Today was the first nice weather here in Michigan in awhile. Actually went on a walk. And to help get into the spirit, I downloaded the latest version of Natural Desktop (www.naturaldesktop.com). It's a program that changes your wallpaper based on time of day as well as playing environmental sound.  It's the latter feature that makes it special for me.

So this morning it was playing sounds of morning doves and other birds.  As the afternoon passed you could hear other natural sounds playing. I turned it up and it was eerie how similar the sounds coming from my computer mirrored what I was hearing outside.  Now that it's evening here, I hear crickets and birds of night coming out my speakers.  I can control the sound through the program's integrated volume control but it is so...relaxing hearing these sounds.

The latest version, 1.2, has some really cool features such as being able to set your own sounds, wallpapers, etc. The program comes with a bunch of wallpapers based on the time of year and time of day and you can put your own in there.  The weather forecaster is also a nice touch so I can look out over the week to see what the weather is to be like. The integrated map is cool because I can click on the various locations and instantly see what their weather conditions are like and my wallpaper changes along with it. For instance, I happen to know it's raining in Buenos Aeries (the background sound mixes night sounds and the sound of rain and the portal shows rain falling).

So now that Spring is here (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, in Australia you'd be getting the early Fall stuff), give Natural Desktop a shot.