Screensavers

Screensavers, wallpapers, and desktop themes are wonderful ways to express your individuality, brighten your surroundings, and modify the atmosphere of your workspace. A soothing waterfall might be just what you need in a high-stress office. A hip cartoon character dancing across your screen lets people know they don't have to stand on formality with you. Holidays and special events can be celebrated, works of art can be savored, and gorgeous girls and guys can flirt with you, perched atop your desk!

Palm trees sway in a tropical breeze as waves lap up on a white sand beach. This idyllic scene on your monitor may help you dream of your next vacation, but it was originally created to serve a technical purpose. Early monitors were susceptible to having an image "burned in" if it stayed on the screen too long, so screensavers were invented to keep the image moving even when you were not active at the keyboard. Today's monitors have no such susceptibility, so screensavers are now mostly a matter of entertainment and aesthetics.

Screensavers don't turn on until the computer has been inactive for a set period of time. Wallpaper is the static image that remains on your screen when no application is running and the screensaver has not yet kicked in. The range of choice in wallpapers is even greater than that of screensavers: almost any image can be set as wallpaper, including images from graphics programs, scanned images such as personal photographs, or art that you've created yourself in a paint application.

How to Build a Collection of Wallpapers, Screensavers, and Themes

As mentioned above, wallpapers can be easily created from almost any type of image. Scan in a beautiful greeting card to bring the Christmas spirit to your workspace, a postcard of Stonehenge to show your mystical side, or a photo of yourself holding that huge trout, to silence the doubters! Most graphics programs allow you to set their images as wallpaper with a click of your mouse. And most drawing applications will allow you to save your (or your five-year-old's) artwork on your screen.

Screensavers are a little more difficult to create on your own. Because of their motion component, it's easiest to download them from one of the many hundreds of sites that offer images of pop stars, scenery, movies, museum slide shows, or almost anything you want. There are also sites that allow you to create your own screensaver by choosing from a menu of components.

Downloading Screensavers

Most of the sites that offer screensavers and wallpaper have a "wizard" or other site-specific installer. Once the installer is in place, all you have to do is click on the image you want. Some sites also have a site-specific download manager, so that you can easily access your library of images.

Once your screensaver is downloaded, you can fine-tune it to suit your preferences. In Windows, for example, from the start-up menu, click "control panel" and then "display." Selecting the screensaver tab will bring you to "settings," where you can adjust the timing, sound, appearance, and effects used in your screensaver. The options are nearly endless!

Because screensaver files tend to be large, it may take a minute or even several minutes to download, depending on your Internet connection. Once they're downloaded, though, you can easily change them to suit anything from the season of the year to your mood of the moment. Enjoy a personalized desktop every day of the year!