Natural Desktop 2006

One of the coolest desktop enhancements on the net has been updated!

Tuesday, August 2, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

Stardock has released Natural Desktop 2006 v1.5 today.  Natural Desktop is a desktop enhancement program that looks at your current local weather, the time of day, the time of year and then applies a wallpaper, sound track, and animations based on that data.

If you're stuck inside working on a summer day, Natural Desktop is just the cure for that.  Listen to morning doves singing in the morning or cicadas in the afternoon, crickets in the evening. The sound tracks were put together by famed composer, Mason Fischer to sound just like what one would expect if they were outside.  The wallpapers were created by Ryan Bliss, owner of the well known wallpaper site, Digital Blasphemy.  The unique animated weather elements were designed and programmed by Matt Crocket, well known here as "Tiggz".

The program is immensely configurable with users turning on and off various elements of Natural Desktop along with being able to add their own sound tracks, wallpapers, and other parts to the included library of sounds and graphics.  Version 1.5 is a nearly complete rewrite by Laurence Parry who has gone through and implemented a host of optimizations and new features.  Natural Desktop is only $9.95. Proceeds from it help pay for WinCustomize.com and support other unique, cool projects of this kind.

New features & changes include:

  • Fast zip-code lookup that gives the user the option to find multiple local weather stations to choose from.
  • Will display an extended 5-day forecast for most places in the US.
  • Enhanced support for European and other international locales for weather reporting
  • Links to infrared and satellite images now available.
  • Clouds move at a speed based on the local weather conditions (wind speed)
  • Preferences now stored in local directory rather than registry for faster performance.
  • Lots of fixes, tweaks, etc.   

Screenshots:
  

Website:
www.naturaldesktop.com   

71 Reply 18 Referrals
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sk8man101
Reply #61 Monday, January 23, 2006 10:04 AM
Does anyone still read this forum? I purchased the Natural Desktop and it's a pretty cool program for a little bit of money. Worth it I think. However, it will not change the wallpaper automatically. Anyone have some things for me to try to fix it so it does? Thanks

GreenReaper
Reply #62 Monday, January 23, 2006 10:23 AM
Do you have the latest version from Stardock Central, 1.50c? Tried doing a full uninstall and reinstall?

sk8man101
Reply #63 Monday, January 23, 2006 1:00 PM
I am not at home right now, but I will uninstall and reinstall when I get there. I do have the latest version. It's a pretty cool program. I will let you know what happens. Thanks for the quick response.

sk8man101
Reply #64 Monday, January 23, 2006 10:18 PM
Well, I uninstalled and then reinstalled the program and it still won't change wallpapers. The funny thing is, if I go to the desktop, right click, then click on desktop, the correct wallpaper is shown. Clicking ok will then bring up the correct wallpaper. I can't help thinking there is something, somewhere, checked that shouldn't be checked.

GreenReaper
Reply #65 Monday, January 23, 2006 10:25 PM
If you can figure out what is doing it, let us know. We had another guy with exactly that problem. Natural Desktop is changing the wallpaper, but Explorer isn't reloading it for some reason.

You've not got Active Desktop on, by any chance? Anything else that could be affecting Explorer?

ZubaZ
Reply #66 Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:00 AM
GR, shouldn't you be working on GalCiv2?

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

sk8man101
Reply #67 Tuesday, January 24, 2006 10:32 PM
As soon as you mentioned Active Desktop, I started checking on things. It had been so long since I did anything with that, it took awhile to even find it. I'm using XP home and it was a bear to find out how to even disable active desktop. But I finally found it and that has taken care of the problem. Wallpaper is now changing like it should. Thanks for all the help. I have to say, I have quite a few programs from Stardock and whenever I have a question, it's always answered fast and friendly. I really appreciate it.

GreenReaper
Reply #68 Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:37 PM
sk8man101: Good to know the problem could be solved.

Zubaz: Quiet, you! I am working on it - when I get time off from Natural Desktop, DirectSkin, and all the other pies I have my fingers in . . . mmm, pie.

Gregory2001
Reply #69 Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:30 AM
Love the update GreenReaper! Any chance of an Aero look in the future?

Gregory2001
Reply #70 Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:31 AM
Love the update GreenReaper! Any chance of an Aero look in the future?

KeithMacDonald
Reply #71 Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:43 AM
Ya Tiggz, make WB!

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