{"id":149,"date":"2006-02-22T22:20:15","date_gmt":"2006-02-23T03:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/?p=149"},"modified":"2007-03-22T11:24:10","modified_gmt":"2007-03-22T16:24:10","slug":"meaningful-screensavers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/meaningful-screensavers\/","title":{"rendered":"Meaningful Screensavers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"imgdeco\"><img src=\"\/images\/flash.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been working with one of my favorite designers, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundvisuals.com\/\">Andy Greer<\/a>, to create a series of screensavers for the <a href=\"http:\/\/blantonmuseum.org\/\">Blanton Museum<\/a>.  My initial goals for these screensavers are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>expose more of the blanton&#8217;s valuable collection<\/li>\n<li>make art a part of your every day life<\/li>\n<li>open your eyes to news ideas and images<\/li>\n<li>inspire you to come hang out in the new museum<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We are using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.screentime.com\/software\/stf\/\">Screentime<\/a> to create Flash based screensavers for both Mac and PC.  The most recent version of Screentime has a feature that allows us to create dynamic content using XML and files stored on a central server.  Sweeeeeeeeeeet.  So&#8230;.my plan?  Your screensaver changes as the exhibits in the museum change!  How cool is that?  <\/p>\n<p>Now, a few lessons learned to share:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Deleting screensavers in Windows XP is a manual process!  Imagine I want to delete a screensaver named <strong>foo<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Make sure your current screensaver is NOT set to foo.<\/li>\n<li>Head to your C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32 directory and look for the file named foo.scr and delete it.<\/li>\n<li>Also scam around in this directory for a folder named <strong>foo dir<\/strong> and delete it as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>By default, the latest version of Screentime creates screensavers that ping a server.  This will trigger an alert by most firewalls that says something like:  &#8220;foo.scr is attempting to connect to a DNS server.&#8221;  At the moment, the only way to turn off this ping it to create a txt file named ping.txt with a &#8220;1&#8221; in it and add it to your saver&#8217;s &#8220;External&#8221; files. when building your screentime screensaver.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now, for all you designers out there&#8230;I&#8217;m sure this is information you&#8217;ve had carved into your brains&#8230;but I&#8217;m just learning about the importance of aspect ratio when designing screensavers and desktops.  At the moment, I&#8217;m wondering if the following ratios are enough for me to consider 4:3, 5:4 and 8:5?<\/p>\n<p>Resolutions with a 4:3 aspect ratio: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>800 x 600<\/li>\n<li>1024 x 768   <\/li>\n<li>1152 x 864<\/li>\n<li>1600 x 1200<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Resolutions with a 5:4 aspect ratio:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1280 x 1024  <\/li>\n<li>1600 x 1280<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Resolutions with a 8:5 aspect ration:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1280 x 800 <\/li>\n<li>1152 x 720   <\/li>\n<li>1680 x 1050 <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So&#8230;what words of wisdom do you have for me when it comes to aspect ratios or screensaver design?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"imgdeco\"><img src=\"\/images\/flash.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been working with one of my favorite designers, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundvisuals.com\/\">Andy Greer<\/a>, to create a series of screensavers for the <a href=\"http:\/\/blantonmuseum.org\/\">Blanton Museum<\/a>.  My initial goals for these screensavers are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>expose more of the blanton&#8217;s valuable collection<\/li>\n<li>make art a part of your every day life<\/li>\n<li>open your eyes to news ideas and images<\/li>\n<li>inspire you to come hang out in the new museum<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So&#8230;.my plan?  Your screensaver changes as the exhibits in the museum change!  How cool is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glendathegood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}