39 replies to this topic

[RichieSpenno]

Ok so I've got as far as using the Vista active desktop.  Set it all up but my background is still a stretched version of the Glastonbury 2010 efestivals chat image.  =/  LondonTom, I need you =[

[LondonTom]

RichieSpenno, on Jan 6 2010, 03:17 PM, said:

Ok so I've got as far as using the Vista active desktop.  Set it all up but my background is still a stretched version of the Glastonbury 2010 efestivals chat image.  =/  LondonTom, I need you =[

O_o, I think I knows what wrong, have you check the address to htm file is correct? Its needs to be macth the location on your computer including /'s and spaces

[mikeb]

Having just seen the most excellent piccy of a certain very fine beverage purveyors establishment in the Favourite Glasto Images Thread, I thought that it just had to be tweaked appropriately to work with the Desktop Countdown   Here's what my shiny new desktop looks like at 1024x768 as an example:



I'll get around to doing some of the other common screen resolution versions and post linkies later in the week.  The piccy needs to be the right size for your particular screen for it to work sensibly of course so if anyone wants a copy then let me know what screen size you have (in pixels) particularly if you have a swish widescreen display because I'm not sure what the typical sizes actually are.

Edited by mikeb, 26 January 2010 - 12:09 PM.

[LondonTom]

mikeb, on Jan 26 2010, 12:04 PM, said:

Having just seen the most excellent piccy of a certain very fine beverage purveyors establishment in the Favourite Glasto Images Thread, I thought that it just had to be tweaked appropriately to work with the Desktop Countdown   Here's what my shiny new desktop looks like at 1024x768 as an example:



I'll get around to doing some of the other common screen resolution versions and post linkies later in the week.  The piccy needs to be the right size for your particular screen for it to work sensibly of course so if anyone wants a copy then let me know what screen size you have (in pixels) particularly if you have a swish widescreen display because I'm not sure what the typical sizes actually are.

Haha thats awesome!, looks like it fits really well with the timer to

An edit of 1280 x 800 would be swell

[mikeb]

LondonTom, on Jan 26 2010, 12:33 PM, said:

Haha thats awesome!, looks like it fits really well with the timer to

That's cos it's been tweaked init and it works bl**dy brilliantly at 1024x768 I must say but some of the alternative resolutions don't come out quite so good unfortunately.  Although the original piccy is high resolution it's not a wide enough field of view so it's not realistically possible to pan out as the target display aspect ratio increases like I did with the original Stone Circle piccy.  The width effectively has to remain constant which means that the amount of foreground you end up with varies a lot more than I would like depending on screen width and aspect ration.  

Here's the 1600x900 version as another example:



and you obviously get shedloads more foreground at 1600x1200 of course

I've just about finished doing versions to work with all the various different screen resolutions that I can think of so I should hopefully have all the preview piccies and download linkies up late tonight ... or perhaps more likely, by stupid o'clock tomorrow

[mikeb]

UPDATE: Shiny new versions for 2011 coming soon(ish)

Some posts in this thread have got a bit screwed due to forum changes since the original posts were made so I've had to delete various links and images to satisfy the new rules.  However, if you already have the 2010 Desktop Countdown Timer files installed on your system or want to use your own background piccy then you can get a quicky update for 2011 from THIS THREAD.  I'll start a shiny new 2011 thread for first-timers just as soon as I have all the various stuff updated correctly


OK, here's a whole bunch of different resolution Brothers Bar background piccies for the Desktop Countdown. You could use them just as a wallpaper if you really wanted to but because they've been specifically tweaked to suit the countdown timer, it would defo look loads better if you made your own from the original piccy as was posted in the Favourite Glasto Images thread instead.

You need to grab a copy of the piccy that is EXACTLY the right width for your screen and preferably also the right height as well although a piccy that is taller than necessary will be just fine.  A piccy the wrong width or smaller in height than your screen will not work very sensibly at all so don't mess around trying several of them to find that out for yourself, just let me know what size you need.  Simply unzip the piccy to the same place as all the other Desktop Countdown files but make sure that you have have renamed the piccy that you're currently using or have another copy somewhere before overwriting it of course.  You'll need to refresh the desktop to reload the new piccy - if simply doing that that doesn't work then see ( 5 ) of the instructions in the first post in the thread.

If you haven't already got the Desktop Countdown or you've got an old version where the text scrolls horizontally then you need to grab a copy of the latest Plain Background version (plus the latest Vista stuff if needed) as well as the piccy from here.  See the first post in this thread for full details and the download linkies.



Piccy background for 800x600 screen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:





Piccy background for 1024x768 screen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:





Piccy background for 1280x800 widescreen (also suitable for 1280x720 and 1280x768 etc.)

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:





Piccy background for 1280x1024 screen (also suitable for 1280x960 etc.)

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:





Piccy background for 1366x768 widescreen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:

[image had to be deleted due to forum changes]



Piccy background for 1440x900 widescreen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:

[image had to be deleted due to forum changes]



Piccy background for 1400x1050 screen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:

[image had to be deleted due to forum changes]



Piccy background for 1600x1024 widescreen (also suitable for 1600x900 etc.)

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:

[image had to be deleted due to forum changes]


Piccy background for 1600x1200 screen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:

[image had to be deleted due to forum changes]



Piccy background for 1680x1050 widescreen

Grab zipfile from HERE to get something like this:





I've also got versions for 1920x1080, 1920x1200 & 1920x1440 handy if anyone needs them.  Please send requests on a £50 note for these seeing as you can afford several acres of swish monitor on your desk (when I've only just managed to upgrade to a very 2nd hand 15" LCD) so I'm quite sure you wont miss a mere 50 notes   Anyway, I've hopefully covered most of the common screen resolutions around but if you still can't find the right size piccy for your particular screen above then shout cos I can almost certainly do just about any other size that may be needed without too much difficulty.



The usual warning applies: PLEASE only download the ONE piccy that you actually need ONCE and not grab lots of them lots of times and all that !  Unfortunately, that nasty man Mr.ISP will just pull the plug on Ye Olde Server completely and without any prior warning if things get a bit silly I *really* don't need the downtime, all the hassle or to be on the receiving end of the inevitable snot-a-gram either needless to say.

Edited by mikeb, 10 October 2010 - 12:24 PM.

[MilkyJoe]

cheers for the timer Mike, it's appreciated. A quick question from a bit of a fu*&wit, what is the score on my download limits having your timer on my desktop for the next 5 months? does it make much difference?

Cheers.

Shaun.

[LondonTom]

Thanks aload Mike, this pic looks superb on my laptop Really an awesome job, its got me excited again, now watch the julien temple dvd

[LondonTom]

MilkyJoe, on Jan 28 2010, 12:45 AM, said:

cheers for the timer Mike, it's appreciated. A quick question from a bit of a fu*&wit, what is the score on my download limits having your timer on my desktop for the next 5 months? does it make much difference?

Cheers.

Shaun.

Just to answear this one, the timer is stored locally so apart from the initial small download(The background will be the biggest hog as esentially the timer is few KB of text ) It shouldn't effect anything unless you have some some weird setup to grab it from the server everytime

[mikeb]

MilkyJoe, on Jan 28 2010, 12:45 AM, said:

cheers for the timer Mike, it's appreciated. A quick question from a bit of a fu*&wit, what is the score on my download limits having your timer on my desktop for the next 5 months? does it make much difference?

No problemo.  Once you've got a copy of the stuff on your machine it doesn't reference anything at all that isn't also on your machine so no downloading or any dubious net activity whatsoever.  Unlike various other countdown type thingies you can find that constantly exchange data with some server somewhere or grab the time externally, you don't even need a net connection at all for this one ... other than to grab a copy of stuff initially of course.  Nowt to worry about

Edited by mikeb, 28 January 2010 - 01:10 AM.

[bob parkhurst]

ok, 1st off thanks for these, theyre ace and certainly lighten up my morning when I turn my computer on at work.

Now for the possibly really dumb question. I cant get the countdown to work on my Mac at home. I get the background picture but thats it, I believe I'm running OSX but could be on Snow Lepard, depending on if my boyfriend has installed it (I'm useless at computers). What do I need to do? Thanx ;-)

[mikeb]

Sorry, but I can't really help with Mac stuff at all I'm afraid as I know next to nothing about Mac's and certainly don't have access to one. However, I did post some info HERE earlier in this thread which might be useful and someone did say they'd actually got it running on a Mac as well.  About the only thing I can suggest is to check that Javascript is enabled because if not then all you will get is the background being displayed.  There should defo be no probs at all displaying the countdown page in any old browser on any old OS but getting it to appear directly on the desktop (rather than just in a window) is the difficult bit. Maybe the best thing would be to bung Glasto_Mongrel_2008 a PM if you can't sort it and he doesn't see/reply on this thread.

If you do find out how to make it work sensibly on a Mac then please can you post an Idiot's Guide ^TM for anyone else who might want it and I'll also try to remember to keep a copy of the instructions to add to all the existing Windoze info in future.

[HowdyBoss]

mikeb, on Jan 26 2010, 08:04 PM, said:

Having just seen the most excellent piccy of a certain very fine beverage purveyors establishment in the Favourite Glasto Images Thread, I thought that it just had to be tweaked appropriately to work with the Desktop Countdown   Here's what my shiny new desktop looks like at 1024x768 as an example:



I'll get around to doing some of the other common screen resolution versions and post linkies later in the week.  The piccy needs to be the right size for your particular screen for it to work sensibly of course so if anyone wants a copy then let me know what screen size you have (in pixels) particularly if you have a swish widescreen display because I'm not sure what the typical sizes actually are.

You know, I was just slightly worried that the band of sky at the top seemed rather unoccupied compared to the rest of the photograph. Now I know that it had a purpose! Marvellous.

Trouble is, that particular photo has been my wallpaper for six months now. Maybe I'll dig out some other old favourites and give the countdown feature a try with them. Any that work well, I'll post.

Possibly.

Thanks for the compliment.

R

[Cooter]

With respect Mike (and I appreciate all your hard work thats gone into this) but is there anyway I can just click something and save as desktop and get the thing working!!? I'm loving the images and countdowns but this is all way beyond me.

Cheers

[fur_q]

ferraristu, on Sep 23 2009, 03:20 PM, said:

What about one for OS X  

glasto_mongrel_2008, on Sep 24 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

Will this work on a Mac?

this is a little dashboard widget it made a few yeas ago and have updated for 2010

it has a countdown and shows the live webcam image

enjoy




Download here

[jameshay1]

some thread this.

[jr1312]

Whenever I click on plain background version or the extra stuff required for Vista file up just says problem loading page - am I doing something wrong?

[mikeb]

Oh b*llox    All of the linkies seem to have somehow got screwed up after the last time I edited the 1st post. None of them are working, they're all completely screwed !  I have absolutely no idea exactly how or why it happens but I've done it before. Linkies sometimes seem to get screwed up when editing an old(ish) post for some reason or other as they unfortunately have here. There will now be a short interlude while I try to put it all right and I hope it stays right when I save the edited post. Normal service will resume shortly and all that ...

[insert the "sorry but we're experiencing technical difficulties" screen here together with some cheesy music]

Edited by mikeb, 09 February 2010 - 10:20 PM.

[mikeb]

Right then, think I've found and edited all the sh!t various out of the first post now. I reckon I must have rather stupidly edited the post in notepad/wordpad or something last time (rather than using either the forum or my usual editor) because I was having some problem or other with the ADs screwing things up at the time ... much as they are right now as well I have to say    Poxy stupid manky old 'puter and all that   Anyways, it seemed like all the non-alphanumeric characters in the first post had somehow got "escaped" which confuses the fcuk out of the forum software when it comes to interpreting the linkies needless to say !

Hopefully all fixed now.  Mucho apologies for my stupidity, I'll go and stand in the Naughty Corner wearing the old pointy hat for a while to think about what I've done and all that  

Edited by mikeb, 09 February 2010 - 10:19 PM.

[gillmacca]

Can someone tell me where I can download the background on the first page (looking down over the festival area).
None of the links for the pics are working