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Desktop Earth turns your desktop into a beautiful, real-time globe
It's so simple, yet so damn beautiful. All the developer has done is grab a bunch of images from NASA and compiled them into a program that changes your wallpaper depending on the time of day and the season. Look at the picture above -- click it for a larger view if you like.
But it gets better! It's configurable! You can vary the cloud coverage and which nighttime image to use (moonlit, city lights or simple shadow). You can also force the daytime image to show a specific month, or topographic (Earth's surface) and bathymetric (ocean floor) data.
I'm never been one for desktop wallpapers -- I usually use a boring dark grey -- but... there's something about having the beautiful Blue Marble right there, right in front of your eyes. I can see myself using Desktop Earth for a long time to come.
As I write this, I'm watching sunlight slowly creep over the west coast of America. It's rather lovely.
[via CyberNet]
Comments
17
Subscribe to commentsEricJun 30th 2010 11:44AM
Oh Hallelujah... it is multi-monitor aware too!!!!!
Sebastian AnthonyJun 30th 2010 11:45AM
Hell yeah! I have TWO globes on my screens!
EricJun 30th 2010 11:53AM
I like that you can choose the center point... with two monitors I found having it centered on my timezone looked kind of ugly, because of the bezels running right down the center. By setting the center point to the mid atlantic, or mid pacifica, you can have the americas on one monitor, and eurasia on the other monitor.
Sebastian AnthonyJun 30th 2010 11:56AM
Ya, I experimented with that too -- but as I usually have a game or full-screen application on my left monitor, I wanted most stuff on my right monitor!
VortalJun 30th 2010 3:43PM
OK, you all knew this was coming :)
What's the resource impact like? Does it still run even when it is not on show?
ProlornJun 30th 2010 6:38PM
I first ran across this *long* ago, back when I was still running XP on my old laptop. As I recall, it was unobtrusive most of the time. It was ultimately uninstalled as part of an effort to eliminate resource waste, but I don't think that was it's fault in particular; it was just my mindset at the time to eliminate all unnecessary bells and whistles.
Assuming it's compatible, I think it'll hardly impact a modern system, unless there's a memory leak. I think I'll give it another try myself, on my current laptop.
Sebastian AnthonyJun 30th 2010 7:01PM
The memory footprint is tiny (3MB at the moment), but I think it probably uses quite a lot of CPU time when it 'redraws' (every 5 minutes by default, but you could set it to every hour or whatever).
The impact is negligible on my PC -- but it is quite powerful!
RobJun 30th 2010 4:26PM
Is there a portable version that doesn't require administrator rights to install?
DanJun 30th 2010 4:48PM
what is the name of the app you are running that is displaying drive information etc on your desktop?
Sebastian AnthonyJun 30th 2010 7:01PM
That's Rainmeter. Erez reviewed it a few weeks ago!
Michael FreemanJun 30th 2010 6:45PM
That completely looks like Darth Vader's shadow in the middle of the screen.
I can just hear his theme in the background now...
Dun...Dun...Dun...
Duh...DI...Dun...
Duh...DI...Dun...
Sebastian AnthonyJun 30th 2010 7:02PM
You know... it does a bit...
I can't help think we're seeing patterns where there are none though...
Maybe he's in our HEADS...
DeoWulfJul 1st 2010 12:06AM
I'm not much of a wallpaper guy either (I use black), but this is really nice, thanks!
ErebosJul 1st 2010 6:18AM
I remember using it a couple of years ago... :P
andryJul 3rd 2010 1:38AM
Works on windows 7?
derk pJul 3rd 2010 11:34PM
like a charm!
derk pJul 3rd 2010 11:35PM
the screenshot above actually shows windows 7