Tag Archives: screensaver

Tutorials

PCB / Electronics Workbench Flickr Pool Screensaver

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PCB/ELWB Collage Screensaver

Interested in setting up a cool screensaver that will display a continuously changing collage of photos from the Electronics Workbench and Printed Circuit Boards flickr pools?

Here’s how to do it in Windows:

First, install Picasa.  This should install the Google Photos Screensaver.

Next, open the Windows Screen Saver Settings control panel. (Type “screen saver” into the Windows 7 search bar, open the Windows Control Panel and navigate to Appearance and Personalization->Change screen saver, etc.)

Select the Google Photos Screensaver and click Settings…

Set the Visual Effect type to Collage, and adjust the Change picture every… slider to taste – I suggest starting at 3.0 seconds.

Uncheck all options except Photos from public sites, then click Configure…


Copy and paste each of the following RSS feeds into the Additional photo feed sources dialog, and click Add after pasting each one.

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?id=812901@N20&lang=en-us&format=rss_200
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?id=1767402@N25&lang=en-us&format=rss_200

After adding both feeds, make sure the entries for each them are checked and click OK. Then click OK again to return to the Windows Screen Saver Settings window.

Click Preview and photos from the Electronics Workbench and Printed Circuit Boards flickr pools should start appearing on your screen. If so, the screen saver is working.

Click OK to close the control panel and you’re done!

If you’re interested in setting this up in OS X, the process is very similar – just add the RSS Feeds to your screen saver settings as documented here.

Have fun!

Tutorials

Printed Circuit Board Photo Collage Screensaver for OS X

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OS X Flickr PCB Pool Screensaver
PCB Photo Pool Screensaver

One of my favorite ways to keep tabs on the Printed Circuit Boards Group on Flickr is with OS X’s built-in ability to turn an RSS feed into a screen saver, as shown above.

To create this cool and constantly changing screen saver, open the “Desktop & Screen Saver” pane of the OS X System Preferences, as shown below.

Desktop & Screen Saver Preferences

Click the + button and select “Add RSS Feed…”  OS X will prompt you for an RSS feed URL to use for the screen saver.  Enter

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?id=812901@N20&lang=en-us

and click OK.

Make sure that the Display Style is set to “Collage” mode (the center option) as shown above.  Click Test and you should see photos from the pool appear on your screen.  Now the next time your screen saver activates, you should see a collage of cool photos from the PCB photo pool.

That’s it!

PS. If anyone knows of an equivalent screen saver for Windows or Linux, please let me know in the comments.  I don’t want OS X users to have all the fun!