screensavers

Though days have become short, dark, and cold here in the Northern Hemisphere; winter has a way of casting its own idyllic spell.

If you can't resist appreciating crystalline icicles, endless banks of soft snow, and intricate snowflakes, you're not alone. Celebrate the season by transforming your desktop into a winter wonderland with this collection of snowy screensavers.

With a modest sampling of photos in the free trial download, Winter Scenes Screensaver will hook you on winter's beauty. Photos of frosted mountains, dangling icicles, and frozen streams parade on your screen one by one. Though images are limited in the trial, there's plenty to intrigue you.

This wallpaper and screensaver hybrid gets points for ingenuity and points for effect as photorealistic snowfall dots your desktop. You'll find SnowFall Living Desktop listed in the screensaver tab of your display menu. Yet you tweak the settings from the icon that's active in your task tray. Select from of of eleven frosty backgrounds, then adjust wind speed to create a light snowfall or blustery conditions. Then, sit back and enjoy the powder drifting onto your desktop.

Entrancing photos of penguins, polar bears, and Arctic seals are upstaged only by the dramatic North Pole geography itself in this crisp photo slide show. You can control the speed that photos rotate on your screen, but you'll mostly stick around for the white-on-white show. We'd like to see the collection expanded with more photos; however quality always trumps quantity, and in this trial the latter perseveres.

The animations may look a little antiquated in this digitized screensaver, but the effects are nevertheless satisfying. Snow-covered hills and a lakeside cabin are two of the twelve backgrounds you can choose in the settings drop-down menu. You'll also have control over the speeds and backgrounds in this trial, and the randomizer that builds each scene slightly differently at each cycle is appreciated.

Falling snow, flying birds, and in some cases, chimney smoke, emerge after the initial layering, perhaps a bit too energetically for some tastes. The musical track is overdue for some refinement, but we love that registered … Read more

Steam meets snow in an atmospheric screensaver especially appealing to lovers of trains and clocks. Watch from multiple angles as a throwback steam train chugs by pines on a snow-blanketed mountain pass. The vista overlooking a desolate valley is a treat, though there only appears to be one. A few more miles of varied scenery would improve the screensaver's visual interest. The locomotive is accompanied by either an analog or digital clock that you choose in the screensaver settings menu.

American Thanksgiving represents a cornucopia of traditional activities and fare, all centered around the celebration of giving thanks for our bountiful resources. Turkeys, falling leaves, pumpkin pie, NFL football, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and crazy Uncle Joe are all a part of the seasonal festivities. Get in the fall holiday spirit with a collection of seven screensavers designed for the Thanksgiving season.

Turkey Thanksgiving screensaver

What could be cuter than turkeys dressed up like Pilgrims and Native Americans? Well, how about turkeys dressed up like Pilgrims and Native Americans who are celebrating the first Thanksgiving? The first turkey Pilgrims set … Read more

All eyes will be on America on Tuesday as unprecedented numbers vote in the 2008 presidential elections and state propositions. How will you keep track throughout the day?

Your gut may lead you to constantly refresh several news sites for the latest headlines. That'll keep you current, but will also keep you from your daily duties. Obsessing over an RSS reader and notifications is smarter, and less disruptive to your work flow. Feed Demon and RSS Bandit are good choices, but an RSS ticker might be even better at delivering headline news to political news junkies.

GOP supporters should … Read more

You don't have to be a werewolf or vampire to get excited about Halloween. What other holiday lets you dress up as a triceratops and snort at passersby or flashback to your grade-school years with a pretty pink ballerina tutu? Your Halloween festivities don't have to stop at the front door. Slap a virtual holiday jack-o-lantern or spooky scenes on your Windows desktop with this collection of Halloween screensavers.

Magical Halloween screensaver

If your idea of magic is a spell that turns a painting of an ugly old crone into a vivacious, attractive, young woman, this screensaver has … Read more