You may have seen my November 2009 post citing the National Geographic site as one of the best places to download wallpaper images on the internet. This post is a bit of a follow up to that one, in that the free tool discussed here is designed to automatically download entire collections of National Geographic wallpaper images to your hard drive all at once. (It seems Christmas this year is coming early!).
This is convenient in many respects, as there are in fact two National Geographic domains that offer images for download, and these are displayed via a flash image viewer with the download link placed somewhere underneath, making mass-downloading impossible. With NatGeo Wallpaper Downloader, however, mass-downloading literally becomes a two-click affair; check the library or category you want to download, select the image size to download from te dropdown, and then watch your download folder populate with amazing wallpaper.
Here are more notes on this program:
Sources: downloads images from both the National Geographic website and the National Geographic magazine. These are represented within two tabs in the main interface (see screenshot to the right)- Image sizes: you can choose the available image sizes from the dropdown next to each library or category. My advice: always download the largest available resolution.
- Future image collections: support for new libraries or categories will have to be added to the application as these become available. In other words, always get the latest version of this app when you intend to use it. The author names a number of image collections that he is in the process of adding, including “History, Adventure, Traveler, Sea Monsters, Seabed, Blue Earth, Green Earth, Forces of Nature, Lewis & Clark, Roar and many more”.
- Downloading individual images: this is a bulk downloader. If you want to browse and download individual images then by all means browse the site itself.
- Portable: download and run, no install needed.
Wish list (or how this program can be even better)
- Auto updater: would be super nice, instead of having to manually download updates from the site.
The verdict: a simple, small tool that delivers the goods. Watch your download directory magically populate with some of the best wallpaper images and photography to be found on the internet.
Version Tested: 2.0.2
Compatibility: WinAll.
Go to program home page to download the latest version (approx 712K).
Samer Kurdi
>> If you want to browse and download individual images then by all means.
I think this sentence misses one or more words
After several pages it was a pain to find the actual download, but I’m VERY glad that I did. What a wonderful utility!!
@ Pete: fixed the sentence “then by all means browse the site itself”.
Thanks for noticing!
The app does feature an autoupdater, but it’s not visible, because it isn’t optional: that’s the best way to make sure that people will always run the latest version, bug-free and wallpaper-list-updated.
Thanks for the post, the next version will have a LOT more features and wallpapers.
The App may be great but downloading it isn’t! I’ve never wasted so much time trying to figure out how to download an app in my life. Holy bleep! What a total waste of time. No wonder people are putting it elsewhere. That’s because the author is doing everything in his power to make it impossible to download it directly from him. Wow…forget it.
TheBigOldDog said it, ridiculous, makes me so po’ed when I come across this kind of crap. i might as well be wank-mining, this is just as bad.
The app itself is pretty good (rather simple but it seems to do the job well)…. however, I concur with the other posters above about how awful the download process/experience is, one of the worst I’ve ever encountered, and more than enough to confuse most people so badly that they’ll give up before reaching the end – rudimentary goal/task/funnel analysis in his web analytics system (e.g. Google Analytics) should bear out this assertion…
4-5 clicks until you can actually reach the download link? Are you sure it doesn’t contains spyware?
Or the developer doesn’t know KISS methodology?
Honestly, you guys… so it takes a few screens to get to the download, what’s the big deal? Its not like you’re going to go there more than once.
The app is 100% clean. I don’t review spyware or malware on this site.
The program does not download all available models, also for the 2009 winners. This one for example is shown on the website between others that are downloaded, but isnt:
/photo-contest/2009/img/wallpaper/ww-nat-hm-wallpaper-2_1600.jpg
Also in the photo of the day section are endless amounts of pictures in 1600 resolution which the tool unfortunately does not grab
I didn’t have any problems using it. It’s a time saver and it allows me to download a package at the same resolution instead of one at a time. You guys don’t know what you’re talking about.
And there’s only one click (after you make your selections first!)
One problem: not all resolutions are available, just a few.
One other comment: one downside:
The program invokes the UAC everytime it’s run. You don’t need that crap.
UAC is the first thing I turn off when installing Windows. If you’re still using it, you have no one to blame but yourself for having to hassle with it to use your own PC. Just install some good security software instead.