Screen Machine Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, -------------- October 2013. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ? | * Installing and Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * The Future | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Screen Machine for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. Screen Machine is a program that captures screen shots of the full screen of your computer in action at 1 minute, 5 minute, or whatever intervals you choose. For example, if I surfed the internet using Netscape or some other browser, checked my email using Eudora or some other email client, did some on-line chatting with an IRC client, and then played some games like Age of Empires, Crazy Taxi, MAME 32, etc - then Screen Machine will capture screen shots of all of these programs in action at the time intervals specified and store them in the directory specified. These screen shots would provide a record of what the user did during the time they were logged on. This program might be useful for anyone who wants to check what someone is doing / typing on your computer. e.g. keep track of what your teenage kids or the computer repair guy are doing while using the internet or any other programs on your computer Screen Machine captures screen shots to a directory you specify, and can also log all screen capturing activity to a plain text file. In addition, you can use the following options : - Only capture screen if key pressed or mouse clicked since last screen capture. So, if the screen saver is running, or no-one is using the computer then screen shots will no longer be captured. By default, this option is enabled. - Only capture screen if the screen's contents have changed. N.B. A change of just one pixel is a change - so if the clock changes, or a scroll bar moves, or something in a form or status bar changes, then this means the screen has changed, and the screen will be captured. By default, this option is enabled. - Only capture screen if there is at least 10 MB of free disk space. So you don't fill up your hard disk with screen shots. By default, this option is enabled. The program is designed to run without any user intervention for obvious reasons - you don't want to alert someone that you are watching them / snooping on them. So, if any errors are encountered, these will be logged to the log file, but no error messages will be displayed to the user. Various security / stealth options are available - see "Installing and Using this Program" below. If you find this program useful, you should also take a look at my Key Stroke Recorder program (available on my web site). Developed using 32-bit Delphi. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed). Do NOT install this software on any computers you do not own. Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ? -------------------------------------------- If you are worried what your son, daughter, friend, spouse, etc might be typing or looking at or doing on your computer, or if you are worried about what the repair shop guys are using your computer for when it goes in for repairs, or if you are worried that someone at work is using your PC after hours, then Screen Machine can help log what people do on your computer so that you can view this later on and either dismiss or confirm your fears. The program can capture screen shots of any Windows application, and most Windows / Direct/X Games. N.B. There are some games that Screen Machine might not be able to capture correctly. e.g. DOS games. If you find this program useful, you should also take a look at my Key Stroke Recorder program (available on my web site). Do NOT install this software on any computers you do not own. Installing and Using this Program : ----------------------------------- To use this program, unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a directory - such as c:\Screen\ - and run the executable file : Screen_Machine.EXE. When the program runs, it will be minimised and it will put an icon in the Windows Tray bar (with the Clock, etc) which you can click on with the mouse to bring up the program's main window. Various options / settings are available - see the "Introduction" above. If you want the program to run automatically when Windows starts up, then select this option under the "File" menu in the program. A range of Basic Stealth Options are provided, see the "Settings" tab. For example, you can change the program's title to something less obvious or suspicious. e.g. you could change the program's name to "My Diary" or "Windows System Monitor" or something. You can also add a password so that if someone clicks on the program's icon in the Windows Tray bar then they will not be able to see the log or use any of the program's functionality until they enter the password. On my PC (running in 1024 x 768 with 16 bit colour), each captured screen (i.e. screen shot) is quite large - each bitmap file is around 1.5 MB. So, it is advisable to keep the "Only capture screen if there is at least 10 MB of free disk space" option checked. If you want to capture screen shots for a particular user and you force users to log on to your system (with their own username and password, which is a good idea), then you can simply create a shortcut to Screen Machine in the Windows StartUp directory for each user. How you do this varies - consult your Windows Help Files or search the internet for help on this, or if you are really stuck, email me and I'll do my best to help. I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Do NOT install this software on any computers you do not own. Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- At the present time, there is No Uninstall function. If you ever want to delete Screen Machine from your computer, then : 1. Exit the program, and delete it from wherever you installed it on your harddrive. Before doing this however : - If you have selected / enabled the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option (under the File menu), then you should ensure that this option is not checked / enabled (which you can easily do by re-selecting the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option from under the File menu). - If you have used any of the "Create Shortcut ..." options under the File menu, then you should use the "Delete All Shortcuts" option under the File menu to remove these from your system. Simple as that ! The Future : ------------ Like all of my programs, I've got tons of ideas for this program. But in this case, of course, I will be very cautious in what features I add because I don't want to do anything to help any hackers / crackers or anyone else out there abuse or misuse this program. e.g. record passwords or information that they have no right to record or log or view. So, I will be very careful in providing any functionality that might allow damage to be done in the wrong hands. To put it bluntly, I will not make it easier for evil people to rip off or snoop on good people. In the future, many improvements could be made to this program, such as : - Password protection / encryption of the log file. - Ability to limit the log file to a certain size or to a certain number of lines. - Better password protection of the program. So, that no-one can close the program down unless they type the correct password. - More / Advanced Stealth Mode Options - so that the program does not appear in the Windows Task List or on the Windows Task Bar or the application / process list. i.e. people using your computer will not know that this program is running or logging their activities. N.B. I can do this quite easily - but it scares the hell out of me so much that I will probably never release a program that does this because then this program could far more easily be used for evil. - Add in ability to only log selected users of your computer. e.g. If Moose logs onto your computer, then log his actions, etc. (This will mean that you will need to force users to log in when Windows starts up). - Compression, size reduction, and/or colour reduction of the screen shots and/or saving the screen shots as JPEG files, etc to reduce the disk space they use. Although doing this has its draw backs. Disk space is cheap, and even in late 2002, entry level PCs come equipped with at least 40 GB hard disks - so a 1.5 MB per screen shot is peanuts. To compress images to JPEG or similar, may cause a noticeable slowdown on the PC and may alert the user to this program's presence / activity. Saving the screen shots to uncompressed .BMP files does not cause any noticeable decrease in the PCs performance. - Anything else ? If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, etc. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : ------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 15-Jan-2003 First Public Release. (56,905 lines of code / comments.) 1.0f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. 1.1f 26-Oct-2013 1. Fix the capturing of screen shots so that this program works properly under Windows 7 and 8 (32 bit and 64 bit) as well as all versions of Windows back to Windows 95. Under Windows 7 and 8, only a black screen was being captured. All fixed now. Special thanks to Jerry P. for reporting the issue. 2. Prevent the form being rescaled (and text shrinking) when "Capture Screen Now" button is clicked. 3. Remove a "Registered Version Only" label in the Settings tab. 4. Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. 5. Update various sections in the Screen_Machine.txt file. (1,400 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source file.) (66,857 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary, library, and include files.) 1.2f 7-Nov-2013 1. Fix some program behaviour: not minimising correctly some times and popping up after taking screen shots and regressing to saved settings under some conditions. Special thanks to Jerry P. for reporting the issue. 2. Save images to JPG files rather than BMP files. I selected BMP files originally because they are super fast to generate and write to disk. JPG requires compression and generating one visibly slowed the PC I was using down for a split second way back when I wrote this program (in the early 2000's). However, modern PCs / laptops / netbooks, etc can generate many JPGs per second with barely a blip on the CPU's radar. Here's how the sizes compare for 1280x1024 desktop screen shots: * BMP: 5,121 KB * JPG: 450 KB (varies depending on what is on the screen being captured) So, they are about 1/10th the size. (1,389 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source file.) (68,961 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary, library, and include files.) If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________