Mac-using tree-huggers can download the very cool, and free OS X Planet, to keep an eye on what’s going on around the world.
Even if you don’t believe that changing global weather patterns are influenced by human activities, there’s something quite hypnotic and addictive about having this running on your Mac desktop, where it displays a constantly updating image of the position of day and night on our planet, cloud patterns (updated, by default, every three hours), volcanic eruptions, storms and even satellites and the International Space Station.
The space station moves remarkably quickly. In the five minutes between updates (my choice of refresh – you can pick shorter or longer) it went from west of Ireland and somewhere close to Munich. Five minutes after that it was over Iran.
That picture below shows it running on the second monitor connected to my Mac. As it’s technically just an ever-updating desktop background (‘wallpaper’ in Windows parlance’ it doesn’t interfere with your applications, which is why the iChat window you can see running in the bottom left hand corner works entirely unimpeded.
Whether you’re green, or out for software on a budget of zero, it’s a top download for Mac users. Find it here.
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