New G5, is there something to show off to my kids?

alligatoralligator
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I'm getting my first Mac, a G5 today, and I'd like to make a good first impression on my kids (ages 3 and 4) who have heard me talk about nothing else for the last month. They really like the aquarium screen saver on my PC, and I was wondering if there is anything I can load easily tonight (freeware preferred, of course) just to show it off to them. Animated creatures, cool photos, audio, or video would be great.



Another example of something they liked was the talking animated characters from the MS Agent software on my PC.



I really want to show it off to them, and impress them. Unfortunately, benchmarks do not impress a 4 year old. I need something else.



Any suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    donny1donny1 Posts: 33member
    Welcome to the world of Mac, you're certainly starting off on the right foot, with a G5.



    As to your question regarding software, there are plenty of freeware screensavers around, apple.com's Mac OS X download page or versiontracker etc. should get you some good ones.



    Alternatively, if you have a digital camera, you could try taking some pics, uploading them, and showing them in a slideshow in iPhoto, my friends kid is always mesmerised by that!
  • Reply 2 of 5
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I, too, was going to suggest Apple's own OS X downloads page:



    http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/



    You'll see in the "Categories" list on the right a section for icons and screensavers. Go there and enjoy! Should be lots of neat stuff to entertain the little ones.



    BTW, you mentioned the aquarium screensaver. There's a cool one for Macs, too, listed in that section at the link above.



    But I was thinking: Pixar should design and release a cool "Finding Nemo" screensaver! The great animation and rendering of the film applied to a cool screensaver.



    Think about it. Makes perfect sense, given the whole Apple/Pixar connection.







    Does this exist? And if not, why? Someone place a call...
  • Reply 3 of 5
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    I don't remember how, but I believe there is a way to make a screen saver the background picture on the desktop. Not that you'd always want to do this, but the aquarium running on the desktop for a little while would be cool.



    iTunes full screen visualizer looks cool too. Play a song, set the visualizer to full screen, enjoy.



    Hold down the shift key when you 'minimize' a big window with that yellow button. I always love this one.



    Set the dock to 'Magnify' so when you roll over it the icons grow and shrink. This looks good when it grows so large you can clearly see what's minimized.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    alligatoralligator Posts: 57member
    These are perfect ideas.



    I've also used clips from upcoming Pixar movies as entertainment for the kids. They really liked the Monsters Inc. trailer once they got over the fact that there could be monsters in your closet.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    123123 Posts: 278member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bunge

    I don't remember how, but I believe there is a way to make a screen saver the background picture on the desktop. Not that you'd always want to do this, but the aquarium running on the desktop for a little while would be cool.





    Open terminal and type:

    /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &



    Remember the number that you get as an answer:



    /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &

    [1] 548



    In my case, you'd have to type:

    kill 548



    to get rid of the saver.
Sign In or Register to comment.