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HowTo Set your Mac OS X Screen Saver to display your Flickr Photostream

Follow the steps below to set your Mac OS X Screen Saver to display your Flickr Photostream.

Flickr is a photo sharing site where you can upload and share your photos. One of the nice features of Flickr is that they provide an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed of your uploads. It is possible to have your Mac's screen saver monitor your Flickr feed and display the pictures that you have uploaded to Flickr.

Step 1: Get your Flickr RSS Feed Link

The first step is to log into your Flickr account and go to your photostream by following the link on your Flickr home page.

Step 2: Copy your Photostream RSS Link

Scroll down to the bottom of the page on your Flickr Photostream and either <CTRL> + Click or Right Click on the link that is marked "Latest" where is says to Subscribe to your photostream.

Step 3: Open your Desktop and Screen Saver Preferences

From Your Desktop

From your Mac desktop, either <CTRL> + Click or Right Click and select "Change Desktop Background". This may not seem like the right place, but it is.

From System Preferences

You can also change your screen saver by starting the Systems Preferences application and choosing the Desktop & Screen Saver panel

The System Preferences application will start and launch the Desktop & Screen Saver panel.

Step 4: Set up the RSS Screen Saver

Your Mac comes with some pretty standard screen savers from Apple and these are listed at the top. If you want to set your screen saver to display your pictures, scroll down. To Display your Flickr photostream, scroll down to the pictures section and select Mobile Me and RSS

Choose the Options ... button and then click on the Plus (+) button to and select the Add RSS feed choice.

Paste the link in for your Flickr Photosteam feed select OK. Your Flickr photostream will be displayed in the dialog box. Make sure that it is checked as shown below.

Your Mac can display your pictures in the screen saver three ways; one picture at a time, several pictures built into a collage, or your Mac can use your pictures to craft photo mosaics (pretty cool if you have a lot of pictures).

To set the screen saver for a single picture, select the left button for Display Style.

To set the screen saver to display a collage, select the middle button for Display Style.

To set the screen saver to display a photo mosaic, select the right button for Display Style.

Tip for using the Photo Mosaic screen saver: This presentation format works best when you have a lot of pictures (> 1000). First select the mosaic Display Style. Your Mac will build up a mosaic database of your pictures and the Preview will display pictures of flags. Once your mosaic database is built, you can choose a group of pictures (from an iPhoto event or slideshow and then pick the Mosaic Display Style and your screen saver will build photo mosaics of the pictures you selected.

There are other options that you can choose under the Options button.