I hope you dont still use a screen saver. I havent for quite some time. Screen savers were invented to prevent burn-in, a permanent shadow branded into the phosphors of your monitor by a static image of, for example, a web page or game or even a spreadsheet that you left on your screen all weekend.

With the flat-screen LCD monitors it  doesnt burn in, so if you still have a screen saver or an endlessly looping slide show of your afamily, dog, or vacation, then believe it or not youre behind the times. If youre not sitting in front of your monitor it should be off, perieod.

It was a theory I had that it the display although in screen saver mode, was still utilizing my screen. That didnt sound like right to me. So I changed my display settings to turn my monitor off after 15 minutes of inactivity.

What I have found is that my monitors or those I have managed, have out lasted others that I am aware of. Not to mention it is energy effecient. So I was pleased to read at Green Daily that Telstra, the biggest phone company in Australia, has removed all the corporate screen savers from the 36,000 computers in its offices. The result is, the change will cut tons of CO2 which they claim will be the equivalent of taking 140 cars off the road for a year.

So a good piece of advice would be for you to save your screen and energy, by following a good example set by Telstra. Get rid of that screen saver.