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A look at OS X desktop pictures
Thomas Brand at Egg Freckles has written a short history of Apple desktop pictures through the years. "Mavericks' New Wave" talks about how the Apple desktop has evolved since Mac OS 8 and the quality of the desktop patterns and photos. Thomas includes download links to copies of the desktop picture backgrounds used in different Mac OS X systems via his dropbox account. He thinks that the new OS X 10.9 Mavericks Wave desktop picture is the "best default desktop wallpaper the Mac has seen in a long time." In his TUAW article, "Grab the OS X Mavericks wallpaper now," Michael Grothaus relates that the "beautiful image of a cresting wave [for] OS X 10.9 Mavericks is meant to represent the surfing spot that the OS is named after." Unfortunately, the link in that article to download the desktop no longer works, so please use Brand's link to his copy of the Mavericks Wave [direct download link]. On Another Note For those of you who are still interested in enhancing your Mountain Lion Desktop, I found an article from 2012 on OSX Daily that may interest you. The article, titled "43 Amazingly Gorgeous Secret Wallpapers Hidden in OS X Mountain Lion," contains instructions for locating four folders that contain 3,200 × 2,000 resolution images you can use as your desktop pictures. These are the images used in Mountain Lion's screen savers, but can be used individually. Thumbnails of the available images and instructions for using the files appear in the link above. Interesting Related Resources Screenshots of Mac OS System 1 through Mac OS X 10.3 [Guidebook by Marcin Wichary] Apple Mac OS X: a history in pictures [Telegraph Media Group Limited]
Mac 101: Change your desktop picture
Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of posts aimed at novice Mac users and veterans who like the occasional refresher. Many new Mac owners want to customize their Mac's look and feel. A simple place to begin is the desktop picture. It's easy to change and there are several options, from the images that come with the OS to freebies from the Internet and your own photos. Here's what to do (this post assumes you're using Mac OS X 10.5.x). Open System Preferences from either the Apple Menu or the Dock and click Desktop & Screen Saver and then the Desktop tab. If you're in a hurry, you can also get there by right-clicking on an unoccupied area of the desktop, and choosing "Change Desktop Background." On the left you'll see several options. Click Apple Images to browse some of the images that shipped with your Mac. To set any as your Desktop picture, simply click it. The Nature, Plants, Black & White and Abstract folders also hold options from Apple. Personally, I like some of the black & whites. If you've got iPhoto installed, you can browse your albums just as easily. Select the album on the left and click any image on the right to select it. Some of you may maintain your own folder of images. To access it from the Preference Pane, click the "+" and navigate to the photo that contains your images. Finally, you can simply drop an image into the well at the top of the Preference Pane window. There are additional options at the bottom of the window, like changing the picture at regular intervals and disable the translucent menu bar (my personal favorite). Finally, if your image is too small, you can opt to tile or stretch it. Now that you know how, go and grab some images. The Iconfactory, Pixlegirl Presents and Mac Desktops are good places to start looking.
Use a webpage as your desktop with WebDesktop
Here's a handy bit of freeware. WebDesktop lets you use any web page as your desktop picture. Simply enter the URL of a terrific website (like, say, this one), set the transparency and reload rate and you're all set! When in the background, the page you're monitoring acts as your desktop picture, but when in front, you can scroll, click and otherwise interact with that site as if you were using a typical browser.MacDesktop requires Mac OS 10.3.9 or higher, is free, and universal.[Via FreeMacWare]
