The Crypt Magazine

By Ian Urie

We all love watching the weather in Britain. I was delighted to find the above program.

Earthdesk was written primarily for Mac, but is also on Windows now.

So what is it? Earthdesk replaces your backdrop in Windows with an updating satellite background of the Earth. It shows the day/night terminator and shadow as well as the cloud cover.

Sounds boring, doesn't it? It's amazingly addictive. The backdrop even has the lights on the cities illuminate as it enters the shadow of night.

The program is a free download and installs easily.

The usual windows installation method, totally painless.

As per usual, hit the "Agree" and move on.

Does anyone ever read the license terms?

Pick a drive, any drive..........

Earthdesk uses Quicktime, but, as you can see, will even prompt you to download it if it can't find it.

If you haven't bought it (I'll get round to that part), simply click on "still evaluating".

Ok, we're nearly good to go.

Earthdesk does require an active Internet connection. How else would it update its image?

Here we can now specify where we want the central point of our picture to be.

I was a little bit disappointed with the range of cities available for Britain.

This is the main preferences.

You can add more than one city to change your view if you wish.

I haven't shown it on this grab, but I highly recommend you tick the "download and overlay the cloud cover" option.

Finally, the last option.

I've ensured that Earthdesk is there when Windows boots. If you are using a proxy, simply set it up here.

Ok, how does it look?

Now, if you haven't bought it, your desktop will look something like this. Luckily, buying this product is simple. The cost is a meagre $19.95 (apprx. £10) Be aware, that vat will be added.

However, the cost of the single license still doesn't break the bank. Once you pay, you will get an email with the license code, which you insert in the relevant box as seen in a previous grab. This turns your desktop into something without the disclaimer. You can also zoom into a particular area as shown.

This is without the cloud cover being highlighted, again, simply adjust to your preference. I like to see the clouds. This really makes the appearance of the picture for me, knowing that this is updated constantly.

Above, as promised, zoomed into Britain, at night, with cloud cover shown.
Gorgeous, isn't it?
Fancy an ever changing backdrop?
Watch tornados move across the globe!
If you work at your computer for hours, this is an extremely fetching display.
For a very small cost, it could be on your display in a few minutes.
I haven't shown more grabs of the various options shown in the preferences, but , have fun, exploring them yourselves.
Try out the evaluation, then register if you like it.
I think you will!