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Miscellaneous Software

Rotate your Desktop Background from Internet Photos and More

SUMMARY: John's Background Switcher lets you swap your Desktop background automatically with photos found from Flickr, Google, Bing, and more.

If you are tired of the default Windows wallpapers or themes, or if your personal photo collection has gotten a little boring, why not rotate your Desktop wallpaper with photos found online?

John's Background Switcher lets you access desktop photos from a variety of Internet-related sources including Google and Bing searches, Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, Picasa web albums, RSS feeds, and more. Photos can be rotated every 10 seconds for those with short attention spans, or every seven days if you like a little more consistency.


Configuring John's Background Switcher to show New York-related photos



Pictures can be scaled, cropped, and stretched, or turned into postcard piles, mosaics, or montages. If you like a particular picture you can jump back to it, and disliked photos can be marked to never be shown again. Plus, there are a variety of configuration options including keyboard hotkeys, preventing picture switching unless the machine has been idle, preventing image switching when certain applications are running, and you can even have a calendar drawn onto the Desktop.

John's Background Switcher is freeware, and runs on all versions of Windows from Windows 98 and up (except for Windows 7 Starter Edition). The Microsoft.NET 2.0 framework is required, but the installer will download it if the framework is not already present on your system. To download JBS, visit the following site:

* John's Background Switcher

This tip was written regarding John's Background Switcher v4.5.0.7 running on a Windows 7 machine. Features and screenshots for other versions / operating systems may vary.

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The MalekTips website was created in 1998 by Andrew Malek of Envision Programming. The page's goal is to freely disperse computer-related tips, hints, and informative articles. Tips are organized to be easy to find, and are presented clearly, in easy-to-understand language. MalekTips also provides information and links to public-domain, open source, freeware, shareware, and commercial software available for download.