Why?
On my travels round the Internet I regularly come across sites that allow wallpaper downloads. In the past I have created my own from things like holiday snaps.

Whilst investigating Digiscoping techniques etc., I came across Andy Holt's page which has some lovely wallpapers he has created from his own photos. What a simple and elegant idea!

Available Wallpapers (so far)

 

800x600 1024x768

800x600 1024x768

PC Instructions

There are two ways to use these images as your desktop wallpaper. The easiest way is to click on the link to the relevant sized image and wait for it to load in your browser. After it has loaded, right click on it and either "Save as Wallpaper" (Netscape) or "Set as Wallpaper" (Internet Explorer). Both progams will instantly replace your current desktop wallpaper with the image you selected.

To save your wallpaper for future use.

"Right-click" the link to the relevant sized wallpaper paper and select "save target as" (Internet Explorer) or "save link as" (Netscape). When the save image dialog appears, save your image (it will have a name like "spoon800x600.jpg") in the windows folder on your default hard drive (c:\windows or C:\winnt etc).

To change your wallpaper once it is saved on your hard drive.

"Right-click" on any empty area of your Windows desktop. Choose "properties". A new window will appear. Click the "background" tab. This will allow you to scroll through the list of available images in your windows folder. Scroll down this list until you find your preferred wallpaper e.g. "spoon800x600.jpg". Click the name of the wallpaper, make sure Picture Display is set to "center" and then click "apply". This will set your new wallpaper.
Now click "ok" - that's all there is to it!

MAC Instructions
Unfortunately I have no experience of the MAC, but I have gleaned a little information from the web - here goes:

As before, choose the correct image size then click and hold on the relevant link. When you see the pop-up menu appear, select the "Save This Image as..."(Navigator) or "Download Image to Disk" (Internet Explorer) option and save the picture to the desktop. When you're finished saving, follow the appropriate directions below:

System 8 Users
Open the "Appearance" control panel from your computer's Apple menu. Click the "Desktop" tab in the control panel. Click the "Place Picture..." button. (If you already have a picture you are using as a desktop, this button will be labeled "Remove Picture." Click it twice.) Choose your new picture, and then click "Set Desktop."

System 7 Users
Open the "Desktop Pictures" control panel from your computer's Apple menu. When you see the control panel, click on the "Picture" button and then drag the file you just saved from the Desktop onto the Control Panel. Now, click the "Set Desktop" button.

Close the control panel

If the MAC instructions are inaccurate feel free to contact me with better ones.

Fuzzy or grainy web graphics using AOL

I don't use AOL, but apparently settings in the AOL browser will "optimize" web graphics to work better within the browser. This optimization compresses graphics and shrinks larger graphics to 640X480 resolution. This can cause problems when dealing with highly detailed and larger sized graphics (like the ones on this site).
If you notice that the wallpapers on this site appear grainy or pixilated through your AOL browser, this may be the problem.

Here's how to fix it.

1. Click the "My AOL" button on your browser.
2. Click "Preferences".
3. Click the "WWW" button.
4. Click the "Web Graphics" tab.
5. Uncheck the box which reads "Use Compressed Graphics".
6. Close AOL and reload it.

You should see the site the way the rest of us see it! (OK - so some of my images ARE fuzzy and grainy!)

Again, if these AOL instructions are inaccurate feel free to contact me with better ones.