Pic-a-POD

Download pictures of the day...

  • Download the picture of the day from your choice of four sites:
  • Set your desktop picture to one of the downloaded photos.
  • Schedule downloads to update automatically.
  • Change the desktop picture periodically.
  • Download photos of the day for any selected date.
  • Mini view to free up desktop space.
    Pic-a-POD mini window
  • Picture Browser & Viewer to scan through all downloads.
  • Themes allow you to select a color scheme or design your own.

NEWS:

In version 1.2.11, I thought I had solved the problem of large images not displaying correctly on Macs. It turned out I was too optimistic as this uses a shell command I thought was part of the standard OS X install, but it is not always there. So now, this fix will check first to see whether it can be applied. Mac users without the relevant utility may still get the "Picture too large to display" message.

National Geographic pictures stopped downloading on May 5th - now fixed.

Wikipedia pictures were only downloading some days, depending on the image size. This is now fixed.

Pic-a-POD for Mac Pic-a-POD for Windows

DOWNLOAD NOW:


System requirements:
  • Mac OS X 10.2.8 or better, 10.3 recommended, Tiger, Leopard & Snow Leopard-compatible.
  • Windows XP, Vista or 7.

Last update released: Thursday 6th May, 2010

VERSION HISTORY:

  • 1.2.12: Not all Macs had the image down-sizing utility, so fixed to work either way. Fix for change to Nat Geo pics. Thursday 6th May, 2010
  • 1.2.11: Large Wikipedia pictures were not downloading. Fix for some images too large to display on Mac. Fix for Windows not sending bug reports and crashing if blank image was clicked. Friday 30th April, 2010
  • 1.2.10: Some National Geographic pictures were coming up blank - should now be fixed. Earth Science was only getting smaller pictures. Saturday 20th March, 2010
  • 1.2.9: National Geographic changed their format but their pictures are now back online - manually load any missing pictures after 17th January. Double-click to select a picture's caption. Right-click to re-download a caption. Thursday 21st January, 2010
  • 1.2.8: Picture captions can now be selected for copying. Fixed a Y2010 bug in the Earth Science downloads. Wednesday 6th January, 2010.
  • 1.2.7: Removed extra text from Earth Science captions. Restricting Wikipedia picture sizes so that enormous files are not downloaded. Sunday 11th October, 2009.
  • 1.2.6: Earth Science archives back online, and picture pages have a new format. Fixed a bug where Windows XP may not have been able to set desktop in the last version. Saturday 5th September, 2009
  • 1.2.5: Fixed a problem where National Geographic pictures were no longer downloading. Fixed a problem with odd characters National Geographic captions. Wednesday 1st July, 2009
  • 1.2.4: Fixed a problem where Earth Science pictures were no longer downloading. Fixed a problem with long National Geographic captions. Allowed for downloads of user-contributed photos from National Geographic. Better caption editing. Speed increases in browser & showing captions. Fix for errors in Back button. Sunday 15th February, 2009
  • 1.2.3: Fixed a problem where Wikipedia pictures were no longer downloading. Added better checks for incompatible file types so they will not be downloaded. Fixed a possible error when deleting a file. Monday 22nd December, 2008
  • 1.2.2: Fixed a problem where National Geographic pictures became available but the captions were not yet updated. Updated Danish versions. Saturday 5th January, 2008
  • 1.2.1: National Geographic pictures back online - manually load NG pictures since 29th October. Downloading wide screen pictures is now a settable preference. Improved editing of captions. Faster retrieval of previously downloaded images & captions. Less duplication of recent downloads in random desktop. Sunday 2nd December, 2007
  • 1.2.0: National Geographic pictures offline again :-( Monday 29th October, 2007
  • 1.1.9: National Geographic pictures back online. Wide screen images will be downloaded if you have a large screen. Thursday 4th October, 2007
  • 1.1.8: Temporary block to stop National Geographic download failures. Until I work out their new format or they change it again, no further pictures can be downloaded from National Geographic. Fix for accidental disabling of check boxes. Fix for picture deletion problem. Improved setting of proxies. Thursday 4th October, 2007
  • 1.1.7: Fix for new Wikipedia format. Allows re-downloading of captions (double-click on caption). Thursday 6th September, 2007
  • 1.1.6d: Updated Danish versions. Sunday 27th May, 2007
  • 1.1.6: Fix for another change to the Wikipedia format. Sunday 29th April, 2007
  • 1.1.5: Fix for new Wikipedia format. Better randomisation of desktop pictures. File size indication during download. Previous picture displayed while downloading the next. Sunday 1st April, 2007
  • 1.1.3 & 1.1.4: Internal test versions only.
  • 1.1.2d: Danish translation.
  • 1.1.2: Universal Binary available for Intel Macs. Added support for HTTP proxies. Desktop shows as Dock icon with dock menu (Mac only). Improvement to Picture Browser. Sunday 10th September, 2006
  • 1.1.1: Miscellaneous fixes & improvements (test version only).
  • 1.1.0: Miscellaneous fixes & improvements (test version only).
  • 1.0.9: New picture source: Wikipedia. Monday 3rd April, 2006
  • 1.0.8: Changed scheduling for auto-downloads (test version only).
  • 1.0.7: Miscellaneous fixes & improvements (test version only).
  • 1.0.6: Fix for problem displaying files in some European file systems (test version only).
  • 1.0.5: Pic-a-POD now downloads the pictures for the correct date, instead of the day before (test version only).
  • 1.0.4: Fix for Japanese dates, better version checking for updates, 'Next' button now goes to 'Today' if the current date selected is yesterday. Thursday, 29th December, 2005
  • 1.0.2 & 1.0.3: Attempts to solve problems with Japanese dates. Wednesday 28th December, 2005
  • 1.0.1: Fix for problems downloading pictures when program was first run. Tuesday 27th December, 2005
  • 1.0.0: Initial release. Saturday, 24th December, 2005

This program is emailware. If you use it, please send me an email.

If you really like it, you could make a small donation to my PayPal account.