How to simulate mouse movements to prevent screen saver activation?

[Guest Sabine Elsner]

In our office the admins tend to be crazy. They configured the ScreenSaver activation

after 8 (!) minutes of no mouse movement.

 

After screen saver activation I have to re-logon and re-type my password. This is very inconvenient.

 

Unfortunately I cannot change the screen saver activation time because it is managed central by the server

and not adjustable on my workstation.

 

So I am thinking about writing a program which simulates mouse movements by a pixel each minute.

 

Is this possible somehow?

 

Sabine

[Guest VanguardLH]

Re: How to simulate mouse movements to prevent screen saver activation?

 

"Sabine Elsner" wrote in

<news:483707a3$0$6615$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net>:

> In our office the admins tend to be crazy. They configured the ScreenSaver activation

> after 8 (!) minutes of no mouse movement.

>

> After screen saver activation I have to re-logon and re-type my password. This is very inconvenient.

>

> Unfortunately I cannot change the screen saver activation time because it is managed central by the server

> and not adjustable on my workstation.

>

> So I am thinking about writing a program which simulates mouse movements by a pixel each minute.

>

> Is this possible somehow?

>

> Sabine

 

NOTE: Inappropriate use of the FollowUp-To header was ignored. Original

list of newsgroups was used for this reply.

 

 

If your domain login gives you local admin privileges on your own host,

you can use a .reg (registry) file to change the screensaver idle

timeout. First ask your IT folks if they will permit you to change your

own screensaver timeout. They may not make a per-account change to let

the timeouts vary by account but they may not bar you from altering your

own timeout.

 

When you logon under a domain account, policies get pushed into your

registry. You can add a .reg file into your Startup group that can

later alter those policies by altering the registry entries, but you

will need to have admin privileges on your own host under that domain

account to do any registry changes. If you don't have admin privileges

on your own host for your domain login then you can't alter the registry

to change the screensaver timeout.

 

 

--- Rant on inappropriate use of the FollowUp-To header ---

 

Don't use the FollowUp-To header. Posting to, say, 3 newsgroups but

moving replies to just 1 of them or to a completely different one means

you disconnect the visitors of those other 2 (or 3) newsgroups from the

rest of the discussion. If a newsgroup is appropriate for your post

then it is also appropriate for the replies. Or, converserly, if the

continued discussion of your post is not appropriate in all the

newsgroups to which you cross-posted then you should not have posted to

those other newsgroups in the first place. You are using the

FollowUp-To header to move replies to YOUR "home" newsgroup but which

the users of the other newsgroups may not visit. After all, if you

cross-post and include your "home" newsgroup then you'll see all those

replies in your home newsgroup and meanwhile all the other users can

still see the replies in their newsgroup where you decided to also

publish your post.

 

In http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/, it says, "For a

cross-post, you may want to set the Followup-To: header line to the most

suitable group for the rest of the discussion". Read another way, that

means you disconnect the discussion from all the visitors of the other

newsgroups to which you decided to publish your post. Why did you

publish to those other newsgroups if you are going to yank the

discussion away from those users and perhaps even from the respondents

you were attempting to elicit? It is exasperating to post a reply and

never see it in the newsgroup where you read the original post. If your

post was appropriate for all the groups to which you cross-posted then

why wouldn't those same groups be appropriate for the replies? To yank

away the discussion to your "home" group is rude since that is probably

not the "home" group for your respondents. You wanted replies which may

require further replies but now your respondents no longer see the

thread in the newsgroup that they visit to where you published your

post. Also, the respondents may not know if their reply is appropriate

in the "home" group that you happen to choose. In general, malcontents

and spammers use the FollowUp-To header to hide negative replies to

their flame or spam posts, often sending the replies off to a *.test

newsgroup.

 

There are some cases where FollowUp-To should be used. For example, say

a newsgroup is supposed to only get used for citing the content of a

spam e-mail. Discussions about that spam are not supposed to be

published in that citing newsgroup. Just the exhibits are published

there. If someone wants to discuss that particular spam, their replies

should go into a different newsgroup meant for those discussions. I

believe that is how some of the NANAE newsgroups operate but the

principle may apply elsewhere but it is rare few newsgroups where

FollowUp-To is appropriate. For the vast majority of newsgroups,

FollowUp-To is *not* appropriate. If you do not want continue the

discussion in the other newsgroups then don't cross-post over there (and

then use FollowUp-To to yank away the continued discussion). If the

discussion is not appropriate in those other newsgroups then it seems

you have nominated your post to be spam.

 

If you do use the FollowUp-To header, you are expected per netiquette to

alert the readers of your post that you used that header. Be polite and

add a note (at the start of your post) saying that you used the header

(ex., "WARNING: FollowUp-To was used and points to <newsgroup>". You

might also want to explain why any further discussion in the other

newsgroups is inappropriate despite your rudeness in posting to those

other newsgroups. Many times respondents wonder where their reply post

went because they expect to see it in the group they visited and where

they read your post. Not all NNTP clients alert the user that the

poster used the FollowUp-To header. Think about it: you post to

multiple newsgroups but yank the replies to a different newsgroup than

where your respondents visited, then you need more help and reply to

those replies but which are now only in your "home" newsgroup, but the

respondents won't see their posts nor will they see your replies to them

asking for more help. FollowUp-To is not required when you cross-post

since your "home" newsgroup should be one those that were specified in

the list of newsgroups. You'll watch the discussion in your home

newsgroup and the respondents or lurkers can watch that same discussion

in their own newsgroup. If you don't want replies to show up in all the

newsgroups to which you cross-posted then don't cross-post over there in

the first place!

 

When crossposting, there are not multiple copies of your post that

wastes bandwidth for each to get them propagated to other NNTP servers

and there aren't multiple copies of your post consuming disk space. A

single copy gets sent to the other NNTP servers and a single copy

resides on each NNTP server with pointers to it to make it show up in

multiple newsgroups. You aren't saving bandwidth or disk space by

redirecting replies for a cross-posted message to a single newsgroup.

You are just being rude to the visitors of the other newsgroups to which

you cross-posted but tried to yank away the discussion.

 

--- End of rant ---