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4.2

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David M. Dickerson

The trial version restricts the user to six images and throws errors about and image that varies from the basic sRBB standard, forcing the user to replace the image unless the user has access to Adobe Photoshop or is familiar enough with The GIMP, a powerful, free, open-source program with a counterintuitive interface, which might be able to modify the "offending" image. The publisher's description of the evaluation version mentions a "nag" screen, but the user is subjected to a barrage of "nags," including large dialog boxes after selecting the option to test a screen saver before creating an installer. On a 15.4-inch laptop with a resolution of 1280x800, this dialogue screen essentially fills the center of the screen -- an agressive effort to coerce the user into purchasing this inferior and very basic screen saver creator constantly during the preview process, a tactic that always backfires with me! The transitions are all intrusive and make use of overzealous visual effects that could cause problems for users with low-end graphics cards, although I had no problems with my 256-MB ATI 3200 HD video card. The preview area for each image imported into the program is about the size of a large, rectangular postage stamp. Do NOT select the option to let the program "adjust" the image to fit the screen resolution, because this adjustment is the publisher's way of excusing lazy coding that definitely will horribly distort the image. If you wish to create screen savers compatible with a different resolution or ratio than your display -- a real problem for me, because I am restricted to 1280x800 -- limiting my ability to creating screen savers for other resolutions and/or ratios, because a variation from my setup creates a screen saver that looks horrible on my display. The publisher went to great lengths to create a thick and ugly title bar. There are free alternatives to this kind of garbage, such Google's Picasa, which can create screen savers of images and is free -- and cross-platform. Do not bother wasting your time downloading, installing, and testing this poorly coded and irritatating trial software -- and please do not encourage the publisher by purchasing this piece of garbage. I will say that the program did not crash on my HP Pavilion DV5-1003nr notebook -- which was built with a defective CPU that Hewlett-Packard refuses to replace -- although the program did freeze constantly for periods of about 30 seconds, one of the typical behaviors of this "lobotomized" AMD Turion X2. (The notebook, turned over, also could serve as a grill: It certainly burns human flesh in just over a second through new denim blue jeans! HP's ranking at the bottom of quality and support reviews is well deserved, but I cannot lose this battle -- although it has turned my life into a nightmare and lasted for months.) Again, try another evaluation screen saver creator. The better ones, while more expensive, are fully functional and "nag free" for the evaluation period, although those that allow you to create screen savers as shareware will generate free screen savers only. I downloaded this trial version of 2D 3D Screensaver Maker on impulse, because of a reduced price and the prospect of receiving customer support (but the stilted English text was either written by an ESL writer or an illiterate person, or some poor victim of head trauma. Avoid 2D 3D Screensaver Maker unless you are a masochist!

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2D+3D Screensaver Maker 3.1

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2D+3D Screensaver Maker 3.1

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