Dynamic Desktop and Logon Screen

Unlike me, most computer users tend to change their desktop wallpaper even as often as every other day. If you want the screen of your computer to sport a different picture even more often than that, then Pulse is the app to go to.

The freebie works as a portable application so no installation is required after you download it. Simple unwrap the archive it comes in and double click on the executable file. It will automatically take its place in the system tray and start functioning with the default settings.

Initial configuration is set to change the desktop image every 20 minutes and filter out pictures with low resolution.

One feature that may be a deal-breaker for some of the users is the fact that Pulse does not give you control over the wallpapers it sets on your desktop. That’s because it does not require a local image database because it accesses two online repositories (wallbase.cc and rewalls.com). So the only requirement for the application is a running Internet connection; also, make sure you add a firewall rule that allows it to connect to the remote address.

Although the choice of the computer image is totally random, but you do have some control. This resumes to providing a keyword to define the general theme wallpapers should fit.

The interface of the application is extremely simple, all the options being available in a single screen. At the top of the windows you get to punch in the keyword and down the list you will be able to pick between the two online repositories as well as the frequency to change the desktop screen.

Unfortunately, the maximum change frequency you can set for the picture is one hour and thirty minutes. It seems as if this app has been designed for users with a short fuse on boredom as far as desktop looks are concerned.

On the bright side, the set of options offered by the application lets you filter out low resolution images as well as set the wallpaper as the background of the logon screen as well. In our case this worked most of the times, but it also happened that the two were different. This is one of the reasons why there are images you do not recall in the cache folder. However, considering that the images are utterly amazing, this wasn’t a downfall at all.

All the wallpapers you switch using Pulse are automatically downloaded on your computer. As such, the app can create a very large cache of images you may not wish to keep. Pulse is ready for this and can automatically delete old pictures. You set the number of days that define “old” and it will eliminate them. Thus you’ll only have a pool of the latest wallpapers used.

But the good thing is that you get to view all the awesome pictures in one place. If the online database fails to offer you a cool set of choices, you can always switch back to old preferences in the cache folder.

Last on the list of options is switching the language, but, unless you are proficient in Cyrillic, English is the only possibility at hand.

Pulse is still in beta stage, but manages to offer impressive results. It is easy to handle and takes very little of the computer resources to function in the system tray (~20MB of RAM). However, despite its simplicity there are still some options users may want to see in a future version.

Selecting the wallpapers from a local database of images and choosing them according to their tag or randomly, would be one step forward. Also, we noticed on more than one occasion that the images from the online repositories repeated themselves when the refresh rate was more intensive, which is indicative of the fact that the pool to choose from is not quite as large as one may think.

During our tests we also experienced sudden crashes of the software whenever we would stress it to quickly change the wall while looking for one we would settle for.

The Good

The Bad

The Truth