Suffering from Longhorn or Tiger envy?

Upgrading Windows with Object Desktop 2005

Thursday, May 5, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: OS Wars

With the recent release of MacOS X "Tiger" and Microsoft talking about the next major version of Windows, code-named "Longhorn", Windows 2000 and Windows XP users might be feeling a bit of tech envy.  If so, Stardock has a cure for those OS blues in the form of Object Desktop 2005.

Object Desktop is actually a collection of OS extension utilities designed for Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP. When installed, users gain a host of new features that often go far beyond what future operating systems will provide.  For example, Object Desktop 2000 was allowing users to "skin" the entire Windows UI, including the Start bar, before Windows XP was even a twinkle in Microsoft's eye.  Object Desktop was providing features such as alpha bended shadows under windows before Apple had even coined the term "Aqua" to describe the MacOS X interface.  And today, while Apple and Microsoft are playing technological leap-frog, Object Desktop 2005 has features that offer a glimpse of what may be coming to an operating system near you.

One of the features of Apple's new MacOS X Tiger operating system is "Dashboard".  Dashboard allows users to add "widgets" that provide useful functionality and information on the desktop.  Object Desktop 2005 not only has widgets but allows them to live on the desktop full time.  Hot keys are available to show and hide them as needed but they can also live side-by-side with your desktop icons.  It was Object Desktop that delivered enhanced, end user created, mini-application functionality onto the desktop long before anything similar appeared on Windows or Mac in the form of DesktopX (one of the programs that makes up Object Desktop).  DesktopX, however, doesn't stop at just widgets. Users can literally design their own desktop environments with it and export them for later use or to share with others.

Another hot-topic in the "OS Wars" has been Avalon.  Avalon is a new display system that debuts in its full form in Longhorn. It allows all kinds of interesting effects to be achieved on the desktop.  But Windows users need not wait until Longhorn to get a small taste of what Avalon can do.  Object Desktop 2005 has WindowFX, a program that lets users scale windows on the fly, create transition effects and window morphing, shadows, and a host of transparency options.  And as the Longhorn beta approaches, Stardock is already at work to make sure Object Desktop takes full advantage of new features available in Longhorn for developers.  For users who are looking to have their Windows desktops appear similar to Longhorn today, they can do that with WindowBlinds.  WindowBlinds allows for enhanced visual styles to be applied that can change the look and feel of Windows completely. It also speeds up the drawing of windows when they're being moved and resized over the base "Luna" visual style in Windows.  It's so powerful that Alienware recently licensed it to create their Star Wars based desktops. 

But Object Desktop isn't just about making Windows look and feel better. It's about productivity and functionality.  A new program in Object Desktop 2005 is RightClick.  RightClick lets users replace their desktop right-click menu with one of their own creation that can have links to programs, system information, virtual desktops, and much more on it.  It can be brought up at any time by hitting the Windows key and is powerful enough to be used instead of the Windows Start bar (and includes an option to hide the Start bar). Major updates to other programs that make up Object Desktop along with the inclusion of a new Object Desktop LaunchPad help make Stardock's award-winning package compelling to power users and administrators alike.

All told, Object Desktop includes nearly two-dozen programs and has won numerous awards including PC Magazine's Editor's Choice Award.  It's $49.95 for the whole suite and entitles the user to a year's access to ObjectDesktop.net where new programs and updates to existing programs to Object Desktop can be found. With Longhorn looming, that means users of Object Desktop 2005 will be able to get the best of both worlds and not have to worry that their Mac-using friends have something over them.  After all, the upgrade for Mac users to Tiger is $129, over twice as much as Object Desktop costs.

Product: Object Desktop 2005
Developer: Stardock Corp. (www.stardock.com)
Price: $49.95
Requires:
Windows 2000/XP.

Transform the look and feel of Windows. Thousands of different WindowBlinds visual styles are available for free to download. Modify your existing desktop or create your own completely new designs Get the most out of your video card with these morphing effects and add widgets and enhanced icons to your desktop. Change the user interface, icons, and more

Save your desktop as a .suite file to share with others or to use later on. Use Theme Manager to manage all your skins, themes, and icons from a single location.

Assign hot keys to launch programs, websites, and system commands

Add widgets to your desktop, virtual desktops to your Start bar, and change the desktop right-click menu and much more.

Object Desktop users get a full year's access to free updates to all the Object Desktop programs and new programs that get added.
starkers
Reply #1 Thursday, May 5, 2005 10:27 PM
Hi Brad, I do not subscribe to the OS wars because I've only ever used XP, and "which OS" is a matter of personal choice anyway, so who am I to criticise something else when I've not used it, as it seems "some" do. However,, whilst not so much envious, I am suffering Longhorn anticipation and in the process of upgrading my system to eventually accomodate Longhorn to run at its optimum, bearing in mind that OD is a part of computing life now and not compatible with Mac at present anyway. Hence, Longhorn and Stardock it is.

With some Longhorn specs being somewhat vague at present, the task of upgrading is daunting and confusing at best, particularly for those who are as technically challenged as I am, so perhaps a discussion here would be of benifit to Stardock suscribers. I must apologise if this seems to be hijacking this thread, but with the long-term marriage of OD and Windows, it seemed appropriate to discuss the future of this relationship here.

At present I am running a 2.8 Pentium 4 CPU and read that Longhorn would perform better at 3.2 and above, so an upgrade seems best, if not inevitable. The question I and others may have is: would x64 bit dual layer technology be advisable to keep pace with future advancements, and would 32 bit XP run ok on it in the mean-time? Alternatively, for the financially challenged, would overclocking suffice and how safe is it to make such an increase of 0.4 or so? I have a Gigabyte 2004 GT motherboard with 512 of dual RAM and 256 of random access RAM, and feel an upgrade to 1024 of dual Ram should be sufficient, given the general specifications so far. My graphics card at present is a GForce 64 mb and wonder if and upgrade to 128mb would be enough to cater to the higher intensity graphics promised. Given my limited technical knowledge, i also wonder if I've missed any other important upgrade issues that would provide best as possible performance.

Anyone with any thoughts or ideas on the subject, given what little is known at present about Longhorn's true requirements? The only sure thing is that Stardock will continue to support Windows in the Longhorn format - keep up the great contribution guys
gnomeintheredhat
Reply #2 Friday, May 6, 2005 12:25 PM
Starkers,

Longhorn is still over a year away, and features keep getting stripped to make that possable.

As I tell all of my clients, don't upgrade for a future operating system, upgrade to get the best preformance you can get NOW.

That aside, x86-64 is the future, AMD dual core processors are the way to go for CPU upgrades.
Intel dual core CPU cores communicate with each other throuth the chipset on the motherboard, and they must compeate for access to memory,
AMD dual core CPU cores each have direct access to memory AND they have a dedicated communication path to each other.
hardocp.com has a comparison and several other sites show AMD trouncing Intel with dual cores.

gNOMEintheRedHat
TexasJoe
Reply #3 Friday, May 6, 2005 12:49 PM
I don't agree with what gnomeintheredhat said about Longhorn's being continuously stripped of its features. Except WinFS (which will require a few months more to finalize after longhorn is released in Oct 2006). I believe the trend goes the other way as new ideas of improvements are being added to Longhorn on a regular basis. I also disagree with the advice he gives his customers.

I corroborate what he said about dual-core processors, AMD's are more promising.

starkers: your 2.8Ghz will do just fine. Just upgrade your memory to 1gig and get a graphics card with 128MB, or better, 256MB onboard memory.
gnomeintheredhat
Reply #4 Friday, May 6, 2005 2:54 PM
I tell my customers that if they need more computing power for their current needs, then upgrade to the limits of your current budget.

If their PC and apps are running fine and they are wanting to upgrade "to be ready" for the next big thing, I tell them to save the money for now and wait for "the next big thing" to be released.

In 6 months the same money will buy more power.

Of course, back in the day when I made money building PCs for my customers, my answer was, "How much money do you have?"
gNOMEintheRedHat
PurrBall
Reply #5 Friday, May 6, 2005 2:57 PM
Hey Brad,
What's the WindowBlinds skin in the first screenshot?
werewolf
Reply #6 Friday, May 6, 2005 6:11 PM
That skin is Inspirat by StefanKa, ported by Brad (frogboy). You can find it here:
https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=4507&LibID=1
TexasJoe
Reply #7 Saturday, May 7, 2005 4:16 AM
that's right Gnome in the Red Hat, especially now when we're in a period of transition to new hardware. No real big change in on the graphics side, dual-core processors powered by x64 need a little price redress before hitting mainstream.
PurrBall
Reply #8 Sunday, May 8, 2005 5:42 PM
I like KDE better, GnomeintheRedHat.

KDEintheRedHat.

hehehe
HG_Eliminator
Reply #9 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 9:50 PM
i suffer from Pizza envy .. everybody has it but me ...

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