Screensavers

[Pete]

Oh and you've forgotten to add this new forum to the drop down list Martin.

Plus why can't I edit posts anymore?

[Neil Jones]

What exactly is the point (if there is any) of having screensavers on our computers these days?

If anything, since the vast majority of modern computer monitors and displays are only at an
extremely minimal risk of suffering from screen burn, screensavers are really just "eye candy".

Depends really.

I mean if one's going to be working in Microsoft Word, say, all day without minimizing or moving/resizing the window or opening new dialogues or whatever then it may well burn in without a screensaver if just left like that for hours and hours, days, weeks and months. In this case a screensaver would be beneficial

But for general use, most users generally change the active window (say, Word --> IE --> another IE window --> RealPlayer --> IE --> etc) fairly regularly so nowt really has a chance to burn in as it's not left on the screen long enough.

So in that case there could be a risk of the Start button etching onto the screen considering its hardly ever not there unless in powerpoint or playing a game?

It is possible if you follow the above ideaology, yes, though it doesn't seem to happen for whatever reason. Another school of thought is if you was to shift the taskbar to, say, the top of the screen and leave it there for ever and a day and use the system normally, would it then have more chance of burning in? Much has been said about the burning-in of the BBC DOGs on the TVs in Televsion Centre and those, except the new News 24 one, are all top left...

[Martin]

Oh and you've forgotten to add this new forum to the drop down list Martin.

Plus why can't I edit posts anymore?

Sorry about that, forgot to set the permisions on the new forum correctly.

I'm afriad this forum won't be added to the drop down box yet, the site has exceeded its data transfer limit and I'm holding off on buying more until I plan to make a few more changes at once.

Hope this helps
Martin

[amr86]

There is a BBC News one that looks like this.

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tvstuff/bbcnat/screen.zip
(.zip file)

[Andrew Muir]

Does anybody know if there is a similar screensaver for PC like the fireworks one on OSX? (the one with the coloured tenticles!!!) Its really cool.

[cwathen]

The best screen saver is to just set the 'standby' and 'turn off monitor' timeouts in display settings. If you insist on using a screen saver, the basic ones which come with Windows, which feature some sort of moving image on a background, are also good screensavers.

These modern weird ones which display brightly coloured background images or have limited movements are useless. They might look pretty, but they won't save the screen, which is what screensavers are for.

[Chris]

The best screen saver is to just set the 'standby' and 'turn off monitor' timeouts in display settings. If you insist on using a screen saver, the basic ones which come with Windows, which feature some sort of moving image on a background, are also good screensavers.

The standby and switch off monitor options can be useless sometimes.

I tried having it switch off my monitor after 1/2 an hour of activity and although it did so, the monitor would then switch back on at some bizarre hour without me moving the mouse or pressing the buttons on the keyboard.

So now I just have the usual "logon" screensaver which displays the Windows 2000 logo and moves it about a bit every so often, or I have the blank screensaver one. If I'm feeling a little adventurous I will have the beziers or 3d pipes

[SteveL]

These modern weird ones which display brightly coloured background images or have limited movements are useless. They might look pretty, but they won't save the screen, which is what screensavers are for.

But nowadays computer monitors are burn-proof anyway; so their use has changed somewhat from saving the screen from burning, to looking pretty.

That's why you get screensavers now that look pretty, but contain static images that would have caused old PC monitors to burn.

[Fireboy]

My favourite screensaver has always been "Flying Windows", though I would love the OS X tentacles.

[cwathen]

But nowadays computer monitors are burn-proof anyway; so their use has changed somewhat from saving the screen from burning, to looking pretty.

No CRT monitor is entirely burnproof. The reality of the technology makes that impossible. Even a brand new top of the line CRT will burn if you leave a static image on it for long enough. The difference between now and the past is that modern displays won't burn in so easily.

My main reason however for shunning screen savers and setting the standby/power off timeouts is to save power - it's such a waste (and costs a noticeable amount, and kicks out a lot of heat) to keep a CRT monitor powered up all the time just so you can look at some pretty pictures which are in no way invovled with your use of the computer.

[SteveL]

But nowadays computer monitors are burn-proof anyway; so their use has changed somewhat from saving the screen from burning, to looking pretty.

No CRT monitor is entirely burnproof. The reality of the technology makes that impossible. Even a brand new top of the line CRT will burn if you leave a static image on it for long enough. The difference between now and the past is that modern displays won't burn in so easily.

Perhaps that is true; but I left a BBC LDN screensaver (bold white text, dark red background) on an old CRT for 2 weeks non-stop, and it didn't seem to have the slightest impact. I've been using said screensaver on my TFT for over half a year now (although obviously on and off), and it hasn't burnt either.

I also thought that if they did burn, turning them off and then back on again fixed them?