Wikipedia Screensaver

Screensaver Thursday here at Ghacks it seems. After the visual impressive PC screensaver Analogy comes one that is more for the mind and less for the eye. And I do not want to get into the argument again if screensavers make any sense these days other than being visually pleasing or information providing. I'm not an expert on burn-ins. Just that much. According to Wikipedia only CRT and Plasma monitors are affected by burn-ins which is caused by the phosphor coating. The article points out that LCD monitors can only be affected by a usually not permanent form of image persistence.

The Wikipedia Screensaver displays random Wikipedia pages which are replaced in intervals that the user can define. The screensaver makes use of Internet Explorer to display the Wikipedia page in fullscreen on the monitor.

The screensaver can be configured to kill any application or processes that are still running on the system. The question about the usefulness of this screensaver has to be answered by every user individually. I personally cannot really see a reason to use the screensaver. It does not make much sense to display the pages when the user is sitting on the desk while they also do not make sense when the user is not that close to his desktop.

It could be useful to show others that you are a clever guy though. Let me know if you find some use for this screensaver. The screensaver requires the Microsoft .net Framework 1.1.