As I have said many times, Halloween is one of the best “holidays” for skinning.  There are so many skins in the gallery it’s hard to keep up, but if you don’t want to go searching for all these skins, and want a great desktop theme that is ready to go, then come check out the Rest in Peace MyColors theme.

To find more information about MyColors, you can read through a walkthrough or view a screencast with more information.

Visual Style and Wallpaper

This visual style fits the theme of the design perfectly.  A jack-o-lantern start button, a very cool animated start menu, and other details that make this skin an awesome addition.  The wallpaper is a perfect match with a “spooky” Halloween scene that is definitely a “treat”.

The wallpaper is a perfect match with a “spooky” Halloween scene that is definitely a “treat”.

Icons

The icon pack included with this theme is one of the best I have seen.  The attention to detail is remarkable, and the pack is filled with pumpkins, spider webs, and other creepy goodies. 

Gadgets

The Rest in Peace MyColors Themes also includes several desktop gadgets, which are like mini-applications that can give you a variety of information.  The R.I.P. theme includes a clock, calendar, and weather gadget so you can see the latest forecast for your given location.

The Rest In Peace MyColors theme is available for both Windows XP and Vista.  You can find more information here, and don’t forget that Object Desktop subscribers get a discount.

This week I thought I'd say good bye to summer, with one last fling.

So, before we start seeing oranges browns and skeletons, I thought I'd bring some summer color to the screen.

To begin with I chose a perfectly summery windowblind skin, in the form of Watermelon by Imzadi. This is a cutsie skin, without being sappy sweet. Refreshing, like a real watermelon. I enjoyed the way the programs menu and other submenus have a gradient shaded theme, starting with lightest up by accessories , and darkest at the end of the list.  The combination of reds and greens I thought were going to be too christmasy, but I was pleased to see they worked well together and didn't remind me of christmas at all.

I paired the blind with the wall Ocast by eamejia . The relic in the corner, and the summer wheat reminded me of the view out my window(yes complete with relic) in the mid summer here. I really love this wall and have used it several times in the past.

To compliment the blind, I chose Win3D Summer XP by JamesT. I know I had to travel a little in the way back machine , but it was worth it. This set's watermelon pink and green shaded icons play nicely with the watermelon/ summer theme of my grouping here. and it's a very extensive set I might add. The only thing I had to adjust was the firefox icon, which is the same one as last week, but recolored in icondeveloper to match the Iconpackage.

I moved my fences around a bit and reduced their size to show the desktop off to it's best advantage .

For the CursorFX theme, I used Buzz by PuterDudeJim. A bumble buzzing around my screen just seemed appropriate. I was surprised to see the cursor is actually a bee with the stinger as the pointer, as the screenshot suggested it was just a striped arrow. I like the bee better .

I decided not to go too elaborate this week for my DesktopX objects. So I just used a simple weather widget which does a lot more if fully opened. Combined II by Richard Mohler, is light, simple and contains a weather widget,calendar ,music player, color picker and mouse tracker all in one. It can be minimized to show weather only, or fully opened to totally enjoy all the features.

I decided to have a little fun with this one, and used Sun Clock by Jaramia. The clock fit nicely over the palest spot of the wall, where the sun was just barely shining through.

I added Mystic Stalk by tippytonail just because no true field is without one or two stalks of last season's crop here and there.

Lastly I found an older widget that really worked for me. It's probably going to be on my desktop often, so look for it and remember this link DesktopX Helper v2 by Randahl. I think it is prettier and less in your face than the dx helper that comes standard.

Well, That's it for this week's look. I guess it's time to put away the pretty greens and pinks and get ready for the fall lineup. Hope you all are ready, I know I'm not. I love summer but I will do my best to provide the look of the season!

Have a good one,

Wulf

All MyColors free themes and all Stardock freeware now have a registration built into them. Here is how it works now:

Go to Impulse, and then to the store. Click on Desktop then choose to 'sort by price'.

You will see Diamond come up as a free download.

Click the free button and then on the next page select 'Add to Impulse'.

Impulse will ask you for your email if you do not have one, or it should prompt you for the one you are logged in with. Either way hit Register or enter your current email and hit register. Impulse will then download Diamond for you while creating your Diamond registry. You will find the free download under MyDesktop. Upon successful completion an email containing download and registration information will be sent to you via the address you have entered.

This is the current answer to the "Free Stuff" questions we have been getting. You will be seeing all manor of free items migrating their way from the normal Impulse windows into the store portion of Impulse. All free MyColor suites will also go to this method of registration as well. If you have any questions please let me know!

Seabass

Yeah, it’s Friday!  We had some really big news this week in the world of skinning.  First up, we have more GUI Champs ‘08 news with Wacom being added as a sponsor.  We also had the release of WindowBlinds 6.3 and SkinStudio 6.3, which is perfect timing for the GUI Champs.  Now for this weeks picks!

	Hitman by sAARGe I’m a fan of the Hitman series, and this smoothly animated cursor is perfect for any fan.
	DXCanvas by Littleboy This is an awesome plugin for DesktopX, which opens up a bunch of scripting possibilities.
	I…Foney by PuterDudeJim This is just a cool DX theme, not much else to say.
	dark_energy by muckyman This .dream for DeskScapes has found a nice home on my desktop.  If you have Vista, be sure to get this.
	Stranded 3 by Richard Mohler The colors of this wallpaper just really caught my eye this morning.  Great work.
	3D Metal by theAVMAN This is an update to this very popular WindowBlinds skin, and it’s once again worth a feature.

See you next week!

One of the new features of Object Desktop 2009 is the rewrite of Theme Manager.

Here are some screenshots:

This week , I played with Vitrex by pixel-z . It's a clean skin, without a lot of doo-dads. The window borders are artistically worked in a way that creates a look of several pages , or a pane behind the window. I like the combination black and sky blue creates, and though I felt there was a lot of white in the skin,it balanced out to a point that I found I was enjoying this skin the more I use it.

I matched  the colors with Brilliance by BrisyZhang , an Icon package created for the 2006 GuiChamps. The sky blue on black theme really created a solidarity between the blind and the IP. I had to borrow an icon from my object dock library for my FireFox3 link. I recolored Firefox Midnight by Mirsguy (for object dock) and saved it as an icon to use on my computer icons. This process worked quite well , and I think I might be pulling more of my object dock icons for replacement of those that need a change.

You know, I really don't think I could've found a better wall for this setup than , EXP 123 by Sed it's dark, deep and just enough detail without taking away from the over all look of things. Very easy on the eyes.

Blue Arrow by lihu1266 rounds out the basics for this grouping. Its simple, sky blue , and unadorned. Just right for this Blind.

I unloaded my object dock this past week, due to some installation issues I was having , so I have no dock to show you.

DesktopX is my old standby when trying to decorate something to look different and useful.

I used three different DX objects, inlcuding some great work by my ol'pal  Chet . Novaweather by DigitalCHET  is a cool skyblue with a greyish white border, it almost reminds me of the silhouette of the U.S. Capital building.

IGlass Clock by 00Zero Cool is an oldie but goodie I picked just because it looked good with this setup.

I found this great meter bar I just had to use , it was the right color and had EVERYTHING in it! P23 meters by _Martin_ is an astounding work of art and functionality. It has everything from a clock to a music player all built into one meter bar. Definitely worth the download. The color match was just icing on the cake here.

............I'll bet you noticed something else on my desktop this week, ain't it cool? I haven't been able to really see what it can do yet, but thus far, it's great, I am now able to show my icons without having them everywhere , and I can scroll line to line to see all of them without having to show them all at once.And I get to have different little "pastures" to corral my icons in. Its a program called "Fences" and it's in the testing stage right now. I've been privileged to be one of the testers. Hopefully in the future there's gonna be a lot more talk of this program.

SkinStudio is a program that lets users create their own user interface for Microsoft Windows.

It walks users step by step the Windows GUI to help them change virtually any aspect of the user interface including title bars, the start menu, scroll bars, push buttons, and everything else.

Version 6.3 is coming out this week and it's a pretty big step up. Let's take a look.

What's new in 6.3

Main window features

The first change is the addition of mini previews of your five most recently edited skins when you open SkinStudio. You can double click on any of these to open up that skin for editing.

When you first upgrade the previews will be replaced by boxes with the skin names until the previews are created.

Once you open a skin you may notice a small X at the top right. This allows you to quickly close a skin. If the skin has been edited then you will be asked if you wish to save your changes.

Based on user requests the name of the skin you are editing is now at the start of the caption text. This is especially useful if you have multiple copies of SkinStudio open as the skin name will now be visible in the taskbar.

You may notice a new option in the list on the left hand side called “How do I?”. This feature lets you quickly change settings in a skin which may be more difficult to find or are the kind of feature someone who is editing a skin for their own use may want to change.

Examples of the options you can change from here are enabling or disabling OS shadows, hiding shadows on menus, enabling or disabling sound support in a skin etc.

Preferences

Based on user feedback we have improved the editing window and we now offer two different editing modes which can be selected from the preferences window. On the very first run of SkinStudio 6.3 you will be shown the preferences dialog so you can select which mode you would prefer to use.

The two modes are section based editing and tree view mode editing.

Section based editing is the default mode and works like it did in SkinStudio 6.2. You can switch sections by using the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom.

Tree mode is a replacement for the basic tree mode that you could enable in SkinStudio 6.2. The tree has been reordered and reduced in complexity to make it easier to use.

Additionally there is a search field under the tree. Typing in here will replace the tree with a list of suggested sections. Clicking on one of the suggestions will take you to that part or if none are to your liking you can press escape to close the search.

OR

 
Users can now decide how they want the editor to appear based on their preference choice.

The Edit Window

Another enhancement based on user requests is the ability to maximize the edit window. As well as making the tree show more if you are in tree mode, maximizing the window also changes how some of the tabs show information.

Advantages of maximized mode :

- The image tab will show you a full preview of the image you have selected

- The painting margins tab is larger so you are able to resize image to test margins and also set margins on much taller images.

- The text tab will place the preview under the vertical alignment selection box.

- The extras tab shows you more items

- The layers tab shows you more layers

Under the preview there is also now a layers >> option. This allows you to quickly switch between layers without going back to the layers tab.

Grid backgrounds

As well as the usual white, desktop, dialog, background, and black options you can now use a grid background.

This is perfect for seeing the effect of semi transparency such as the taskbar in the example to the right.

This grid option is also provided in the painting margin tab and the frame builder window.

Layers

One of the biggest new features in SkinStudio 6.3 requires WindowBlinds 6.3. While SkinStudio 6.2 and WindowBlinds 6.2 introduced the concept of layers in a skin, the layers are only blended using straight alpha blending.

Layers allow skinners to take an existing image and blend it with another image without having to alter the original image.

WindowBlinds 6.3 introduces the concept of layer blend modes which allows a layer to be blended using a number of different blend modes. Some of the blend modes are auto masking which really helps with applying textures to lower layers.

You can control the layer blend mode from the layers tab. Just select the layer you want to edit and then set the layer blend mode in the box above. There are currently 29 different blend modes which consist of a mixture of auto masking modes, modes which only apply to coloured pixels, and modes which only apply to greyscale pixels.

Should you have a need for a different blend mode and can define it mathematically then please contact support@stardock.com and provide all the details along with an explanation of why this mode would be especially useful and we will consider it for future updates of WindowBlinds/SkinStudio.

There is no limit to the number of layers you can have, but naturally the more layers you have, especially with complex blend modes, will be slower than a single layer. So having 50 layers on say a button is probably not a good idea.

The multiply blend mode with automasking is often ideal when you apply a texture to an existing part.

Using layers example

This is a quick demonstration of using layers to enhance a skin. The skin here is the DarkAvatar skin and we will be adding a texture to the top of the startmenu.

We will be adding a rust texture to the grey parts of the frame but avoiding the red part.

So firstly we add a new layer to the top of the startmenu by going to the layers tab and clicking the add layer button. Then we should set the layer blend mode to “Multiply Blend onto greyscale destination only with automask”

Then we need to go back to the image tab and select our rust texture and then go to the painting margins tab and make sure we have selected tile mode.

Once you have done that the end result will be something like this :

Now lets see what it looks like when it is made wider.

This really shows the power of layers with blend modes. The rust texture has tiled on top of the base layer and due to the auto masking it automatically fits in with the resized frame. Doing this without layers would be impossible as you would always have a point where the margins meet the middle.

Layers with different textures:

So lets try a different texture. Instead of the rust texture I have used a darkish wood texture and set the blend mode to “Overlay Blend onto greyscale destination with automask”. This produces a plastic wood effect as below

I prefer the rust look so I have set that back and then added identical layers to the bottom bar, left side, right side and more programs background sections. If you have SKS Pro then this can be done using Ctrl-C on the code in the code tab in the first section and then Ctrl-V in the code tab for the other sections.

Ideally you should use a texture with an alpha channel (I.e. TGA/PNG) for the layer rather than a bmp. Using a BMP will work but the performance on Windows XP will be lower. On Windows Vista it makes no difference.

If a section resizes in use (most of them) then a layer can enhance it. If it is fixed size then you can simply use the layers in your image editing application and you will get the same result assuming you mask appropriately.

Other changes

Other changes to SkinStudio 6.3 are the addition of text descriptions to the various Vista fonts and colours which are under the Vista Fonts and Vista Colours buttons on the Edit Fonts and Edit Colours windows.

Control over the system fonts has now been added to the edit fonts window. Simply select Show me the skin defined system fonts option from the drop down at the top of the window and you can then control the system fonts.

Finally a quick tip

Double clicking on the preview in the Painting Margins tab will resize the preview to the image size.

It's hard to believe 2008 is starting to come to an end.  The yearly snapshot of Object Desktop is starting to come together. This year, however, we're doing to do some things differently.  First, we're going to release a lot of updates/new features with the snapshot instead of releasing putting things out bit by bit in the months leading up to it.  This way, the release is more of an event.

Object Desktop Today

Let's first start off with Object Desktop as it is today:

Object Desktop is a suite of desktop enhancement utilities that allows users to transform their Windows experience. It comes in two forms: Object Desktop and Object Desktop Ultimate.  The Ultimate Edition is designed for power users while the standard

edition is designed for everyone else.

The key parts of Object Desktop are:

• WindowBlinds - which can change the Windows GUI.
• IconPackager - which can change the icons of Windows all at once
• DeskScapes - which can provided animated wallpaper
• SoundPackager - which lets users package and share sets of sound schemes
• DesktopX - which lets users create and use widgets and desktops
• MyColors - which lets users apply professionally created themes that completely change the Windows experience. And Object Desktop users get 4 free ones per year.

Object Desktop Ultimate adds:

• TweakVista - a utility for getting the most out of Windows Vista
• WindowFX - a utlity that lets Windows XP users add special effects to their PC
• SkinStudio - an application that lets usres create skins
• IconDeveloper - an icon creation utility
• ObjectBar - let users create and use their own replacement UI elements to Windows
• IconX - Lets users enhance the Windows XP desktop icons
• LogonStudio - lets users create and use their own Windows XP or Windows Vista logons
• Keyboard LaunchPad - lets users assign hot keys to common actions
• RightClick - lets users replace the desktop right-click menu with one of their own creation

So that's where we are today. Anything not listed above is something that is already probably set to legacy already.

Object Desktop Tomorrow

Now, someone who purchases Object Desktop right now gets everything we do for an entire year which includes Object Desktop 2009.  Below are the things we're working on for Object Desktop 2009. All of this is subject to change but this gives you an idea of what we're hoping to accomplish/do within the next year when Object Desktop 2009 is released.

Things that are going to go away...

Some programs are going to be phased out (existing users will still be able to download the latest version):

- IconX is going to go away. Sorry. I like this program too but making it work on Vista would be virtually impossible.

Things that are going to go into maintenance mode (no longer updated):

- ObjectBar. This is one of my favorites but we need to rewrite this to keep it up to date and at that point, we would release a new program based on today's requirements.

So there's the bad news.

Things that are going to get attention for Object Desktop 2009

+ DesktopX.

+ RightClick.

+ Keyboard LaunchPad.

+ SoundPackager.

Things that are going to get a lot of attention but may not be available on the release of Object Desktop 2009 but should be released within a year depending on Windows 7's release date.

+ DesktopX 4.0 (Vista/XP/Windows 7)

+ WindowFX 4.0 (Vista/XP/Windows 7)

+ WindowBlinds (Vista/XP/Windows 7)

+ SkinStudio (Vista/XP/Windows 7)

+ DeskScapes 3 (Vista/XP/Windows 7)

Also, anything that doesn't work on Windows Vista 64-bit by the time Object Desktop 2009 ships gets pulled (other than WindowFX). 64-bit is the future.

NEW THINGS we hope to have available either on the release of Object Desktop 2009 or shortly after:

+ Theme Manager 3.0. Major update, everything everyone was hoping for.

+ BootSkin Vista.

+ StyleVista 1.0. (Ultimate Only)

NEW THINGS that are in development

+ Fences (Ultimate only)

NEW FOCUSES IN DEVELOPMENT

We are looking at Windows 7 closely and one of the things we are going to be looking to do going forward is developing more software that improves system performance and usability as well as improving productivity.  Keep a close eye out on Impulse.  It's not just a download manager, it's a platform. Expect to eventually see a lot of "cloud" features in Object Desktop that help make Windows faster and easier to use.

To learn more about Object Desktop, visit www.objectdesktop.com.

Stay tuned!

Has this been a really slow going week, or was it just me?  It seemed like Friday took forever to get here.  Well anyways, we had a great week for skinning, so lets get a quick recap.

• GUI Champs ‘08 Pre-Kickoff
• LanTec becoming a WC Moderator

Now for this weeks picks!

	Mission Andromedia by gropull This bootskin features a really cool image to give your XP bootscreen a completely different look.
	Carbon Alloy Dock DX by PuterDudeJim PuterDudeJim gives us another phenomenal DX theme.  Just download this one and see for yourself.
	Media Processor 6.0 by Vad_M All I can say about this is ….wow.  The stuff that can be done using DesktopX is amazing.
	Red Vines by TheMasterBaron This is a fractal .dream with smooth animations that doesn’t put too much of a distraction on your desktop.
	WraithRC 1..2 & 3 by WebGizmos WebGizmos has now gotten himself into RightClick skins, so expect a bunch more great ones from him.  Just don’t neglect the docks!
	Rockin’s All Nite by g33z3r I just thought this wallpaper was cute.

See you next week!

For anyone who uses a computer at least on a daily or weekly basis, or someone who uses their PC for things like keeping photos, doing financial work, etc., a backup solution is very important.  I’m sure everyone knows someone, or at least heard the stories of people who have lost very important data that was unrecoverable, and that’s why finding a good solution is key.  I was happy to see that Genie-Soft has some applications available on Impulse, so I wanted to give the Home version of Genie Backup Manager a run through. 

The first thing I noticed is it has an “Easy” and “Normal” mode.  Easy mode has a very basic interface that even the most computer illiterate could use, but for most users, the Normal mode should suffice. 

One of the great things about an application like Genie Backup Manager is that you can either backup your entire system, or just pick and choose the elements to backup.  Getting started is easy as you just click the Backup button and you are guided through the steps to create your backup.  In the left hand menu you can see the steps and jump to a certain section if needed. 

Flexibility is key, and Genie Backup Manager gives you several options on how you actually want to get your data backed up.

• Local/LAN
• Removable Media
• Remote using FTP
• CD/DVD
• Online backup

I think the bases are covered when it comes to location choices, and where you backup will really depend on your system, your needs, and really what is easiest for you to manage.  By no means think you are limited to one backup, I personally do a full backup and then a separate backup of items such as mail, photos, etc.  I will typically do a full system backup using an external USB hard drive, and for my smaller backup jobs I will use a DVD, and also the online backup service.  More on that in a minute.

Moving on to the next step, you can now select the data to be backed up.  What really stood out to me is how Genie Backup Manager not only lets you select the specific item to backup, but has selections of “common” items like Contacts, My Photos, Fonts, etc.  You can even backup the registry from here.

Now here is the feature that seals the deal for me…..plugins!  There are tons of free plugins available that make backing up specific applications that much easier.  I was browsing through and found one that will backup the themes and settings of WindowBlinds 6.  No more lost skins!

After you select your data, you can now give the final options such as enabling password and encryption protection on the backup job, and enable the SwiftRestore feature which creates an .exe that can be viewed and restored on a system regardless if Genie Backup is installed or not.  That is a very useful feature.  There is also a scheduling manager that lets users select the times and frequency of scheduled backups.  Genie Backup Manager Home also has a disaster recovery feature to help you in the event of a system failure.  It guides you through the process of creating a boot disk which you can use to restore your system if you ever find yourself in that situation.

Now to my favorite feature of all…..online backup.  Backing up to online services has always been a bit tricky, and finding a good service always seemed difficult, but not anymore.  Genie-Soft has their own online backup service which can give home users up to 5GB of storage space.  There are other plans available, but this is perfect for home users.  There is a free 1 month trial available for Backup Manager users to try it out, but I’m sure it’s something many people will want to upgrade to and use.  I ran several online backup jobs and every one of them was very, very fast.  Even through the restore process it acted as if it was just an external HD connected to my system.  Kudos to Genie-Soft for making this so easy to use.

There are many features that I could go into, but after using using Genie Backup Manager 8.0 for a while now, I definitely can and will recommend it to anyone looking for a complete backup solution for their PC.  The ease of use and reliability make this a winner.  Next I will take a tour of the Pro version, and see how that can benefit users who need more than what the Home solution offers.  Genie Backup Manager 8.0 is compatible with Windows XP and Vista, and is available in the Impulse Store for $49.98.