Putting Screensavers Under Control

No matter how much you enjoy your favorite screensavers,
sometimes they can be rather annoying. Don't like them
interrupting your presentations? Hate them disturbing you
watching movies? Look no further. This article will show you
how to gain full control over your screensavers in no time.

There's no doubt screensavers bring a pleasant variety to
your desktop. Not to mention they prevent your monitor from
burn-ins. Still there are times they had better sit quiet
and hadn't interfered with your work.

Demonstrating a slideshow, watching a movie, reading an
article - all these activities and many others may leave
your computer with no keyboard and mouse input for a few
minutes. Depending on your preferred settings, two or three
minutes of inactivity may be enough for a screensaver to
start and interrupt your work when it shouldn't.

The obvious solution to the problem is disabling
screensavers right before any of those activities. However,
it's very likely you'll forget to do it. Furthermore, it's
even more likely you'll forget to turn screensavers back on
later, thus leaving yourself without their benefits for
indefinite time.

Thankfully, we are not the first people who encountered this
problem. Quite many different tools already exist to help
you. They range from simple support for screensavers in some
applications to universal and powerful tools to control
them.

If screensavers interrupt you often when you watch movies,
but otherwise don't bother you, you may find it sufficient
to use a media player that has a built-in support for
screensavers. For example, Winamp and The Playa have an
option to prevent screensavers from starting while they play
a movie. Consider using one of them or another media player
having that option unless you are looking for a more
versatile tool.

For those of you who'd like to have full control no matter
what you do, there are many universal applications. This
time we will talk about two of them.

If you want a program that is easy to use and that would
allow you to disable screensavers quickly and then easily
enable them, Hot Corners is right for you. It's a small tool
letting you control screensavers in three ways:

* by moving the mouse into one of the screen corners

* by pressing a combination of keys on your keyboard

* by clicking an icon in the system tray

You can set one screen corner for disabling screensavers and
another for starting them. This way moving the mouse into
the first corner will prevent any screensaver from starting.
Moving the mouse into the second corner will start your
default screensaver. Holding the mouse in any other place of
your desktop will make screensavers behave in the usual
manner. For you convenience, Hot Corners allow you to vary
the size of the corners. This way you won't waste too much
time positioning the mouse precisely.

Alternatively, you can set a pair of keyboard shortcuts to
quickly disable or activate a screensaver. You may prefer
this method if you extensively use the keyboard while
working.

Another useful feature of Hot Corners is Power Management
control. Not only it can prevent screensavers from starting,
but it also won't let your monitor to go in power saving and
power-off modes.

Hot Corners were created by South Bay Software, and are
available for download from

http://www.southbaypc.com/HotCorners/

Another interesting tool is Galt Screen Control by Galt
Technology. It definitely lacks the variety of screensaver
control methods available in Hot Corners. Nevertheless, it
has many other features you may find useful.

There is only one way to disable screensavers using Galt
Screen Control. You will have to right click the application
icon in the system tray and select the corresponding option.

But there's more in it than simply disabling screensavers.
You can select an option that will disable them for 1/2, 1,
2, or 4 hours, giving you even finer control. This way you
will never forget to enable screensavers back later.
Galt Screen Control provides an easy and convenient way to
launch or configure any installed screensaver. It requires
you just two menu clicks. Furthermore, the tool can select a
random screensaver when you ask it. Alternatively, it can do
it on each program startup or on an hourly basis.

You can download Galt Screen Control from

http://www.galttech.com/screenshots/screencontrol.html

Now that I've shared these little secret tools with you,
it's time to show your screensavers their real master. Don't
waste a second! Put them under control!