Vista and use custom ones after making sure that everything is still working properly.

Open a command prompt by pressing Windows R and typing in cmd. Now execute the command aurora.scr /p65552. It can take a few seconds before the changes become apparent. What you should see is the screensaver as the new wallpaper in Windows Vista.

Wikipedia Screensaver

September 25th, 2008

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Screensaver Thursday here at Ghacks it seems. After the visual impressive PC screensaver Analogy comes one that is more for the mind and less for the eye. And I do not want to get into the argument again if screensavers make any sense these days other than being visually pleasing or information providing. I’m not an expert on burn-ins. Just that much. According to Wikipedia only CRT and Plasma monitors are affected by burn-ins which is caused by the phosphor coating. The article points out that LCD monitors can only be affected by a usually not permanent form of image persistence.

The Wikipedia Screensaver displays random Wikipedia pages which are replaced in intervals that the user can define. The screensaver makes use of IE to display the Wikipedia page in fullscreen on the monitor.

The screensaver can be configured to kill any application or processes that are still running on the system. The question about the usefulness of this screensaver has to be answered by every user individually. I personally cannot truly see a reason to use the screensaver. It does not make much sense to display the pages when the user is sitting on the desk while they also do not make sense when the user is not that close to his desktop.

PC Screensaver Analogy

September 25th, 2008

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PC Screensavers do not truly have a functional purpose anymore because today’s LCD monitors because they do not make use of cathode ray tubes which could “burn in” images into the screen. Today screensavers serve an mostly aesthetic purpose. There is also the believe that screensavers save energy when they are running which is not the case. Users who want to save energy should configure the computer to turn off the monitor after a certain time instead.

The PC screensaver Analogy (via Lost in Technology) by Jesson Yip provides strong visual elements. The basic idea is to display a analog-digital clock hybrid which combines the aesthetic visuals with the functionality of a clock or as the developer put it “Analogy is a typographic clock which fuses the immediacy of digital with the visual-spatial quality of analogue into a hybrid format.”

The screensaver comes as an executable that installs the screensaver automatically during installation. The Pc screensaver takes the information from the system clock and displays the hours, minutes and seconds and their progression.

Use Caffeine To Keep Your PC Awake

July 27th, 2008

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I’m normally the one who needs two fresh cups of coffee every morning before I start my usual routine of checking emails, comments and statistics of my online empire (hrhr) but the analogy of the software Caffeine is quite tempting.

Computers can go to sleep as well as we all know. They can fire up a screensaver or go to sleep by turning off the monitor completely and Caffeine is a software that can prevent this from happening by simulating a keystroke every 59 seconds.

The default value can be changed to a keystroke every x seconds instead. To prevent problems with running applications the software simulates a shift-down, shift-up keystroke in Windows 98 and a shift-down keystroke in Windows XP and 2000.