Live World Map on Desktop
Introduction
In October 2007 I came across the World Sunlight Map which is an online image showing a map of the world overlaid with a representation of which areas were currently light and dark. It also gives an impression of what the current cloud cover looked like. This image updates (nearly) live so every time you visit, it will be slightly different.
The first thing that came to mind was that it would be good if this can be used as the desktop background for Windows XP. Obviously it would be good if this would update to reflect what the current light conditions and cloud cover were like.
The main problem here is that desktops usually only display the contents of a static image and getting this image to download and update would require some automation that could probably work but it would not be the simple solution.
The Solution
To get a desktop image that refreshes I decided to make use of the Active Desktop feature in Windows XP to display the image from the internet. The problem that arises from this is that it is tricky to get the image to update often enough (the minimum synchronisation is 1 day!).
To make the image update say every 10 minutes there is a workaround...
(1) Create a folder called Daft Logic on your computer in <Drive>:\Program Files\ - probably C:\Program Files\
(2) In <Drive>:\Program Files\Daft Logic\ create a new text file called New Text Document.txt
(3) Open New Text Document.txt and then copy paste the following code into the text file
(4) Save and close New Text Document.txt
(5) Rename New Text Document.txt to desktop.htm
(6) Right Click on your desktop and select Properties
(7) On the Desktop Tab, click on the Customize Desktop... button.
(8) In the Desktop Items window, click the Web tab and then click the New... button.
(9) Browse to the htm file you have just created (C:\Program Files\Daft Logic\desktop.htm)
(10) Click OK, then OK, then Apply, then OK
(11) You will now need to maximise the window that has now appeared on your desktop so that it fills the whole screen. To do this, hover over the window then move up to the top gray bar and click the left maximise window button.
Notes
If you wish to change the period between refreshes (default is every 10 minutes) then change the value in <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="600"> in the desktop.htm file from 600 to the required value.
The value is [number of minutes] multiplied by 60. So...
- 10 mins = 600
- 30 mins = 1800
- 60 mins = 3600
Relevant Links
Previous Comments For This Page
thanks BOSS
On 13/07/2010Will this map work on Window 7 64bit
By Windows on 15/04/2010Verry nice topic
and i also like that comments box, we dont need to full many fields to speack
and this trik is working great
By pmai.tk on 22/03/2010its good too!!!!
By manvir deaf on 11/03/2010its not working in my pc....please tell me why
On 09/03/2010I finished the above procedure but not getting any picture,just the text on the desktop.
why?
By tarek on 09/02/2010full info this map
On 09/02/2010very nice link.(using html coding). but picture pixel is low. i can't able zoom in the earth picture. please provide high pixel. (i am ilamair pondicherry(periyakalapet))
By ilambarithy on 17/01/2010Vista instructions please!
By Anna on 20/11/2009How do you make it work in windows vista 64 bit?
please reply
By luis on 30/10/2009iwanttosee worldmap
By ali on 26/10/2009iwanttosee worldmap
By ali on 26/10/2009it is really good stuff..
On 04/10/2009awesome! love it works perfectly :)
By Styx Ferryman on 18/09/2009Thanku Sir
By Raaz on 18/09/2009zzas fine because i want is to see it live
By francis on 01/09/2009Thanks! Looks great and very informative!!
On 29/07/2009It works .. :) ...
But same resolution issue is there...
how can I fit to the screen ... so that all is visible...
or there is no ... way to get this done.. ??
On 28/07/2009Thanks!
It works, but the white border around doesn't look good )
PS Hello from Russia )
By Dimmon on 09/07/2009this worked great!!
On 23/06/2009Though it just occurred to me .... i wanted to see if ASP could be used on as activeX desktop....may be to get more options like running time on the map or maybe thelast time it was refreshed!!???
By ayush on 15/06/2009"I tried this step by step but I only get the code on my desktop and no picture and when I browse to daft logic there is no text doc in the folder but if I open the program files without browse the daft logic folder is there and the text doc as well, whats up with that? "
dude i think u forgot to change the file to desktop.htm
On 15/06/2009sorry man but i can't get this to work
On 14/06/2009do i get the live world map with country name also
By gari - india on 23/02/2009I tried this step by step but I only get the code on my desktop and no picture and when I browse to daft logic there is no text doc in the folder but if I open the program files without browse the daft logic folder is there and the text doc as well, whats up with that?
On 22/02/2009Vista ??????
On 25/01/2009Yeah, for some reason I can't see the whole world on my notebook either. Can I change the resolution somehow?
On 16/01/2009You can use <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1" />, although the flicker due to refresh and internet usage may become more of an issue.
By Daft Logic on 02/01/2009how would i program it to refresh every second?
On 31/12/2008Can i do this in Vista ????
By Ben on 03/12/200830 out of 41 comments shown. See all comments.
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