Belatedly, @ #29, naslapi:

Nope. There are not "two kind of votes". Only in your mind.

The phrase: "User Ratings" means "the rating given by a user of the product".

You didn't DL it, install it, or use it. Not having used it, you're not "a user". And because you're not a user, you don't qualify as someone whose vote means anything at all.

there are two kind of votes; when you try an application than you vote Good or Bad and there is the second kind Need it or Not. I guess that when the offering is something one find useless for him he will vote thumb down regardless to how the application actually function. for myself, I find that all those screen savers are a waste of space on my computer, meaningless use of computer resources and nothing but a waste of my time. so I will thumb it down, that is not to say, the screen saver does not function well

I have a bunch of screensavers and love getting new ones even if I don't run them very often, sometimes I just like looking at them. I am not sure if this is a place to ask, but I have a big problem. I was trying to upgrade the driver for my display and somehow erased the driver, now I get a message every day 'found new hardware' a video controller. I click cancel because I can't find a driver on my computer that works. I have XP pro, sp3, AMD. I can sill see graphics and watch movies, but can't see 3D graphics. Can anyone point me in the correct direction?

Thanks! I have been waiting for this screensaver my whole life.

This is a good screensaver to look at, and is customizable in being able to toggle the music, sound effects and some of the display settings. Makes a very nice Easter freebie.

I have it installed on my other computer, which has a separate graphics card, and I thought I would try installing it on my backup computer, which does not, to see if it would work. It installs fine, but won't run unless you have a newer card, something other than the default 'on-board' graphics hardware/software to complement your computer's capabilities. So if you have just a basic computer setup (and based on individual budgets and earnings, some of us likely do), you may need to upgrade your graphics card to view the screensaver.

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2381

Thanks again to Astro Gemini and GAotD.

Nice little specialty screensaver but needs more variety(varied scenes) to keep the kiddies attention longer. Also, at least on preview,requires keystroke to exit.Please add mouse movement to exit trigger.Other than that it's a pretty good job(I mean after all it's still just a screensaver). Thanks GOTD and ASTRO GEMINI. BTW-Stephan please keep your review 'as is' as it's more convenient to scroll rather than leave page.

@17, @18:

I gave some answers on a very specific subject: why 80% thumbs down for today's GOTD (asked by #5 if you remember). Period.

Garage sale??? Idling computer??? That you go beyond my saying and develop whatever pleases you is strictly up to you. But do not involve me in your out-of-subject discussions.

Thank you astro gemini and giveaway team. Two thumbs up from me to astro gemini for they always step up and give away a screensaver during the current season.

Cute and fun for the little kids. Not bad for no money.

Installed fine on Win7 64 bit machine

Only showed on one of my two monitors (maybe because monitor #2 is left of monitor #1)

#1 ( people complaining about 26 Meg ). I think, considering the power involved to maintain the disk space, the wiring (prorated with the other items on my hard drive), the cost of the hard drive, and considering a time span of me, my children and their children (let's call it 100 years), then 26 megs will cost me almost $0.0000001. If I vested that for the same 100 years I might could turn that into a penny.

I installed and ran this with no problems on XP sp3, 7 64 and 32 (FYI, screensavers almost always install into the appropriate Windows system folder).

I see no need to debate the pros and cons of screensavers; this is just a program like any other, it can be run on demand like any program, and some may want it and some may not.

My power settings turn my monitor off after a certain amount of time, so that isn't the reason I installed todays giveaway. I like eye candy and just want something colorful to look at when I feel like it. If you don't, then don't download today's giveaway.

@15, PAPIN

Your line of reasoning is sound. And I've seen it repeated many times here every time a "screensaver" is offered. However, while you've got this large visiting audience, why not expand your argument to include even bigger and more "wasteful energy" categories of things? For instance...

Ever go to a flea market, or a garage sale, or a "Dollar" store (here in the USA), and ponder how many people and factories are busily employed cranking out the humongous quantity of fabric/textile and little/low-end plastic and ceramic and glass and metal and wax, wooden, and paper trinkets, useless-sized pots, vases, ugly plates, stinky candles, "objets d'art", toys, kitchen gizmos no one uses, flimsy tools, party favors, throwaway electronics, clothing, etc? Basically all that detritus of our modern human culture no one eventually wants or can really use for any length of time before being offered to someone else or a landfill.

Just think about all the energy needed to run those furnaces, ovens, vats, kilns, machinery, chemical and petroleum refineries, pumps; the drillers and miners and ax men/lumberjacks and mill workers; the human and natural resources used to harvest and transport the raw materials, refine/process/shape and mold them, hand paint them, etc.

I'd love to see an energy calculation estimate for everything used to create all this "disposable" stuff. Really, I'm serious! It could become a PhD dissertation, a landmark publication (or has someone already done it?)! It's something I've often wondered (and whether we could ever build a more attractive and utopian world were all that effort and resources to be redirected towards that purpose).

I'll bet you own a few of those things you'll someday put out for a garage sale or simply toss away, still in their gift boxes, still unused/unworn, little used, played with or appreciated. I know I do. Think of the energy and materials used to create just your own pile of eventual cast-offs. I'll bet they "cost" much more in terms of material, energy and resources used to create them than an enjoyable screensaver would use.

Still, I see your point, and every little bit helps. If we or our kids are not really going to occasionally glance at, smile or laugh at this screensaver, it would be better for all of us of like mind to not waste time and precious electrical energy to run our computers while leaving messages on this page saying they are useless and wasteful; and rather for us to set our computers to "sleep" or "hibernate" (if that works without problems) while we do more eco-friendly activities.

Of course, like you, I had to waste some resources to leave my sage advice in return...

...and I've turned on this cute little cartoony screensaver around Easter every year for my family to enjoy since I first picked it up (March 2008) -- thanks, Astro Gemini, for this seasonal adornment -- but, yes, it SHOULD'VE come out a week earlier this year...

Just saying... ;-)

#15 @papin - I am a retired electronics consultant and while your figures raise a point for some people, the figures don't add up quite like that.

Even a desktop computer is unlikely to be using 200W while truly idling and a laptop is even less likely to be.

Lots of people do not like turning off/hibernating their computers at all, as some believe the repetative starting up/stopping of the computer leads to premature failure of components, especially the electro-mechanical ones like the HDDs. There is a great deal of debate over whether this is indeed true or not, but if it does work out that way for you - Then any savings from electricity will be wiped out by replacing even one HDD.

Remember also that some stream movies, etc. from their computer to their TV, so the computer needs to be on even though you might think it is not being used as watching TV.

The same thing happens with those who use their computer for phone calls, although most now do not require the computer to be on.

The computer might not apparently be doing "anything", but a lot of people have software running antivirus or defragmenting while it is "idle". Not to forget back-ups, MS system restore, MS system indexing and possibly others all working in the background.

Finally, some people just prefer seeing something nice or fun on the screen8, rather than a blank screen - Look at how popular digital photo frames have been for example. They tend to be left running all the time and "waste" a lot more electricity over time than you might think. But sometimes you just have to accept that "pleasure" or nice things cost a little.

#12 EDIT: It is NOT unusual or dangerous for screensavers to be in either folder mentioned above. They may also be in WINDOWS or anywhere else, for that matter. I have made several custom screensavers and store them in a special folder I created just for them.

@5: Need a rationale?

1. If a screensaver starts to run, it means:
- you haven't been working on the computer for a while, so why not just put it on sleep/hibernation or shut off the computer? This way, you'll save a little bit of energy. Some of you will pretend that it doesn't matter that much but you should think better and grab a calculator.

Take, for example, a desktop computer requiring 200 W power supply (all included). At home, you light it on at 6 PM, and shut it down at 10 PM. In the meantime, you have phone calls, cook for dinner and have dinner, visits; you play with your children or whoever. Every 15 mn your screensaver runs for 15 mn; in 4 hours, screensaver runs for 2 hours. 2 x 200 W = 400 Wh per day. Say you do this 250 days a year; that is 400 x 250 = 100 kWh per year. If the kWh is $0.36, the screensaver adds $36/year on your electricity bill.
In 2003, households had 69912 thousands computers in the USA alone (source). About 2/3 years ago, only 60% of all computers were desktop (actual trend is about 50%). That is 69912 x 60% x 100 kWh = 4.195 TWh (tera watt hour or 4195 MWh). In this study, it's said that about 3.5 TWh per year could be saved in Japan (around 2008/2009). Japan is a small country compared to USA. I'll let you do the math for the whole world, knowing there are more than 1300 million computers in use nowadays.

FYI, in the US, in 2010, there were 15856 producers of electricity for a theoretical capacity of 1104549 MW (xls data file); that's an average of about 70 MW per producer. This means a producer must run at full power their 70 MW capacity for 60 hours (2.5 days, 4200 MWh) just for a $10 (but free today thanks to GOTD) screensaver on desktop computers only. Should I include laptops, it'll be 1 to 1.5 day more.

In short, you send people to work monday to thursday just to have the pleasure of seeing a dancing egg on the screen, do you?

2. Easter being a religious thing, not all persons in the world are interested in.

3. To enjoy a 3D screensaver, you must rest idle in front of the screen. I suppose you have enough time to waste in your life to do that, i.e. nothing.

4. Those screensavers are definitely ugly.

Enough with that. I gotta go ---I have a life.

#6 - ootje: You are mistaken. Software should install their executables in Program Files or Program Files(86) and NOT in System32 nor SysWOW64

#8 - Whiterabbit-uk: Thanks for the info but, as a moderator, why didn't you delete the post entirely; or, at the very least, append your post to #4. By the time we get to yours, the apparently malicious, misinformation damage had been done. Perhaps allowing commenters to post in-line would be useful here.

#4 - Jeet: Do you REALLY think GOTD would allow malware to be distributed from their site? Do you REALLY think they don't know about VirusTotal, VirSCAN, etc? Do you REALLY think their coders who wrap our daily treats aren't smart enough to examine those files in-house?

Or, which is much more likely, Are you the kind of person who yells "Fire" in order to look like a hero? In any event, before harming someone's reputation --AstroGemini's, GOTD's or anyone else's-- while hiding (slinking?)behind the veil of the Internet,YOU should check out YOURSELF and double-check your facts. Even giving your honesty and integrity the benefit of the doubt, at the very least, you are reckless and, therefore, more dangerous than helpful.

I'm glad Whiterabbit-uk called you out.

Hi, PEACE AND JOY at Easter!, Many Thanks to GAOTD for It's Easter Egg:) and Good, Kind Commentators for Help, Lessons, Guidance. Have a truly Nice, Relaxing Time!

Why get a screensaver that you can only use a few days out of 365? Or want to look at Easter all year?

I believe the best screensaver is at http://www.webshots.com for you can download free pics every day from their site & constantly have different pics as often as you like. I set mine to change every 30 min.

I see today they state over 690 million photos for access. Can't be beat.

Enjoy

This should have been offered at least a week ago. Astro Gemini, your other screensavers look interesting.

VirusTotal site check: 1/19, OnlineLinkScan 0/5, Norton Safe Web - clean site, so all in all, only 1 of 25 link scanners rate AstroGemini as infected.

This ideal this of year and should get a good responce I dont have tend micro so I shoud not have problem dowloading the sceensaver this will be treid out later when i got more time and celever givewayfortheday that makes lot of sence.

With respect to comment #4 by Jeet i.e can't access the site etc..... The exact same post was posted in the Gamegiveaway section apart from it was releated to the game giveaway developers site regarding Star Ashes as opposed to Astro Gemini. I've throughly checked the site and searched the web for any information regarding this issue with no results found so i'm rather suspicious of the information being posted. I've unapproved that particular post via moderation because personally I think it's scaremongering. In my experience, when someone has posted such information the downloads for that particular game have reduced drastically.

Seeing that the same person has posted the same warning here on the applications side of the project rally makes me suspicious.

The giveaway team have always throughly tested the software and vetted their contributors so as not to allow software that's dubious through to the community. Doing so would hurt their standing with the big search engines.

I've been visiting the giveaway site since November 2006 and have never seen a giveaway that's had a confirmed virus or other malware.

With respect to the Star Ashes site over on the game giveaway side of the project you just have to see that it's a very plain site, devoted virtually 100% to their games with very little advertising. I very much doubt their is a problem with either of these sites.

Personally I think this user is posting malicious posts or they have a serious problem with their computer. No one else has reported this problem.

This is a nice screensaver and very timely. Thank you GOTD and Astro Gemini for offering it.

Installation under Win7-64 is not flawless.
Shortcut in Start directs to C:\Windows\system32.
It should be C:\Windows\SysWOW64.

Ootje

I like this screensaver. I'll admit that the graphics are not top notch, but that makes it ideal for putting it on my laptop as well. Unfortunately, I am switching to Linux (whole 'nother story), so I won't be able to take this one with with me or use any of Astro Gemini's screensavers.

As of this post, 80% don't like it. I don't know why. Maybe someone could tell me.

Can't access site:

Trend Micro InterScan Web Security Event



URL Blocked

This URL has a Web security rating that prohibits it from being accessed based on corporate policy. The requested site is either a known or suspected source of malware.

Event Details:

URL: http://www.astrogemini.com/easter.html

Content rating rule: Web Reputation - Very Low


If you believe this URL was blocked in error, please contact your IT staff to resolve this issue.

It is not clear what the program does, is it?

A joy for the eye, but only for a very limited hours. Who ever invented Easter eggs and Easter bunny has probably been bored in church ...

23.8 MB for a screensaver! Are you kidding me?