Things have moved on a bit from 2002, but since at least one person is still interested in this hint, here's a revised version for 10.5.x and 10.6.x.
There are three changes:
- The wget command has been replaced with a curl command. wget in not installed by default on 10.6, if in fact it ever was, but curl is.
- The entire script has been converted to applescript as a matter of convenience.
- The Finder's desktop command has been deprecated, so System Events is used instead.
set pictureURL to "http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/barrel_cropped_(1).jpg" set localFile to POSIX path of (path to home folder from user domain) & "DTPic.jpg" set cmd to "curl " & quoted form of pictureURL & " > " & quoted form of localFile do shell script cmd tell application "System Events" tell desktop 1 set picture rotation to 1 set picture rotation to "never" set picture to POSIX file localFile end tell end tell
tell application "Image Events"
set theImage to open localFile
scale theImage to size 1200 -- adjusts the longest edge (assumedly the bottom edge) to a reasonable size
pad theImage to dimensions {1440, 900} -- pads the image with black to the size of the screen to prevent distortion
save theImage
end tell[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described.]

