Some of the great people in the #stardock IRC channel suggested that since the 4th of July is approaching, that a feature of Independence Day inspired skins should be made.  What a great idea!

So today I browsed and searched through the galleries on WinCustomize and found a variety of skins that will fit perfect for anyone wanting to create a holiday theme on their desktop.

 

If you have any questions about using these downloads you can take a look at the "Changing your desktop" guides, and the WinCustomize Download Guide for more information about the files that you download.

• Changing your Desktop Theme
• WinCustomize Download Guide

 

July is finally here and a holiday is also approaching.  With a new month comes another edition of "This Month in Dreams" where I highlight some .dreams that were submitted to WinCustomize throughout the month of June.  We had quite a few less than last month, but still some great ones that deserve to be featured. 

Lets get those submissions coming in and make July another great month for Dreams.

If you would like to download the .dreams you seen featured in this video, the download links are below.  You need to have Vista Ultimate, DreamScene, and Stardock DeskScapes (free) to use these animated wallpapers.

USA Flag by GH33DA
Aurorix 1440 by NGTV
The Moon by Gonerelly
Island Oasis by PaulG2
Grimstad Grassfield 1 by dEEPZoNE
RED by KnowTheFuture
Lava Lamp by TheMasterBaron
Liquid Dream by Stardock Design
 

Ok, Friday the iPhone went on sale. Apple stores around the country had lines overnight as eager gadget junkies waiting to get the latest and greatest shiny toy from the fine folks in Cupertino, CA. According to all accounts so far [David Pogue] [Walt Mossberg] [Robert Scoble] the iPhone is a fantastic piece of hardware that shows us exactly why Apple always gets so much hype for a new product. With minor quibbles aside (AT&T's EDGE Network) it appears to be a piece of hardware that really delivers on its promises.

Do I have one? No. Do I want one? Hell yes. Will I get one? In a few years.

Ultimately, Apple kills itself for me on the same point as always: Price. I can't reasonably justify spending $400 - $600 on a phone. Add in accessories, activation, and calling plan and you suddenly have a small limited-function device that costs as much as a fully-featured personal computer.

• It's an iPod!
  Yes, it's an iPod, but a pretty limited one. It has as much space as an iPod Nano, which costs a fraction of the price. (4GB Nano: $150)
  
• It's a phone!
  Mmm-hmm... My phone cost me $50 after service rebates. It places/receives calls. Does text messaging. It can even take photos and video.
  
• It's a revolutionary Internet communication device!
  Ok Steve, you got me there. Outside the world of Palm Treos and Blackberry handhelds, this is new territory. On this point I'll give the iPhone a few serious kudos. Any handheld device that handles Internet and email in any serious way also tends to be pretty expensive. I feel this is where they are able to justify a large portion of their price.

The iPhone isn't really a phone. Sure you can do the whole phone "thing" with one, but that's just a minor point on the overall bullet list of features Apple is touting. The iPhone really represents one of the first serious efforts at a portable communications device that isn't hobbled by poorly conceived notions of how a user should interact with the device.

On top of that, it's also a platform. If the iPhone manages to be a genuine success, which I think it will if the price on hardware drops to something more reasonable, my bet is that we'll see Apple become the early dominant player in the true pocket computer revolution. My hope though is that they don't make the same mistakes with this fledgling market that they did with the personal computer.

But in the end, despite its promise, despite its current capabilities, is this another case of marketing buzz causing people's common sense to shut down and take a holiday? A lot of coverage has been given comparing total cost of ownership for the phone with other similar devices (Blackberry, Treo etc.) and the iPhone is a ridiculously expensive proposition. On top of price, you also have to contend with the fact that this is a first generation Apple device. History shows us that the first gen of any Apple gizmo comes plagued with little problems here or there, and that just waiting one or two generations will result in a much better device with improved features and a reduced price over the original. Compare current iPod prices with prices when the device launched, and then look at how quickly it improved from generation to generation.

On Friday, the folks who bought the iPhone were the classic early-adopters. The folks that will plop down a crazy amount of money for whatever is the latest/greatest. But the question now is that all of the extremely excited folks have their iPhone, how will the demand be from now on? Will all of the marketing and press hype and the glitz and glamour of a brand new Apple product overcome people's common sense? The iPhone really represents a luxury item, delivering functionality that very few people honestly need in their lives. Will the ooh and ahh trump the concern over bank balance? Time will tell on that one.

Me? I'll have one in 1 year 8 months when my current Verizon contract runs out.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for shiny gadgets. At least by then there may be a second generation device out and the price might have dropped.

I hope...

Possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen on my desktop is the new dynamic dream known as "Liquid Dream".  For users of Windows Vista Ultimate who have DeskScapes, Liquid Dream lets users combine their existing wallpaper with a water effect on top of it. Your wallpaper then appears to be under water with dripping effects and a reflection from above (that users can choose). And best of all, it does all this with hardly any impact on system resources thanks to the compositor in Windows Vista.

And it's very customizable by the user as they can pick:

• Time between water drops
• Size of water drops (bigger drops mean larger ripples)
• How reflective/transparent the water surface is
• Choose a sky to see reflected in the water (fluffy white clouds, or a starry night sky)
• Choose the background image that sits below the water. Pick from one of 3 provided images, or supply your own.

To users pick their wallpaper and then can control how the water flows over the wallpaper. The visual impact of it is incredibly cool. Here are some screenshots.

You can get Liquid Dream here.

It is getting towards the last few days of the month, and soon July will be upon us. In case you missed it earlier in the week, I put together a summer theme guide that features some summer-inspired skins, wallpapers, cursors, and more. Be sure to check it out and feel free to add any skins you think should be included.

Browsing through the galleries this past week I saw some really great submissions, so I couldn't wait to start putting this weeks feature together.

Now for the picks!

Knot Vista for CursorXP By J. Aroche Made to match the Knot Vista WB skin by I.R. Brainiac, this cursor has some fantastic animations. Great work.

Aurorix 1440 in Dreams By NGTV This .dream is available in a few different resolutions, so check his gallery for the others. It's hard to describe this .dream, but it's definitely worthy of a download.

Minimalistic Three (m3) for ObjectDock By messiah1 I have really enjoyed the Minimalistic themes from messiash1, so another edition is welcomed. Great job.

Fusion in Wallpapers By Kavel This wallpaper is full of bright colors, and will no doubt add some brightness to your desktop.

NoiX in WindowBlinds By PurrBall PurrBall has updated this skin to make use of Vista shadows now available in WB 5.51. It was always a favorite skin, but this update makes it even better.

Gloss for Xion By BoXXi BoXXi has been pushing out these Xion skins lately, and this is another excellent skin based off a DesktopX theme.

Keep your eyes open for the next edition of "This Month in Dreams" which should be out in a few days. Great work from all the artists this week, and we always look forward to seeing more. See you next week!

Recently I wrote an article about one of the newest features of the forums on WinCustomize.....the Private Message feature.  The feedback was great and I was quite surprised of how many people were not aware we even had this system.  There are many other features on the forums and WinCustomize that I will continue to write about that will hopefully make your experience here with us even more enjoyable than I'm sure it already is. 

Since we recently discussed forum features like the PM system, lets go over another important forum feature that might be overlooked as well.......the Report Post button.  The dev team behind WinCustomize goes to great lengths to make sure spammers are kept out, but unfortunately you can't stop them all, so what do you do if you see a spam post or another post with questionable content such as warez?  Well you simply report the post so one of our moderators will take the appropriate action if needed.

As we see here, Hankers, one of our great volunteer moderators has made a spam post to use as our example.

Now this is obviously a spam post so the appropriate action would be to report this post to the moderators so it can be dealt with.  In the lower right hand corner of the post you should see a "Report" link in which you click and a box appears where you can enter the reason you are reporting the post. 

Once you have entered your comments, hit the "report post" button and a report will be sent to the admins and moderators and the post will be reviewed and action will be taken if necessary. 

 

Since summer is "officially" here I thought it might be a good idea to write a summer theme guide to show some skins that have been made for the summer season, or at least skins that will fit in with this time of year.  Do you change your desktop themes based on the time of year? 

I tend to have more "tropical" and warm themes going throughout a good part of the year being as it's almost always hot here, but I also put some winter themes up when it does drop below 90 degrees about 2 months out of the year.

So here are some picks that I thought would fit well with any type of summer theme for your desktop.
 

It is that time again, and by now you should know what to expect on Fridays.  Yes, it's another edition of "This Week in Skinning".  Not as many submissions as I'd like to see, but some areas like icons and wallpapers have had some great activity.

I always appreciate input from the community on skins you would like to see featured.  If you would like to suggest a skin for these weekly features, then please feel free to PM me or e-mail me with your suggestions. 

Now for the picks!

 

Drop Info for DesktopX By RomanDA Master RomanDA has brought us another DX creation, which is a widget that when clicked will give you 4 areas of detailed information about your PC.  Great work.

 

CS3 Icons set in Icons By Kavel Another set of Creative Suite 3 icons.  Great job, and hope to see more of this type of design.

 

Minimalistic Two (m2) for ObjectDock By messiah1 Messiah1 has created another set of minimal backgrounds for ObjectDock including tabbed docks, zoomers, and tiles.  Very nice.

 

Broken Toes in Wallpapers By AngelicJean A fantastic, dark wallpaper of what looks to me as an alien planet.  Great job and check his gallery for more works.

 

Painted blue in Wallpapers By Brickhead A beautiful wallpaper render.  I would like to see more resolutions, but otherwise well done.

 

FreshAttitude for WindowBlinds By othersnow A clean and bright skin for WindowBlinds, that seems perfect for the summer.  I look forward to seeing more skins from othersnow.

 

If you are working on a new skin, icons, cursors, etc. be sure to give a preview at the work in progress thread here on WinCustomize.  Don't forget to subscribe to our new YouTube channel (it's new, so if you subscribed before please subscribe to this new channel) where you can join our group and upload your desktop videos there.  See you next week!

 

 

The DesktopX 3.5 beta was released to subscribers of Object Desktop, and with this update comes the ability to export gadgets to the Sidebar in Windows Vista.  Along with the announcement there was a quick tour on how easy it is to create a shortcut gadget for use in the Windows Sidebar. 

Creating Sidebar Gadgets is something I have been wanting to do, but have not had much success at it previously.  Being able to create and export Sidebar gadgets is something I have been waiting for and couldn't wait to try out.  For my first project I wanted to make a simple gadget that when clicked, it would take me to the WinCustomize home page. 

Using only the DesktopX 3.5 beta, and an image file, I was able to create this gadget from start to finish in less than 3 minutes, and with just a few clicks.  Now this is just a simple gadget, but the ease of creating this was great, and the power behind DesktopX will allow some fantastic gadgets to be created.

I made a video demo to show you how quick and easy it was to create this gadget.