The desktops, they are a-changin'

News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

April 10, 2008

The desktops, they are a-changin’

Posted Apr. 10, ’08, 9:18 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Software

Desktoptopia Some say your desktop picture says a lot about who you are as a person. I haven’t changed mine on this machine pretty much since I’ve gotten it—I suppose that says I’m a stale, unchanging person. But perhaps you’re the sort who likes constant stimulation and enjoys seeing a fresh desktop gracing your machine every, oh, five minutes or so.

While you can do that using a few options in OS X’s Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane, that only gives you the option of using photos that are already on your Mac. Say you want to pull pictures from a source on the Net; your Flickr feed, for example. Perhaps you might then be a candidate for Desktoptopia, a preference pane that pulls desktop pictures of a variety of themes and lets you specify your own sources as well. Options let you dictate what happens if you have multiple monitors, and whether to change automatically or not (and if so, how often).

One thing that I found annoying was that you can’t disable one of the default feeds, because it’s “sponsored.” I understand that the app is free and thus, that’s how they make their money, but I think it would be nice if there was also a paid version that let you specify only your one feeds. Also, Flickr’s RSS feeds only seem to contain lower-res versions of photos that didn’t scale well on my MacBook’s screen, so that turned out not to be a very handy solution. Oh, well; back to my old standby desktop.

[via Lifehacker]

4 Comments

MySchizoBuddy said:

How do you get feeds of the desktop pictures on their own site.

April 10, 2008 10:33 AM

Anonymous said:

I've been running this program for several days. Previously, I was committed to "Aqua Blue", but the stuff they've been pumping onto my desktop every five minutes has been cool to the point of distraction. Great for creativity, tough on productivity.

April 10, 2008 2:21 PM

Khürt Williams

said: