SexyDesktop - The Worlds Sexiest Celebrities on your desktop

Frequently Asked Questions

• How do I set a wallpaper?
• How do I set a PocketPC theme?
• How do I remove a wallpaper?
• How do I clear all the icons from my desktop so that I can enjoy a wallpaper?
• How do I use Dual-Screen wallpapers?
• How do I choose my Hot 100 image?
• What is RSS?
• How do I start using RSS feeds?
• Where can I get an RSS newsreader?
• Why don't the photos appear when I click the links?
• Why does the sitename appear as www.hunkydesktop.co.uk?
• The image I want isn't available at the right size
• Why do all your wallpapers look the same?
• Thumbnails are missing, what do I do?
• What does NEW or UPDATED mean above a thumbnail?
• Copyright / DMCA
• Visitor numbers
• Non-original artwork
• Adult images
• Popup messages / banners / adverts
• Hosting
• Logos / watermarks
• Contacting us

How do I set a wallpaper?

To open a Wallpaper image on this site all you have to do is click next to the thumbnail where it says the size of your screen. Usually it'll say Best fit for you directly under the thumbnail, this means that the image is available at exactly the same size as your screen, and clicking the thumbnail will open the image at that size. The wallpaper will open in a separate window by default, but if that causes a problem (it might get blocked by popup blocker software for example) you can change the Preferences so that wallpapers open in the same window.

You can then right-click the image and choose either Set as Background or Set as Wallpaper (depending on your browser). Alternatively you can choose Save as... and save the image for later use.

Mac OS X Users: Drag the image onto your desktop, go to System Preferences, go to the Desktop icons, click the Collection drop-down and Choose Folder to find the new wallpaper on your computer.

Mac OS 9 Users: Drag the image onto your desktop, go to Control Panel and choose Appearance, click Set Desktop and choose the new wallpaper that you just downloaded.

How do I set a PocketPC theme?

When you download a PocketPC theme it will be saved on your machine as a TSK file. To apply that theme to your PocketPC you need to connect your PDA and open ActiveSync and click Explore - this will show the files on your PocketPC.

You can then Use the Edit Copy and Edit Paste commands to copy the TSK file from your PC onto your PocketPC.

On your PocketPC, tap Start, Settings, Today, and choose the theme from the list.

How do I remove a wallpaper?

If you set a wallpaper and then decide you want to go back to a solid colour or another image that you had previously, do the following:

• Right-click on the Desktop
• Choose Properties
• Click the Desktop tab (Windows XP)
• Choose an alternate image or solid colour, or None

How do I clear all the icons from my desktop so that I can enjoy a wallpaper?

In Windows XP (and perhaps other versions of Windows) you can hide all the desktop icons to give you a clear view of your wallpaper. This is a better idea than deleting all the icons, apart from which it can be tricky to remove things like the Recycle Bin anyway.

• Right-click on the Desktop
• Choose Arrange Icons by...
• Untick Show Desktop Icons

If you also want to be able to see the bottom of your wallpaper you'll need to hide the Taskbar as well.

• Right-click on the Taskbar
• Choose Properties
• Tick Auto-hide the Taskbar

How do I use Dual-Screen wallpapers?

If you have a computer which is capable of supporting two monitors, you have a Dual-Screen system. We are starting to support wallpapers which will give you a single desktop image that spans both monitors, but since there are so many possible combinations of monitor sizes (they don't both have to be the same resolution) it would be impossible to create wallpapers for every size, so we're concentrating on users who are likely to have two same-size monitors set to 1280x1024, or two monitors set to 1600x1200, or two widescreen monitors set to 1680x1050.

All our dual-screen wallpapers are based on images that have a full-width pictoral background rather than a solid colour, otherwise one monitor would have a picture and the other would just be a single solid colour which is pretty boring. We also try to avoid creating images where the face of the celebrity will be divided between the two monitors. Taking all this into account, there won't be a huge number of suitable images for us to use but we'll provide as many as we can.

How do I choose my Hot 100 image?

We have a Hot 100 list which we hope over time will become a showcase of the best 100 wallpapers on SexyDesktop. It's not based on counting how often each wallpaper is downloaded because that's always biased towards the most recent additions to the site. Instead, visitors have to choose their single favourite wallpaper.

• Find your favourite wallpaper and Bookmark it using our bookmarking feature
• Click

(adjacent to your favourite wallpaper) within the Bookmark strip

The image that you've chosen as your favourite will appear as the first image on your Bookmark strip. You can always change your mind and choose a different image but then your previous choice is lost - you only get one vote.

What is RSS?

In a world heaving under the weight of billions of web pages, keeping up to date with the information you want can be a drag. Wouldn't it be better to have the latest news and features delivered directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site? Well now you can, thanks to a very clever service, RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but the majority plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. Put plainly, it allows you to identify the content you like and have it delivered directly to you. It takes the hassle out of staying up-to-date, by showing you the very latest information that you are interested in.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want. Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want. For example, if you would like updates of our Angelina Jolie gallery, simply visit the Angelina Jolie page and you will notice a gold RSS button on the left hand side. If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, have functionality which automatically picks up RSS feeds for you. For more details on these, please check their websites.

Where can I get an RSS newsreader?

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time. Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice. Some browsers have RSS readers built in, such as Firefox and Internet Explorer 7.
Windows: Newz Crawler | Feeddemon | Awasu
Mac: Newsfire | NetNewsWire
Web: Bloglines | My Yahoo! | NewsGator

You can also use the SexyDesktop Wallpaper Manager utility to notify you when new wallpapers are available, it hooks into our RSS feed.

Why don't the photos appear when I click the links?

Probably because JavaScript is disabled on your browser. We use JavaScript to open our photos in a new window and if you have JavaScript disabled then nothing will happen when you click to open a full-size photo. To enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer do the following:
• Choose Tools, Internet Options, Security
• Click the Custom Level button
• Scroll down the list to Scripting and Enable all options within the Scripting branch

Another reason why the photos might not appear is because you have popup blocker software installed and it is closing the popup window that contains the photo. If you wish, you can change the Preferences in SexyDesktop so that images open up in the same window rather than in a popup window. Preferences can be accessed on any gallery page, they are on the left-hand edge towards the bottom of each page.

Why does the sitename appear as www.hunkydesktop.co.uk?

In order to speed up your browsing experience of our site we have a mirror of SexyDesktop.co.uk on a site called HunkyDesktop.co.uk, both sites have identical content in terms of celebrities and wallpaper images. We spread the traffic between the two sites by redirecting you to the mirror server when you click on certain links. The redirection should be transparent to you, just take it in your stride.

The image I want isn't available at the right size

Over 50% of all computers run at 1024x768 resolution and so every image on this site is available at that size, plus 800x600 as this is the next most predominant size. All new images added to the site are produced at higher resolutions when possible to cater for larger screens and also widescreen displays. However, to maintain the high quality of our images we won't expand a source image just to create a bigger wallpaper. So, if the image you want isn't available at one of the larger sizes it's because the source image was too small to make into wallpaper of that size. In this case, download the biggest size available and allow your operating system to expand the image so that it fits your screen.

Why do all your wallpapers look the same?

Same reason why all of Alanis Morissette's songs sound the same - because that's how I like them. 95% of our wallpapers have the celebrity on the right-hand side and blank space on the left-hand side where your Windows icons appear by default. That way you don't end up with icons stuck on top of someone's face.

Thumbnails are missing, what do I do?

In 99.9% of cases missing thumbnails can be shown by forcing a Refresh in your browser so that it completely reloads the page ingoring any cached files. To do this, hold the CTRL key on the keyboard and click the Refresh button in your browser. If thumbnails are still missing even after that, then it could be because the server that hosts the images is temporarily down. Try again after a few minutes.

If you just see webpages with no thumbnails at all, it's because SexyDesktop uses Javascript to place the thumbnails on the screen and you probably have Javascript disabled. Click here to read how to enable Javascript.

What does NEW or UPDATED mean above a thumbnail?

NEW means that the image has been added within approximately the last 14 days. UPDATED means that we've re-done an existing image so that more choices of size are available.

All images on the sexydesktop site remain copyright of their respective owners. All images can be found elsewhere on the internet and are believed to be in the public domain as either promotional stills, publicity photos, photoshoot rejects or press media stock. Under the conditions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act you may submit a Takedown Request if you find an image on SexyDesktop for which you are the copyright holder, and we will endeavour to investigate your request and take appropriate action.

Visitor numbers

In 2003 we had the pleasure of welcoming 4,890,525 visitors to the site.
In 2004 we had even more pleasure in having 47,023,310 visitors to the site.
In 2005 we had the unbelievable pleasure in having 148,199,092 visitors to the site.
In 2006 we had the staggeringly mind-blowing pleasure in having 200,110,221 visitors to the site.
(Source: AskJeeves affiliate reports)

Non-original artwork

We try hard to exhibit original wallpaper images which we have adapted from the available source images to fit your desktop. In some cases we have used existing wallpaper images from other sites because to simply replicate the same image based on the same original scan seems pointless.

Adult images

There are enough porn sites on the internet already, and our site is not a showcase for pornographic or offensive material. By default, any images containing nudity are 'obscured' and appear as a blocky thumbnail. You must specifically confirm that you want to see images that contain nudity, either by clicking an obscured thumbnail or clicking the relevant setting in Preferences. Once you have confirmed that you're happy with viewing nude material, your preference is saved in a cookie.

Popup messages / banners / adverts

We do not aim to make money from this website, and to that end we do not knowingly activate pop-up messages or spawned windows (installers). In order to help offset hosting costs we do show banners and unfortunately they are not bullet-proof and do sometimes launch installer requests. In some cases they may ask you to download a valid plug-in (such as Macromedia Flash) but other times it may be something innapropriate such as a game or utility. Sadly there's not much we can do about that, although you can install software to block such downloads.

Hosting

This site is hosted on seven dedicated servers. Two servers hold all the HTM webpages, two servers hold all the thumbnails (and one of those holds the forum), and the other three hold all the large images. All incoming traffic is split between the two HTM page servers at random, and when you request a large image you're redirected to one of the three image servers at random. Due to the way the servers synchronise, you may find that pages, thumbnails and images that have recently been updated are available one minute and disappear the next - this is because you're being swapped between servers as you browse. If you wait a few minutes everything will be available.

Logos / watermarks

Our wallpaper images have neither site logos or watermarks because we believe that they detract from the viewing pleasure of the image. For this reason we remove logos or watermarks from the scanned images that we use as our source images.

Contacting Us

Due to spam, you can't e-mail us directly at SexyDesktop, in fact all e-mails sent to anything @sexydesktop.co.uk are ignored and deleted. However, if you want to get in touch then the SexyDesktop Forum is the ideal place. You can either post a message that everyone can read or send a personal message to the Admin user.

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