- Create the directory ~/Desktop/Weather.
- Open System preferences, select Desktop. Under the collections popup list, navigate to
the Weather folder. Select Center for the image position, then set the "Change picture" pop-up to every five minutes.
- Create this perl script:
#!/usr/bin/perl while(1){ # download radar image (this command works for any URL) # NOTE: Enter the next three lines as ONE line -- do not # add any spaces when combining the lines (ie no # spaces after the slashes!). system ("curl http://weather.noaa.gov/radar/images/ DS.p19r0/SI.klwx/latest.gif >~/Desktop/Weather/ latest.gif"); sleep(300); }Don't forget to use UNIX line breaks and after you save it, open the Terminal, navigate to the directory the script resides in (I used ~/Desktop/Weather), and do chmod +x getweather to make the script executable.
- Launch the script by typing ./getweather &
The perl script fetches an image from the NOAA doppler radar site (For the Washington, D.C. area in this case, but choose whatever you like). The script then sleeps for 5 minutes (300 seconds) and then fetches the image again, overwriting the original. At the same time, the Desktop sytem preferences updates the desktop every 5 minutes, which will always keep the image current on your screen. You can use other images; try any web cam you like, of course!

