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
You 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 02/01/2009
how would i program it to refresh every second?
On 31/12/2008
Can i do this in Vista ????
By Ben on 03/12/2008
live map
By asif on 21/11/2008
Awesome thanks - just what I wanted
By EV on 08/10/2008
thts really cool....can we get live map with name of countries?
By rohit goel on 27/09/2008
I think I read somewhere that MS got rid of Active Desktop in Vista
By some guy on 23/08/2008
TOTALY RADICAL!
Love it! thnx a million! :D
By Sweden on 07/08/2008
Hi, the idea is great but is it possible to have the same thing in vista ? My vista machine seems to allow only pictures as desktop backgrounds ?
By PJ on 05/08/2008
Hi, just tried this, it's a great idea-thanks! wondering if it's possible to influence the resolution - for the time being the map is bigger than my screen, so I can't see the whole world.. :-(
By anonymous coward on 01/05/2008
ok
By Dilip on 14/04/2008
Ok....how about for Vista???
On 29/03/2008
it is really good stuff.
On 28/03/2008
Thanks this works like a treat.
On 12/01/2008
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