One of the most anticipated Vista Ultimate Extras is the DreamScene application (currently in the preview state). It lets you use videos as your desktop background, and with the free DeskScapes you can take it to a whole new level. Of course to legally get this feature in Vista you’ll need to be running the Ultimate edition (it’s already been cracked though).
There is a way to take advantage of the more advanced desktop backgrounds in any version of Vista by using a free application called SSDream. It lets you set screensavers and images as backgrounds in addition to the typical videos. Intervals can even be specified, and SSDream will shuffle through the items you choose at the end of each time period. In a way you’re creating a playlist for your desktop background.
Here are some of the features of SSDream:
- Shows screensavers, videos, and images as your wallpaper. Desktop icons remain visible!
- All Versions of Vista supported.
- Shuffle option to mix up your collection, or have a set order.
- Set the number of minutes between changes to your wallpaper. Old item transitions away reviling new item instead of having the new item just pop up.
- Preview window so you know what to expect from your screen saver, video or image.
- Configuration button to configure a screen saver, video, or image.
- CPU priority slider to set how much CPU to give to your screen saver or video.
- Sleep mode that stops SSDream when your computer is locked or your monitors enter power save mode. No need to waste CPU if you can’t see your desktop.
- Pause mode that pauses videos and lowers CPU priority of screen savers. SSDream will auto-pause if it detects a maximized window, but can be manually paused by pressing WIN-P.
- Multi-monitor support allows a different screen saver, video and image on each monitor.
I really like the fact that you can use screensavers since some are pretty cool, such as those that rotate through pictures from your Flickr account. What I really look forward to is some of the features the developer would like to add to SSDream, such as XP support and transition effects. From the looks of it this is a project to keep your eye on!
Here’s a video of SSDream in action:
Great post Ryan. Do you know if this can be used with DreamScene and DeskScapes installed? I also really like that you can use screen savers as your wallpaper. I wanted that capability for some time. I wish somebody, Microsoft should have done it by now, would come up with a program that would allow you to use PowerPoint slide shows as a screen saver. Wallpaper would be great also. I looked around for the screen saver functionality in that way and haven’t found it. I don’t know if it exists or not. Keep up the great site. I check it out everyday using Sage in Firefox.
Yep, it should work fine even with DreamScene installed. Out of curiousity why would you want to embed a PowerPoint slideshow? I can’t think of any reason that would be useful unless you’re just shuffling through images.
Thanks for responding Ryan. In regards to your question about why I would want to embed a PowerPoint slide show, I have received quite a few cool photo slide shows in my email. They would be great as screen savers. I of course could export the slides as jpegs and use the photo screen saver but they wind up not looking very good doing it that way. I’ve tried it.
ryan i cant find an link