The Desktop Critic

Get a screen saver--but not to save your screen

The myth lives on. The After Dark box still says: "When you leave your computer on but unattended, images burn in to your screen, causing permanent damage."

According to the engineers I interviewed, it's "virtually impossible" for a static image to burn into a color monitor. (It has to do with the fact that there are three color dots for every pixel on your screen.) They told me you'd have to leave your monitor on, and untouched, for years before you'd see any damage.

Black-and-white screens can burn in images--if they're left on for months. But ironically, many of today's screen savers don't work in black-and-white. (No PowerBook screen can burn in images permanently, either.)

No, the point of screen savers is not protection. It's entertainment and show-off value. How else can you make the Mac strut its audiovisual stuff for $25?

In an attempt to erode After Dark's domination of phosphor real estate, dozens of competitors have emerged. They cater to every pop-culture icon from pro football to the Flintstones. Screen savers have become the bumper stickers of the information age.

Kids World 1.01

Kids World lets you make your own screen savers ($30, Bit Jugglers, 415/968-3908). You choose a scenic backdrop (seven are provided, or you can use any PICT file). Then you stamp any of 100 different cartoony characters into the scene. Click on the Go button, and each character becomes animated, walking or rolling across your backdrop and making the appropriate delicious sounds. Many of these elements interact; if you position them a certain way, your cat fights your dog, and your caveman falls into your tar pit. Considerable hilarity stems from putting characters into the wrong backdrops--making the goldfish, for example, leap out of a moon crater.

You can save your animated scene as an After Dark module, or you can use it with the included UnderWare screen-saver control panel. A thousand clever touches--and good, solid programming --make this world well worth visiting.

UnderWare 1.0.1

This ingenious software's claim to fame isn't how it blacks out your screen. It's how it doesn't black it out. In other words, this screen nonsaver uses your desktop (icons, folders) as its witty playing field. Robbers blow holes in the desktop and steal your microchips; folders sprout legs and run merrily away.

Because most of the modules don't blacken your screen, you wouldn't buy UnderWare for protection even if you believed in burn-in ($30, Bit Jugglers, 415/968-3908). You'd buy it for the visual jokes. Unfortunately, as with verbal jokes, the amusement plummets with repetition. (Moreover, 7 of the 29 modules are Kids World scenes!) You'll definitely want to trot out UnderWare for visiting friends. But when working solo, I'm guessing you'll want it NoWare.

Bliss Saver 1.0.3

This amazing program defies description. It's a visual synthesizer: as wild shapes and patterns shimmer and metamorphose on your screen, you can control their speed, colors, and shapes by pressing certain keys. More than 140 modules (displays) await, all similarly abstract and soothing, plus any you care to design for yourself ($49.95, Imaja, 510/526-4621).

Bliss is an application, not a control panel. Downside: it can't come on when, for example, there's a dialog box on the screen. Upside: no start-up conflicts. And you can quit it when you want to reclaim the memory.

It's tempting to "play" this visual instrument while talking on the phone. Only trouble is, you can lose yourself in its silent, wild rivers of color. You're likely to wind up slack-jawed and drooling while your phone pal hangs up in disgust.

Opus 'n Bill, Far Side, Flintstones

Delrina Corporation is the most direct challenger to the After Dark empire. Its screen-saver lineup ($39.95 each; Flintstones $34.95) works precisely the same way: all of its specialty screen savers include the same control-panel engine (408/363-2345).

I confess: I've never considered "The Flintstones" a comic masterpiece. The movie was even unfunnier. Water down the concept further--a mirthless screen saver--and you've got a pretty pointless program.

Opus 'n Bill, based on the "Bloom County" comic strip, at least gets reactions. Seven of its 16 modules are butt, underwear, or flatulence jokes. A few of the others are laugh-out-loud funny; but overall, a more splat-and-belch sensibility replaces the subtler tone of the comic strip.

The 14 Far Side modules, though, are almost uniformly hilarious. For some reason, the silent, passive ambience of a screen saver is well suited to Gary Larson's twisted cartoon world of bespectacled amoebas and chain-smoking dinosaurs. And there's only one flatulence joke.

Finally, there's Dilbert. My local paper (the New York Times) doesn't run this comic strip. But having seen this screen saver's 16 witty satires of corporate 9-to-5 stupidity, I wish it would.

DTS Screen Saver 3.0.3/ScreenSavor

This application's sole talent is displaying one PICT file after another (DeskTop Software, $39.95, 203/741-8535; also marketed as ScreenSavor, $29.95, MIFP Development, 503/292-0362). It's the slide-show screen saver. MIFP sells $9.95 sets of photos to plug in: space, golf, skiing, and so on. DeskTop sells $39.95 kits featuring nature, Marilyn Monroe, and others. You can specify how fast the slides appear and what kind of dissolve you want between them.

You can't, however, specify that the software be well designed. Why should it take 25 setup steps before the screen saver is ready to use? Why on earth must you assemble the folder full of PICT files into an album file yourself? Why do my cursor and menu-bar clock shine through the blackness? Why is the interface so tiny and confusing? Until these questions are answered, this new screen-saver engine will have a tough time revving up.

Now Fun 1.0.1

More and more screen savers don't even pretend to protect the screen. Take, for example, the UnderWare and After Dark modules in which animated characters mess with your Mac's icons. Meanwhile, the desktop and menu bar sit there, burning away.

Now Fun's modules remain true to their ostensible purpose. There are 31 typical displays: colorful geometric patterns, graphics or movie players, bouncing athletic equipment, and so on.

Of course, the main point of Now Fun is the value: in the same package, you also get a desktop picture installer, 100 sound files, and an interface colorizer. Not a bad deal for $29.95 (Now Software, 503/274-2800).

Lights Out Sports Fans 2.1

Only a truly rabid fan could enjoy this crude piece of work ($30 street price, Quadrangle Software, 313/769-1675; each sport or league sold separately). It's not just that the graphics are simplistic and two-dimensional, nor that the endlessly repeated sound effects grate on your brain; it's the IBM-ness of it all. Every speck of this control panel--nonstandard buttons, lists, text boxes--indicates it was hastily adapted from the PC version. Makes you glad to have a Mac.

Once you get it all going, you see sports-related visuals: your favorite team logo bounces around the screen, or crowds do "the wave," or IBM-ish fireworks go off. The highlight is the actual sports action, where you watch a top-view diagram of your favorite teams doing battle. Unfortunately, the players are represented by big logos sliding around the screen. Sure, it would've been more work to animate actual people moving, running, throwing--but I'll bet the After Dark gang could've done it.

Star Wars Screen Entertainment

Only LucasArts Entertainment has the guts not to call it a screen saver. They accurately call it "screen entertainment" ($34.95, 415/721-3300).

And on that score, this collection of 14 displays based on the Star Wars movies succeeds terrifically. George Lucas junkies will spill adrenaline to see the entire screenplay and storyboards for Star Wars. In one module, you read the life histories of every character ("As a young Wookiee on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca excelled at mechanical skill . . ."). In another, the familiar, yellow, perspective-slanted opening credits roll up your screen--but they say what you want them to say. ("I'm in a long, long meeting, far, far away . . .")

The synthesizer that plays the theme music sounds cheesier than a whole pan of lasagna. Otherwise, though, this force is definitely with you.

The Shareware 400

On America Online alone, there are over 400 free or shareware screen savers. The most worthy: DarkSide of the Mac 4.2, a polished application with 45 modules ($15 requested; Tom Dowdy, 1610 Kamsack Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94087). The modules aren't After Dark 3.0 caliber, but they're not bad. Ambrosia Software's Eclipse 2.2.0 just bounces around a clock or a graphic of your choice, but it takes up only 5K of memory and doesn't interfere with modem or printer activity ($10, 716/427-5277).

After Dark 3.0 (and friends)

After soaking in all the upstarts and rivals, I came back to After Dark last. It was worth the wait.

After years of screen-saver natural selection, After Dark 3.0's modules are the cream of the cream of the cream: the funniest, most stunning and well-crafted displays you can imagine ($49.99, Berkeley Systems, 510/540-5535). The Flying Toasters now do aerial stunts. The tropical fish have become photo-realistic, and you can actually see the room light flicker on the tank's bottom. In Bugs, the animation of the life-size flies is so realistic you'll grab for a rolled-up magazine. And as always, the MultiModule feature lets you superimpose or combine different displays in twisted ways.

The spin-off module sets--Star Trek, Simpsons, Disney, X-Men--don't have nearly the same consistency of perfection ($49.99 each). Both the number of modules and their wit quotient seems to decline with each new release; only half of the Simpsons displays even attempt to be funny, for example, and the X-Men are a big Y-awn.

But After Dark itself--and, to a slightly lesser extent, the More After Dark collection ($39.99)--is purest joy. Berkeley Systems could actually afford to give up its burn-in scare tactics and sell these things on brilliance alone.

The Upshot

More screen-saver cautions: Make way--some of these puppies take up 10 hard-disk megs or more. You may pay a price in system conflicts, too. Screen savers must be updated with every round of new Mac models or system software. After Dark 2.0, for example, was updated 11 times during its life cycle. And beware on Power Macs, where screen savers may slow down the works (although spokespeople swear that After Dark and the Delrina programs don't).

Want the best screen saver there is? Switch off your monitor when you are not using it--yes, even while the Mac is still on. You'll rule out burn-in and you'll save money.

But if it's visual delights you're looking for, get Far Side for laughs, After Dark for rapture, or Bliss for bliss. After a few months of staring at those programs, your only burn-in concern will be with your retinas.

David Pogue is the author of More Macs for Dummies, sequel to his number one best-seller, Macs for Dummies, third edition (IDG Books Worldwide, 1994). He eagerly awaits the release of After Dark: The Oprah Winfrey Collection.