The technical requirements for a screensaver are kind of simple. It should come on when you’re not using your computer for a little while, and the display should change. If a screensaver does that, most people are content and hardly give their screensaver a second thought. You may spend a few minutes going through the dozen or so screensavers that come with your operating system to find one that suits you. You may even download or buy something a little more interesting to you. But even in these cases, after a few months (if not days) it still becomes something you ignore.

A few months ago we decided it may be fun to create a screensaver for Multiply, one that would rotate through new pictures posted to the site. I anticipated that because the pictures changed the screensaver would be a little less boring than the average screensaver, but I still thought it would be something I eventually took for granted. Boy, was I wrong. I think the screensaver is an awesome application (and I’m not saying this as a biased Multiply employee…I’m saying this as an average user).

For starters, it helps me know what is going on with my friends and family without any time commitment. Let me repeat. No time. "I’m too busy" is not an excuse to not use the screensaver. You’re already running a screensaver, right? It is also cake to install. Actually, if you have a broadband connection and run WindowsXP (the only requirements) it will take you less time to have this running than to finish reading this review. So, if you’re not using the screensaver, stop reading and

download the screensaver.

Seriously. If you got this far and haven’t installed it yet, click on the link above. If I see in the Viewing History that you’ve read this review and you’re not running the screensaver I’m going to be very upset.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, no time commitment. Even I who spend lots of time on Multiply for obvious reasons do not go through and look at every single picture posted by everyone in my social network. For my contacts I do generally open up every album, and at worst just view the thumbnails and read the discussions to make sure I don’t miss anything. More often, I’ll go through the albums picture by picture or open up a handful based on the thumbnails. On a daily basis though I’ll come back to my desk and see, via the screensaver a picture (yes, of someone I know) that I’ve never seen before, and every time I do it makes my day a little better. I know that sounds corny, but when you get back to your desk, what do you see? Flying windows? That’s not making your day any better.

Another thing I like about the screensaver is that photos are displayed full-screen. Even when going through an album picture by picture on Multiply, you don’t often view the hi-res version, at least not for every picture. It is great seeing pictures in all their full-screen glory. No borders, links nor toolbars. No web-browser windows. No desktop icons. Just greatly detailed views of pictures.

For those of you that ignored my suggestion to download and install because you want to know how it works, it is simple. You download it. During installation you enter your Multiply id and password. Then each night it downloads new pics. That’s it. On the Settings page you can configure whose pictures it downloads. Now you (if you have WindowsXP/broadband) have no excuses to not try it out, especially if you had the time to read through this far.