What's the story on screensavers?

[fajrdrako]

...On my computer. Should I use one? What kind is best?

Comments

[nishatalitha.livejournal.com]

Both at work and at home I have one that scrolls through my pictures file. The artwork is noticably different at home. It means, however, I get to see a lot more of my collection of random artwork than I would otherwise. I just have to remember to turn my monitor off if small children are around...

[ladykoori.livejournal.com]

Does your computer often sit idle with nothing on the screen moving at all for long hours? If so, then yeah you should probably have a screen saver. Something simply like it rotating through pictures works just fine. You can tell your computer to use pictures in a particular folder or just all of your my pictures folder if you want.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the kind of screen saver I usually use. It's fun to see all my pictures appearing on it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've had my problem with the screensaver at home, too! It scrolls through all my pictures, and don't I enjoy it.

I've been known to have it distract my guests at odd moments, too.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

If you have a CRT monitor, a screen saver that changes things helps avoid burning in a pattern. The picture changer is fine. I like it, too.

There is usually a energy savings setting dialog near the screen saver settings - you can have the monitor turn off (go to standby) which saves both energy and the screen, both burn-in and life.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel quite strongly that these days there's no reason not to have the monitor go into stand-by mode if you're not using it for a few minutes. Especially since a wiggle of the mouse wakes it up within a couple of seconds.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

What is your feeling about turning off disk drives? I got into this business when many failures occurred on startup/shutdown. Things seemed to have improved, and I am turning off both disks and monitors these days. Don't know what effect it is having (other than saving energy). Have had some hardware problems recently, but with some equipment that has a poor history in itself.

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

I have a file of Clark and Lex, TW & MR photos that rotate every few seconds. Leah has one of JRM pix. We're both very happy with them!

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

They're not as necessary as they used to be as most computers go into stand-by mode and you don't have hours and hours of the same pixels burning out the screen. But they are fun. My home computer cycles through my pictures, but my computer at work has a Torchwood quote.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

(And if people don't get the reference it doesn't matter because it's me:

"That is so Welsh... I show you something fantastic and you find fault!")

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My equipment seems to have been pretty reliable lately - touch wood - so I tend to turn the computer, monitor and printer off when I go to bed, and then turn it on again either in the morning, or when I get home from work.

There are exceptions.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I still have Clark and Lex recycling on my screensaver. And various pictures of David Tennant, Chrisopher Eccleston and John Barrowman. And a few of JRM too! Always fun to watch.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What is the Torchwood quote? There are many good ones!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! I love that line. And it's so nicely delivered.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Screen savers are no longer as necessary as they once were. But they can be quite pretty.

There are some cases, such as creatiing or "burning" a CD, when a screen saver is a clear hindrance. Most of the time, this is not a problem ... but you may want to know how to disable it on occasion.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Being pretty is reason enough to want to use a screensaver.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

I used to use a screen saver called webshots. You could dl pics from their site (there's some amazingly beautiful photos on that site) or insert your own pics, but it only showed the pics you added, so you had control which pics were shown. It wasn't just trolling your entire pic collection. But i decided that it was more energy efficient to let the screen sleep if I'm not actually using it, so it shuts off after 20 or 30 minutes of no work.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I had webshots once. Every once in a while I go back there and browse pictures.

I like the idea of setting the screen to shut off after 20 or 30 minutes.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Screen savers are mostly entertainment at this point, not something that actually does anything necessary. Modern monitors generally don't have burn-in problems except in extreme situations. (Being outside in a kiosk or ATM machine where the brightness must be turned up all the way and where the exact same thing is displayed most of the time is such a situation. Even then, most newer monitors don't burn in.) If you're really concerned about it, having the monitor go into power saving mode is a better choice.

When choosing a screen saver, I'd recommend making sure you know the source is legitimate and that it doesn't stop programs running in the background from continuing to run. Screen savers are used as a way to spread malware, so you have to be careful which ones you choose to install.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining. I think I'm happy with the program that scrolls through my pictures file - it's quite entertaining, in fact!