Getting awesome games, comics and more with your screensaver!

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Getting the most from your screensaver

Traditionally, screensavers were just something to keep your computer monitor happy when you weren't around. But today, I'm going to show you how you can get new flash games, daily comic strips, news, web pages, or even pornography delivered to you when your computer is waiting eagerly for your return. Please note: this tutorial is written specifically for Windows users. If you're on a Mac or running Linux, don't despair! There are ways to do this on your machine, but this tutorial is designed with Windows users in mind. Now let's get started!

The right tools for the right job

The first thing we'll want to do is download and install the right screensaver. Somehow, most screensavers aren't designed with this kind of ability in mind. What we're looking for is a screensaver that's able to download RSS feeds of not only news and text, but pictures, whole web pages, and flash movies as well. I haven't found many good options out there, so if you have, be sure to let the world know about them by leaving a comment in my guestbook! For our purposes, we'll be using a program called Web Screen Saver 2008. It's a neat little screensaver program that should work great for our purposes. It's free to use, and costs about $20 to register and remove the nag screen. If you're not a computer geek, don't worry! I will show you how to download and set it up, with pictures and everything.

First, hold down the Ctrl key and, at the same time, click on this Download link. That will open the Download page for the program, and you can move between that page and this one by clicking on the tabs in your browser. From the Download page, click on the big Download Now! button. And follow the installation instructions to complete the install process.

Personalizing your screensaver

All set? Terrific! This part is where the magic happens. Go to Start -> Programs -> Web Screen Saver, and select Web Screen Saver to start the program. It will look like this:

Web Screen Saver should start up, and show you a tour of what it can do. But to customize it for our purposes, we're going to do just a little tinkering.

Click on the Options button (the blue cog, shown above), and we'll fine-tune a few options to get your screensaver humming along nicely.

Click on the Pages tab (circled), and your menu should look a lot like this. Click once on the first page in the list, and click the Delete button (circled). This will remove the product tour pages from your screensaver, and allow you to add your own. Keep clicking the Delete button until the list is empty, and let's add some real stuff!

Click on the Insert button (it's to the left of the Delete button), and you should get a menu that looks like this:

Click the dropdown arrow for Type (it's circled), and click once on the option with RSS in it (it's highlighted in our example).

Now we're going to give the screensaver a list of places to go, called an RSS feed. RSS feeds are automatically updated, so if you give it a feed of comic strip pages it will refresh each day - and even show you new comics if someone adds it to the feed! Of course, we'll need a feed to give it, first. Right-click on this link, and select "Copy Link Location" (if you're using Internet Explorer, it will probably say something silly like "Copy Shortcut", instead). Now we go back and Paste the feed into the screensaver. I'll show you how.

Just right-click in the empty box to the right of the words "RSS feed". Left-click on Paste (circled, and it'll probably be the only option clickable in the menu).

Now your screensaver knows where to go! It's just a test feed, but it will show you that it's working and you can always change or add to it later.

We're almost done! Make sure that the box for "Create a local copy of this page or file" is checked - this will help it load more quickly for you, it will make sure servers don't get too clogged even when there are a lot of people on them, and everything will still get updated when there's something new. It's just a lot better. Also, make sure that "Use default time" isn't checked. The default time is how long the screensaver will show you a page. Sometimes pages take a bit to load the first time (particularly if you're going to try out new Flash games on your screensaver), so you'll want to click the Up-Arrow (I've circled it) until it reads 30 seconds.

You're all set! Just press the Ok button twice to close the menus, and your screensaver will let you know that it's working by showing you webcomics and one of my own pages here on Squidoo. Any time you want to remove or add an RSS feed to your screensaver, now you know how to do it!

Using your newfound powers for Good

What can you do with your screensaver now? Plenty! You can use it to check your comics online every day, to keep up with your MySpace or LiveJournal (and your friends as well). If you're a nature enthusiast, you can find RSS feeds of your favorite subjects and have a slideshow screensaver that updates automatically. You can use it to check your stocks, keep up with the news, or have it load up the latest Flash games. In the next few weeks, I'll be making various feeds and adding them here, so be sure to check back! In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few feeds below, and at the same time it will also be a place where you can add feeds you've found, and you can vote them up or down! It doesn't matter what the subject of the feed you post is, so long as (a) it's clearly labeled, (b) it doesn't have too much advertising pages on it (a few are fine, Squidoo people!) and (c) it's not malicious or illegal. So have fun, and if you see anything relevant you'd like me to add to my own feeds (like a Flash game) that you think the world should know about, leave a comment in my Guestbook!

If this lens has made your life a little better, why not go ahead and Rate it? I'd appreciate it, and so will the added people who see it, thanks to you!

Showing Your Friends

How to Share Feeds

If you'd like to share a feed with your friend - let's say you want to give them the ability to play my Flash game feed on their screen saver - you can make a Sprout for it and post it on your blog or in e-mail! Here's my Sprout for Flash games... you can put it on your site! Just copy the embed code on the page, and paste it into a post on your favorite blog.

You can also make your own Sprouts to share feeds you've created with your friends. If your friend already has the screensaver installed, you can just send them the link to the RSS feed you've created. For example, my Flash Games feed is at:

http://satori.110mb.com/RSS/FlashGames.rss

They just copy that link, and add it as an RSS feed within their screensaver as shown in the tutorial above. If they don't know how, send them here. The button on my Sprout, for example, takes them to this tutorial page.

The Hottest Screensaver Channels

Add your RSS feeds here, and rate them up or down!

Finally, a place you can add RSS feeds you've made specifically for peoples' screensavers! This link list isn't for the standard website links, oh nonono! Instead, you can share links to your RSS feeds made to be used with screensavers! It can be pretty much anything - slideshows, flash games, viral videos, comics, or websites. Even Mutant Gerbil Nasal Porn is fine, but for the love of Pete, label the link as such! And if I feel the advertising on an RSS feed is beyond excessive, I will remove it.

Getting awesome games, comics and more with your screensaver!

Getting the most from your screensaver

The right tools for the right job

Personalizing your screensaver

Using your newfound powers for Good

Showing Your Friends

How to Share Feeds

The Hottest Screensaver Channels

Add your RSS feeds here, and rate them up or down!

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Please pick your widget size and display. Then click "Make the Widget" to get the code that's just right for you.

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Decaf Links List

For those links that aren't screensaver channels!

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Please pick your widget size and display. Then click "Make the Widget" to get the code that's just right for you.

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Flash Games ScreenChannel

Rate your favorite games, and keep them on rotation!

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