The Natural Desktop

Monday, September 13, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

Imagine a desktop where your wallpaper was based not just on the time of day but the time of year.  Imagine being able to have background sounds that are based on the current weather and time of day? Birds singing, Cicadads humming, Crickets chirping, and much more all based on what time of day it is. 

This and much more is what the new Natural Desktop from Stardock does. A team up with the code developed by Stardock, the wallpapers created by Digital Blasphemy, Widget work by Tiggz, and the sounds by famous composer, Mason Fischer.

With options to control your location, sounds, and more, the Natural Desktop is perfect for those of you (us) that are stuck working in an office environment all day who miss the sounds and visuals of summer. 

Visit http://www.naturaldesktop.com to get it.

43 Reply 5 Referrals
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JavaCodeToad
Reply #21 Monday, September 13, 2004 8:39 PM
Can or should the sound effect turn off when running a full screen app(game)?

JavaCodeToad

Surj
Reply #22 Monday, September 13, 2004 9:12 PM
thanks for the link Essencay, shame the walls are such a low resolution, theres just no way I can use this on any of my machines.

sjukmidlands
Reply #23 Monday, September 13, 2004 9:30 PM
When I purchased this online earlier it included the registration code in the email and screen after paying for it, but can't find anywhere or anyway to input that. Am I missing something? The only options to use that I can find are the weather settings and turning the sound on or off. I see there is an icon for Natural Desktop in the system tray (or whatever its called in XP) but that does nothing when I left or right or double click on it.

It's a brilliant desktop however, and I'm looking forward to the updates!

Corky_O
Reply #24 Monday, September 13, 2004 9:51 PM
Same issue as sjukmidlands.

Not prompted to enter key.

Clicked on animation object at it's top left corner (after using the obvious button at lower corner to set location and measurement settings) and was prompted to enter preferrence for animation speed fast, medium, slow.

I entered medium, and the object proceeded to drop the black textured border. Clicking in the top left corner failed to produce the preferrence prompt again.

A bit confusing after that.

I like the idea, and look forward to updates. Would like to request some basic documentation to give us an idea of what customization capabilities are available.

BTW, Norton Antivirus still does not like this type of script.

Nevertheless, great effort. Can't wait for a bit more configuration friendly version.

Septimus
Reply #25 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:21 AM
I really like the idea of this, and I have bought it. But I run at 1600x1200 and the walls aren't good at that res.

Which means I can use it at work (only 1280x1024 there) but that's not where I really want to.

Please get the larger res versions from Digital Blasphemy, I know he usually withholds the 1600+ versions for his member gallery, but I hope something can be worked out.

Spon349
Reply #26 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:34 AM
I agree with Ted. I'd like to buy this, but I won't until I know that it works through a proxy server.

Jeff Elms
Reply #27 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 7:17 AM
One issue I have with it is that Zone Alarm detectes it as a new program every time it runs. I now have about 15 copies of Natural Desktop in my program control list. Another thing that should problably be changed is on the options screen. If you click and drag any of the links all of the text moves around.

ZubaZ
Reply #28 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 7:38 AM
It's lovely, reminds me of Sundial from Aladdin Systems on steroids.
I wish I could resize the animation object though (or toggle with F10), and remove the sig from the walpaper.
Happily my TabletPC has no issues at all when the screen rotates from landscape to portrait (always a concern).

lordvdr
Reply #29 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 9:24 AM
I just noticed that Natural Desktop just swapped in a sunrise wallpaper even though the sun won't rise for about another hour and a half, which prompts the question: Are these events synchronized with actual sunrise/sunset times according to my zip code?


pattigayle
Reply #30 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 6:32 PM
Love the idea [ & I love Digital Blasphemy ] but having some problems.....
as stated before, you gotta have a separate volume control & when I change the animation speed everything shuts down [ I can't toggle the weather thingy or change the speed again ]. Also, whenever my screensaver kicks in, the program freezes & I have to close & re-open it [ which then causes my firewall to ask me if I want this program to have access to the internet ]. Finally [ for now ] the program has considerably slowed my computer .... WinXP , SP2 - my HD is 120 mg & I have 1 1/2 gig of memory [ I upgraded big time cause of all my WC stuff ]....

LAURENCE JOHANSEN
Reply #31 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 6:42 PM
Love the program! However, some glitches:

1. Norton AV sees it as a malicious script when shutting down WindowsXP pro.

2. When rebooting XP Pro, ZoneAlarm pro requires me to reauthorize web access each time.

3. When rebooting, settings are not saved but default back to initial settings...zip somewhere in Michigan, and a Centigrade temperature scale, even though zip had been set to local setting and temperature to Fahrenheit.

Thanks....

Larry J.

ps. How about a newsgroup to keep developer/user/support interaction going??? LJ

pattigayle
Reply #32 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 6:56 PM
Me again, found out why my system was so slow ... my CPU usage was at 100% DesktopX was using at least 82% .. so I unloaded DesktopX & now I'm running ok but I can't use DX and all the pretty icons etc

Also, as stated before we need to be able to move the control box I had to re-arrange my whole desktop [ which of course, is no longer a problem since I had to unload DX ]

pattigayle
Reply #33 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 10:14 PM
Back one more time.......Does anyone know how to un-install this baby???

I can only find the application, no program, no program file, no way to un-insstall....

I just sent an e-mail off to support ...

Frogboy
Reply #34 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 10:51 PM

I agree, I think Natural Dekstop's popularity and potential to grow into adding more and more features and tweaks warrant its own forum.


I'll look into that tomorrow.


sjukmidlands
Reply #35 Tuesday, September 14, 2004 11:11 PM
Where do I put the registration code given in the confirmation email when I bought this Natural Desktop?

It's a brilliant piece of work!

Steve

_Martin_
Reply #36 Wednesday, September 15, 2004 2:47 AM
Sorry for those (NightTrain and a few others) with issues.

I spend all weekend working on adding customization options and was away Monday, Tuesday but am back on the case today.

Robyn Henke
Reply #37 Wednesday, September 15, 2004 4:55 AM
I really like the program! It is so cool, especially for those of us stuck at a computer all day, like me. I have engineers coming over and saying "I hear birds and crickets." Thank you so much!

NightTrainthedark
Reply #38 Wednesday, September 15, 2004 9:46 AM
Thanks for touching base Martin, appreciate it greatly! I never doubted you were on top of it.

Tryzub
Reply #39 Wednesday, September 15, 2004 11:31 AM
All: There doesn't appear to be a need for the registration code.

pattigale: The 26 Meg executable is simply a DX Script (or the like) and doesn't have to be unintalled. If you context-click anywhere on the control object, you just deselect the Autorun option. Context-click again to "Close".

Corky_O: Might be a display driver problem. I am able to click any of the three triangular buttons in the corners and get the animation prompt each time.

Frogboy, _Martin_, et. al.: This is a great little proggie for a first release. It is truly high quality! I agree with most of the suggestions here, including the msg board idea, but here are my particular favs:

1. Settings should be saved between reboots and start/stop of script.
2. Wallpapers should more closely reflect the regional weather and type of surroundings (i.e., there are no tropical rainforrests or bogs in Ohio...at least NTIKO ).
3. Volume Control, Volume Control, Volume Control: Seems as thought the script is using a hook into WMP. Anyway to "hook" into the volume control?

Addl. praise and confirmations:

1. Love the animations in the control object everything seems fairly accurate there.
2.The wallpapers look fine on my 17" widescreen laptop. I don't agree with the comments above where folks say they don't look good.
3. Once I placed the exe in one location, started it, shut it down and then restarted it Norton FW didn't prompt again for allowing Net access. Same with NAV, once I "authorized" the script, all was well.
4. I don't mind the db.com in the lower right...an artist who makes a buck off of one's own work should protect it.

Okay, I've said enough...for now. muwahahaha, *ack!* *cough*, ahem...

Tryzub
Reply #40 Wednesday, September 15, 2004 11:40 AM
I lied, I'm not done, and for some reason I cannot edit my previous post...

4. The sounds are fantastic and very realistic. Well done! However, it seems that there are birds and cicadas in Antarctica! I know this is a work in progress, I'm just curious as to whether or not further sound environments are planned.

Thanks again SD for the terrific products!

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