Psssst! Wanna have some fun?

[webmaster]

It’s Monday morning, the birds are singing, the sun is shining: what a great day! It would be a pity to start the week off by working.

Humor is not only fun (pardon my redundancy), but it’s also healthy. According to specialists, when smiling and having fun the human body releases stress-relieving hormones that are good for your heart.

How would you like to pull an “innocent” prank on your roommate or a friend from work? You could use the old “bucket’o water over the door” trick, but this would mean assiduous work in synchronizing your moves, and the consequences of your joke could seem a little exaggerated for the victim.

LOL

I have, however, found another solution, and yes, it’s a computer application. It’s called Desktop fun, and you can use to bring your desktop to life (and maybe more than just the desktop).

The main screen is quite simple, and is, in fact, the only window that the program offers (besides the about section, which doesn’t count as a program feature). It’s divided into three sections: the effects list, the “toolbar” (which contains two buttons), and the preview window.

Here are the main steps you need to perform when working with the program: select the effect that you want to enable, see it’s effect in the preview window, then click on the Start
button (just so that there are no misunderstandings, I’m talking about the one that the program features, and not about Windows’ Start button). After this you’re all set, and ready to go.

Just so that your little joke is funnier, and has a much more effective result you can set the program to activate it after a while (all you have to do is specify the number of seconds). This way, you can schedule the “tweaking” of your (or your friend’s) desktop, so that you won’t be the main suspect when the victim falls for the prank.

Among the effects are the following: blur, darkness, dither, going mad, maze, move from me, move to me, pixelize, rotate 90 counter clock wise, rotate 90 clock wise, rotate horizontally, rotate vertically, smoke, snow, star sky, waves and where color.

I’m not going to talk about each, leaving you to discover them one by one and see the one that you like the most. I, especially, like the blur effect (which made a victim when I’ve first “implemented” it): it gradually blurs your desktop, making it look like there’s something wrong with your display.

Also, the program is able to change your wallpaper with the current view of your screen, along with the selected effect. The program does, however have a problem, and only applies the effect to the upper left portion of your wallpaper (the dimensions of this section are the ones of the program’s main window, which is considerably small, even when comparing it with a VGA resolution).

I’ve noticed that both when you schedule an effect, and when you have it applied instantly the computer’s screen freezes and all you can do is move your mouse. I would have liked it better if I were able to delay an effect and have it start when the waiting time has passed, rather than have it frozen for that interval.

You have to be careful so that the screensaver doesn’t activate before your effect does, because the program can’t wake up the computer from this state.

The good

Working with this small application is easy, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist in order to figure out its functionality.

The bad

When using the wallpaper feature you don’t get the full effect that the program suggests you would. But the effect that you’ve selected will be applied to the screen in the interval that you’ve specified.

The truth

There are plenty effects for you to try, and if you don’t want to make an office prank, you can simply try them on your computer and replace your ordinary screensaver (keep in mind that this is not a power saving application). I would recommend this free, small and standalone application as not the best, but still a good download.