What You Need to Do On Flickr

Begin by opening your web browser and making your way to Flickr. Sign in the way that you normally would. Once you are signed in, you will see a button on the toolbar near the top of the screen. Find the word “You” in this menu and click on it. This will take you to your photostream, a listing of all of the photos you have ever posted to Flickr.

At the top of this screen, you will see a URL. This is the custom URL for your stream. Depending on your settings, this may, or may not include your user name. Highlight the URL and then copy it.

You may have noticed that this is not a RSS feed URL right now, and you cannot use it the way that it is right now. No worries, we will fix that in the next step.

[feedomit][/feedomit]

Turning Your URL into An RSS Feed

The easiest way to turn your Flickr URL into a RSS feed is with a conversion tool. Luckily a few have been created specifically for Flickr. In this case we are going to use the BIG Flickr Feed tool, which you can find at http://www.bigflickrfeed.com/. Once you are on the site, you can paste your URL into the box, before you click on the “Go” button, which will create your RSS feed. You need to look at the radio button options above the box. Your choices are “Feed my most interesting photos” or “Feed my latest photos”, the most interesting photos is selected by default. Make your selection and then click on “Go”.

You will now be presented with an RSS feed URL. Copy it.

Setting Up The Screen Saver

Now you need to get to the screen saver settings. First, open System Preferences, then click on Desktop & Screen Saver and select Screen Saver from the two tabs at the top.

Here you will see a plus sign. Click on this to add a new screen saver option. This will present you with a pop up menu. Choose “Add RSS Feed” from the options that appear.

A pop up box will appear on the screen. Paste the URL into this box and click on “OK”. Be sure that you pasted the new RSS feed URL and not the original URL for the Flickr photostream into this box. The feed will be validated by the program. Once this is done, you will see the option in your list of screensavers. All you need to do is click on it to select this feed as your new screen saver.

There you have it, one screensaver based on your Flickr’s photos.

Image credit: Zanastardust

Related Posts:

• Manage Your RSS Feed In Mac With NetNewsWire
• Three Free RSS Readers for Mac Users
• How to Download RSS Content Automatically in Mac
• Bodega – A Great Alternative to Mac App Store

After about two weeks meddling with the latest Mac OS X: 10.6 Snow Leopard, I found several nice little improvements that might be useful for other users. I’ll keep on looking because I’m sure that there are more, but let’s see what we’ve got in our treasure box so far.

1. Date in Menubar

Not everybody will care about this, but for those who’s been longing to be able to glance at the menubar to see date and day, your wish has come true.

2. WiFi Signal strength indicator

While this is also not for everybody, those hotspot hunters will appreciate the new ability to know which spot has stronger signal. There’s also the indicator to show secure (password protected) or non-secure (free) spots.

3. Automatic Time Zone

Still related to WiFi, Mac users can set their machine to adjust the time zone automatically by determining the location of their current WiFi location. So if you travel a lot around the world and use WiFi to connect to the internet, you don’t need to manually go back and forth to the “Date and Time” settings in System Preferences.

4. Undelete the trash

People do “accidental deletion” all the time. And because the accidentally deleted files will be kept in the “Trash” folder until you really delete it, you can drag the files you still want to keep back to their original folder. But doing that manually over and over again can be annoying. Now in Snow Leopard, you can right click (or Control + Click) on the poor files, choose “Put Back”, and everybody will be happy again.

5. Better (Image) Drive Eject

Sometimes you can’t eject the (image) drive because it’s still in use or one of the content of that drive is in use by other application. You can fix this problem easily by closing the application and then you can eject the drive. Problem is, you don’t always know which application is using the drive. Snow Leopard makes it easy for its user to solve the problem by showing which application prevent the drive to be ejected.

6. Enlarged Icon

When you are using Icon view (Command + !), there’s a slider in Snow Leopard’s finder. The function is to adjust the size of the icon. So what? You might ask. Big icon, big deal. Actually, the cool things about this is you can actually “see” the item in the icon view. Image’s icon is the image itself, text’s icon is readable (if you set the view large enough), and you can even flip the page of a document’s icon.

7. Delayed Screensaver Password

One of the easiest way to secure your computer from the prying co-worker’s eyes is to set a screensaver password. But if often leave your computer in a short moment only to repeatedly type the password, this simple security system could be annoying. Snow Leopard let the users decide how long should the screensaver (or sleep mode) run before you need to type in the password. So if a user goes for a glass of water in the dispenser, he/she can continue right away.

I know seven is just a tiny part of Snow Leopard whole improvements. But I’ll add more along the way. Do you know other useful little things in Snow Leopard? Share using the comment below.

Related Posts:

• Solving the WiFi Problem on the New iPad
• The Complete HDTV Buying Guide
• Free WiFi Finder Apps for iOS
• Troubleshooting WiFi Issue on iOS Devices

On the other hand, the popular XScreenSaver gives you more choices of screensavers and also allows you to change the setting and configure it to your liking.

While we can easily replace gnome-screensaver with XScreensaver (with some simple hack), it might not be a great idea after all since Gnome-Screensaver is tightly integrated with the Gnome desktop and allows you to lock the computer screen and recover the computer from sleep. Replacing it with xscreensaver might break these stuffs and cause them not to work properly.

In Ubuntu Intrepid, you can actually integrate XScreenSaver and Gnome-Screensaver together without breaking the system.

Install XScreenSaver and all the extra screensavers

sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra

Now, on your System -> Preferences, you should see two entries of Screensaver. The first one is referring to xscreensaver set up while the second refers to the gnome-screensaver.

To avoid confusion, we are going to change the name of the entry.

Right-click on the menu bar and select ‘Edit-Menus‘. On the left pane, navigate to the System -> Preferences section. On the right pane, scroll down untill you locate the two Screensaver entries. Select the first Screensaver entry and click the Properties button.

Under the name, change it to XScreensaver.

Close all the windows.

Next, go to System->Preferences->XScreensaver.

When XScreensaver loads up, it will detect that Gnome-screensaver is running and prompts you to switch it off. Click Cancel. We don’t want to make XScreensaver the default screensaver program as it will cause some of the system functions (like lock-screen) to break.

On the main window of XScreensaver, pick the screensaver you want to edit and change the setting via the Settings button.

When you are done editing the screensaver. Close the XScreensaver window.

Load Gnome-screensaver (System->Preferences->Screensaver). Select the screensaver that you have just edited and make it the default screensaver.

That’s it. Your screen should now show the updated Screensaver everytime it runs.

Several points to note

1. Whenever you want to change the setting of the screensaver, use XScreensaver.
2. Whenever you want to change the system screensaver, use Gnome-Screensaver.
3. If you accidentally clicked the OK button and allow XScreensaver to stop the Gnome-screensaver daemon and set XScreensaver to run, you can simply log out and log in again to restore it to the default setting.

Related Posts:

• How to Integrate Skype With Ubuntu Unity
• How to Install Java Runtime In Ubuntu 12.04
• How to Connect to A VPN In Ubuntu [Quick Tips]
• How to Upgrade to Gimp 2.8 in Ubuntu

Analogy is a beautifully crafted Clock that uses simple typography and visual spatial effect to present the time. It is a simple yet elegant way of presenting everyday object.

This is what Jesson Yip, the designer said:

Analogy is a typographic clock which fuses the immediacy of digital with the visual-spatial quality of analogue into a hybrid format. It presents an everyday object with a fresh twist.

This tutorial shows you how to set the Analogy screensaver as a wallpaper in Windows (XP and Vista)

Download the Analogy screensaver here.

Extract and install it in your Windows. Set it as the default screensaver.

Download Screen2Dream

Extract it and run the Screen2Dream.exe file.

Check the “Autostart with Windows“. Under the Screensaver  field, select and highlight “ScreenTime Screensaver Engine“. Press the Play button.

The Analogy screensaver will now run as the wallpaper on your Desktop.

Note:

1. Running the Screen2Dream application will cover up all your desktop icons and make them inaccessible.
2. You can also use Screen2Dream to set other screensaver as the wallpaper.

That’s it.

Analogy screensaver as wallpaper in Windows XP

Analogy screensaver as wallpaper in Windows Vista

Related Posts:

• Windows 8 to Shove Aero Away
• Free Giveaway: Blu-ray Decrypter
• Ask MTE: Missing Windows Media Center, Thumbnails Missing In Explorer, Remove Games Icon And Many More (Week 16)
• How To Schedule Backup And Synchronization Tasks In Windows