Melanie Hudson asked:


Rare old school IT professionals still remember the practical value of early screensavers. The cradle of modern computers in early 1990 was also the cradle of early PC monitors.

The time humanity was spending behind of a computer screen has been skyrocketing since and it still is. Back than in late 20th century screensavers were born for a simple reason. It had nothing to do with the computer itself.

The standpoint of science back then could not efficiently solve some crucial deficiencies. PC screens that were left on for hours were subject to a danger of permanent damage. The letters on your screen got burned into the structure of the screen surface and stayed there for good. Regardless the fact that monitors quickly became a mass production product, there still were no cheap and reliable answers to that issue.

For those days a hardware solution simply could not be produced. A fantastic non-hardware product swiped away every monitor related worry of those days.

That is when first screensavers saw the light of the day. It was just a matter of time for screensaver providers to realize there could be much more to screensavers than just simple words randomly flying across the screen.

Those first windows operating systems still had to cope with monitors which development was staggering well behind what motherboards and computer chips were experiencing. Personal computers were experiencing renaissance in terms of usage - what was initially developed for work turned out to be extremely useful for entertainment and fun. Nowadays you can hardly find any computer screen in use that would not be technologically advanced enough to prevent any possibility of a permanent screen freeze.

Modern hardware is so intertwined with the software that each PC screen can be easily adjusted or turned off when you stop working. However you look at it, leaving a blank screen when going out for a coffee is just no fun at all.

The competition among screensavers has become a fierce business on the web. If not at least one of basic human emotions are affected, a screen saver is likely to pass into oblivion. One has to be at least shocked, touched, relaxed, entertained or brought to laugh in order to categorize a screensaver as successful. It started with simple graphics and came to highly advanced software.

World Wide Web opened its doors to all sorts of software that brings most unbelievable solutions to ones PC monitor. A question pops up where to draw the line between a slideshow screensaver, animated screensaver, interactive animated screensaver and a movie.

Turning back to a well known fact that each science evolves into several different scientific directions the evolution of screensavers is also likely to branch into at least 5 equally represented categories of screensavers.

Free animated screensavers, free funny screensavers, all those freebie searches on the web seem not to harm continuous investments in better, more interesting and even more interactive screensavers. Freeware society is taking its toll but screensavers seem to be immune. All it takes is to check the number of pages in yahoo for free screensavers.

Pay nothing and get a good product seems to work.

Funds for screensavers are provided by third party providers who develop their own free software and offer it to screensaver providers to include it into their screensaver installation package and are compensated for each download or for a specific action required from the final user of the screensaver. Following the pace of new screensavers available online, it is hard to imagine the developers will stop at free animated screensavers.

We can all look forward to new ideas which will soon be conquering PC screens worldwide.



ROB

Joseph Toth asked:


There are a great many screensavers out there for your computer. Do you know how to tell a good one from the rest? The good ones, being true screensavers do exactly what their name implies. On the other hand if you don’t use a good one, you probably just have a screen decoration using the name screensaver.

Many people don’t know there is a difference between screensavers, they see the name screensaver and trust the software for what it is supposed to do. In this article I will discuss these differences and how you can spot them in your screensaver software.

There are just as many free downloadable screensavers out there, as there are retail screensavers. Retail screensavers have some very good ones as well as some not so good ones. This also applies to the free downloadable screensavers, … there are good ones and not so good ones. Regardless if you download free screensavers or if you purchase them, you should know some things about identifying a good screensaver.

The first of some important things is watching for a screensaver where most of the picture remains still and in one position while it plays. A example of this would be a picture of a fairground but the only moving part of the entire picture is a marry-go-round. Everything else remains still and in one spot. This is a perfect example of a screensaver that can etch your computer screen. Another example is a monitor I saw at our local Goodwill store when I was looking for music CD’s last summer. As I walked the isles of the store being a little nosey, I saw a used computer monitor on the shelf for sale. The monitor wasn’t plugged in, and I saw the screen of this monitor was severely etched by a cheap screen saver. It was very clear which screensaver did it too. It was one of the Coca Cola screensavers that are out there. This one was the one with the bears sitting in the snow watching fireworks. The image of the bears sitting in the snow was etched into the lower half of the monitor’s screen. This is exactly what I’m talking about.

Secondly, any screensaver that has a still frame or border around the changing images and is consistent through the playing of the screensaver is another type of screensaver that can etch your computer screen. Damage like this can happen on computers that leave screensavers run for days on end, such as office or other business computers that leave screen savers play for entire weekends, over night and during holiday shut downs. One may ask, “how can you tell if a computer screen is etched, and what does it mean?”.

Identifying a etched computer screen is very easy. Simply turn off the power to the monitor, wait a moment for the monitor to settle after the power was shut off. Now look closely at the computer screen while the power is still off. If you can see the images or shadows of your computers images in the black screen, … this means your computer screen is etched and the monitor is permanently damaged. This is what screensavers are supposed to avoid. However if using a screensaver (example) that uses a frame or border around its images, it is likely after long term use that the frame or border of such a screen saver will etch into the screen. This means the shadow for the frame or border will be visible on the screen when the power is off. This also holds true for screensavers that use logo’s, names or clocks in the corner of the screensaver that don’t move and hold the same spot while the screensaver is playing.

This is why the ideal screensaver is one that blacks out the whole monitor leaving a dark screen with no pixels at all being lit-up, … just a black screen until you bump the mouse or keyboard. In fact, this black screen option is one of the choices for your screensaver if you have Windows XP, … go into the control panel then choose the display icon, then click on screensaver and go down to the screensaver called ‘blank’. Yes, this option works on systems running single and dual monitors.

Looking at the Windows XP screensavers is a good way to show a person a example of perfect screensavers. Super dark backgrounds and the ones that do show images, … the images don’t hold the same position throughout the playing of the screensaver. They constantly move around the black background avoiding the possibility of any etching.

After reading this article, one might ask “okay, I just noticed I have one of the less than favorable screensavers with stationary images, … should I replace it?”.

Actually that is up to you. You can replace it if you desire. You can also turn off your monitor or set up the monitor to shut off entirely if not used after a certain amount of time. I have my computer set up to show black screens after five minutes of no use, and after twenty minutes the computer shuts off both of my monitors until I bump the mouse or keyboard. Setting up your computer to shut off the monitors can be done through the control panel of your Windows operating system and going through the power options. This feature can easily extend the life of a monitor because it remembers to shut the monitor down even when you forget, … plus it saves a little electricity.

If you choose to replace the screensaver, … before spending money on another screensaver, try downloading some shareware or freeware screensavers first. Then if you are not satisfied or didn’t find something you like you can exercise the option to buy one. This way you tried your free resources before spending money.

Remember, … a good screensaver is one where the entire screen is constantly changing, nothing stays in one spot without moving.

Reporter Joseph Toth

Washington Micro Bank BBS



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