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:

National Geographic changed the format of their web pages on January 17th. These pictures are now available again but you will have to manually download any missing images.

But there is a problem with their new archive system and it will only display one page of images. All images up to 31st December 2008 are referenced using the old system and can be retrieved. But for National Geographic pictures after 1st January 2009, only the latest 36 will be available.

Mac OS X users: Pic-a-POD 1.2.9 has lost the ability to display a thumbnail of the deskop picture in the Dock icon. I'm working on this and will put out an update when I fix it.

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

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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 21st January, 2010

VERSION HISTORY:

  • 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.