When I first learned of DreamScene and Stardock DeskScapes I was pretty excited, but I also had some reservations about it.  The idea has always been around for a while, but nothing ever practical came out of it until now.  At first thought an animated wallpaper sounds cool, but will it hold up under daily use, or interfere with my productivity?

Those were just a few of the questions I originally had, and after being able to work with DeskScapes for a while, I have to say I was quite impressed.  My first original concern is that an animated wallpaper would be too distracting, but after working with it for a few days straight, the answer was a definite no for me.  While a few of the Dreams I tried could be considered very "busy", I tried to stay with animated wallpapers that were more subtle in nature.

The first one I used was Nebula by Stardock Design.  This is a very subtle animated wallpaper with a beautiful space scene complimented by "twinkling" stars.  This image is great as a static wallpaper, but the simple animation really brings it to life.

Next up I tried Wasserfall by peter22.  This is a very relaxing scene of a waterfall with the water animated.  This is a little more busy than something like Nebula, but it fits right into the desktop and has been one of my favorites.

Next was Blissful Sunset by Stardock Design.  Grass swaying in the wind as the sun sets in the background, very nicely done.  This is another "relaxing" Dream that you really need to see for yourself.  This was very easy on the eyes without any distraction, so this was my favorite so far.

After working with DeskScapes over the past week I am pleased to give it a big thumbs up.   I had used Dreams here and there for a while, but never worked with them on a full-time basis.  My real first impressions were very positive, the animated wallpapers looked good, and they work quite well on my system.  Now I'm waiting for the next step which will be dynamic content and triggers in DeskScapes.  I think those alone will take animated desktops to a whole new level.

• Dream.WinCustomize.Com

The question was asked on another blog about why anyone would insist on 64 bit computing at this time when the technology is so new and computers are problematic. The same question, honestly, could be asked about Windows Vista, as a replacement for XP, which is a capable operating system, despite what I may usually think about it.

Now the question may be valid for the average end user, but for IT pros, it's a no brainer. The simple truth is, while you may make purchasing suggestions, usually it is someone else who ultimately makes the decisions, and if you're not on top of the game, you'll find yourself pretty quickly obsolete. There are a lot of business owners who haven't forgotten the insane 90's when a computer was obsolete as soon as it popped out of the box. They don't want to repeat that debacle with their networks today, and as soon as a contemporary mentions the hottest buzzword, they are asking questions, questions an IT pro needs to be able to answer.

As a support technician, my workplace has not upgraded to Vista. If I didn't have a working computer elsewhere (school) loaded with Vista, I'd be drawing a blank when users call in with Vista related questions. End users don't HAVE a choice in operating systems, or at least not one they are aware of, when they purchase their computers. They basically get whatever the manufacturer loads, and you can't find manufacturers loading their machines with XP. Getting a new machine loaded with LINUX is actually easier than getting a new one loaded with XP.

Because I've used both operating systems, I can make an informed decision. The same can be said of 64 bit computing. If you haven't worked with it, it's hard to give the kind of decision that a manager n eeds; the kind of decision that will give them confidence in decisions that you make in the future.

By the end of the year, I should have a home network with at least 5 computers (and hopefully a server...we're in negotiations...lol!) I hope to run a variety of platforms, and a variety of different hardware configurations, from my "dinosaur" PIII Linux machine on up to my TRS-80 case mod (it's gonna be HOTT! Man!). As I peruse IT employment sites, I see a lot of demand for cross platform experience. And I intend to meet that demand (but Mac still sucks! LOL!)

This topic is touched on in this article. But it's an inevitable question -- why did Stardock develop the .dream format?

A little history here -- Microsoft has created a cool new feature in Windows Vista Ultimate called Windows DreamScene.  Concurrently, Stardock was developing its own animated wallpaper program called DeskScapes.  Early in development, it was decided it made a lot more sense to team up.

Windows DreamScene allows users of Windows Vista Ultimate to play video as animated wallpapers. The concept is very straight forward -- .MPEG or .WMV as animated wallpaper.

Stardock's view was that we wanted to take it one step further and address potential problems that might come up.

Giving artists credit...

For instance, look at your wallpaper choosing dialog in Windows Vista (or even XP). There's no credit or author info on who made the wallpaper.  Maybe that wasn't an issue back in the day of making bitmaps for wallpapers that didn't require effort.  But believe us, creating a decent animated wallpaper can take weeks. We strongly believe that artists would want to get credit for what they've done.

Finding the stuff...

Trying to find an animated wallpaper on the Internet? Good luck. Look for .WMV or .MPEG? Or maybe type in "animated wallpaper" and find all sorts of weird stuff.  People who make this stuff are going to want to find it.  That's one of the reasons we wanted to create a specific extension for animated wallpapers so that people would be able to know that THIS was created to be an animated desktop and isn't just some random video.

Extending the capability...

This has been discussed elsewhere but playing video as the wallpaper is just the beginning. The natural next step is dynamic content.  DeskScapes provides that capability.  Same for triggers (events that change what is being played as the wallpaper). In the coming weeks, we'll begin posting the documentation and examples on creating this sort of thing along with samples.

Providing a community site...

Another thing that is important that I don't know if most people realize is that for this sort of thing to take off, you need stable, reliable, trustworthy sites to host and provide a base for this kind of thing.  100,000 people downloading a 50 megabyte file is simply beyond the capability of most sites.  And while torrents and such might solve some of that, you're still stuck with having to hunt and peck for things rather than see what you're getting and talk to the people who made them directly.

So that's why we created the .dream format.  It does create some confusion initially that it's not part of Windows DreamScene. That may change in the future as the format matures, but obviously initially the extra step of downloading DeskScapes can be a hassle for some but on the other hand, because we're not Microsoft, we have a lot more latitude on what we can do in the short-term.

As for us at Stardock, we're just jazzed that animated wallpapers are finally a practical reality (they've been around in impractical forms for years -- even on OS/2 <g>).

The Omega Premium Suite, done by Treetog for Stardock Design was recently launched and has been getting great reviews from the community.  For those of you who might have missed the launch or just wanted to see a bit more I am going to take you on a walkthrough of the Omega suite.

The Omega suite contains the following items:

• WindowBlinds Visual Style
• Icon Package
• Wallpaper

When you download the suite you will also get a pack of extras in a .zip file.  These include:

• CursorXP Cursor Pack
• LogonStudio Skin
• BootSkin
• Weather, Calendar & Clock Gadgets

One thing that is important to me, and I know is important to users also, is if the skin is usable on a day-to-day basis.  I have been using Omega for a few days now, and apart from being a beautiful skin, it's also very usable.

When purchased you will receive a link to download the suite.  Just unzip the contents and double-click the omega .suite file to apply it. When you use Theme Manger to apply the Omega suite note that you can specify what size wallpaper to use, if any, and you can choose specific components to use if available for that suite.

Once you are happy with the settings then just hit "Yes" and Theme Manager will download and apply the suite.  Now that the technical stuff is out of the way, let's take a look a closer look at the Omega suite with some screenshots and video.

The Omega Premium Suite is available now, and don't forget that subscribers to Object Desktop get a discount!  To use the Omega suite you are required to have  Object Desktop or IconPackager, WindowBlinds, and ThemeManager to be installed.

• Omega Premium Suite

With the release of Stardock DeskScapes I wanted to give a brief tour on how to get it installed and running on your system.  DeskScapes previously required Windows DreamScene and Vista Ultimate only to use, but DeskScapes 2.0 will allow any Vista version (that supports Aero) to run animated wallpapers.  Subscribers to Object Desktop now have early access tot he DeskScapes 2.0 beta.

If you are a Object Desktop subscriber, you can download DeskScapes through Stardock Central, along with some exclusive .dreams.  If not, and if you are a Vista Ultimate user, head over to Dream.WinCustomize.Com and download the DeskScapes application (free).  Oh wait, you might want some extra Dreams so check out the Dream gallery and pick up a few more while you are at it.  Now we should be all set.

1. Right-click desktop and select "Personalize".

2. Select "Desktop Background"

3. Click the picture location drop-down and select "DeskScapes Animated Wallpaper"
   
   

Now you should see a list of Dreams that are available.  When you click each file the animated wallpaper should appear on your desktop, once you have selected the one you want to use just click OK.  If you have downloaded other .dreams or would like to use your own video or .dream creation, then simply drag the file into the window.

If you need to pause the wallpaper then just right-click the desktop and select "pause", and then click "play" when ready to resume playing.

Dream Maker will let you easily create your own animated wallpapers in the .dream format in which you will be able to share with other people. Be sure to check out the guided tour of DeskScapes, and visit Dream.Wincustomize.Com for more information and downloads.

• A Guided Tour of Stardock DeskScapes 

• Dream.Wincustomize.Com

Microsoft released Windows Vista with a whole new graphics engine that is 3D accelerated.  Because of that, all kinds of cool visual effects become possible. One obvious thing that became possible for Microsoft to do was to allow users to optionally have animated wallpaper.

Now, like normal (1 frame) wallpaper, animated wallpaper could be pretty obnoxious. But if done right, it would simply take static wallpaper to the next logical step.

So Microsoft developed a new feature for Windows Vista Ultimate Extra called Windows DreamScene.  When it came time to get tools and content, they came to Stardock.  Stardock's graphics design team (Stardock Design) for the animated wallpaper and our desktop enhancement team for the tools.

This is where Stardock DeskScapes comes in.  We developed Stardock DeskScapes to extend Windows DreamScene in certain very important areas:

Feature	Windows DreamScene	Stardock DeskScapes
Plays .MPEG and .WMV content as wallpaper
Plays .DREAM content as wallpaper
Supports Triggers for changing animated wallpaper
Supports Dynamic (non-video) content
Supports author credit in dialog
Is Extensible
Requires	Windows Vista Ultimate	Windows DreamScene
Price	FREE (with Windows Vista Ultimate)	FREE (for users of Windows Vista Ultimate)

To be clear: Stardock DeskScapes extends Windows DreamScene. It isn't a replacement for it. You have to have Windows DreamScene installed first to use Stardock DeskScapes. 

Taking Windows DreamScene one step further -- Stardock DeskScapes

As we developed the animated wallpapers for Microsoft we became very experienced in how to make it so that it was subtle and use less CPU (there video encoding and then there is video encoding).  We also came up with our own wish list of things we felt users would want. For example:

DeskScapes Enhancement #1: Authors getting credit

DeskScapes allows author information to be displayed and that info can be linked to your website.

The first thing about DeskScapes -- there is no program to run. Once it's installed, your regular Windows wallpaper manager in Vista is simply extended to support .DREAM files. You don't have to do anything else.

When you click on a .Dream file, the title and author information comes up.

By contrast, Windows DreamScene on its own, as cool as it is, doesn't display author info. So no one knows who created the cool animated Aurora default in Windows DreamScene (Stardock Design created it incidentally)

DeskScapes Enhancement #2: Dynamic Wallpaper

This image is being rotated on the fly in 3D in total smoothness

World rotates in real-time (which is very slowly actually)

Modern video games generally don't use pre-rendered video anymore. That's because modern video cards have the horse power to do amazing things.  Most reviewers haven't talked much about this but the Windows Vista desktop IS A 3D SURFACE. It simply looks like previous versions of Windows. It's as if they took the Quake 3 engine and made the game look like Windows.  Seriously. 

That means you can do some pretty cool stuff with it...such as dynamic animated wallpapers.

My screenshot here is pretty lame but we've got earth rotating, snow/rain (based on weather -- there's probably a sunny one but we're in Michigan) ones, fish swimming, lava lamps, etc.  All are in various states of development. Obviously, it does take more work to make a good looking dynamic wallpaper but the results can be really cool. As they get finished, we'll be releasing them.

DeskScapes Enhancement #3: Triggers

Based on time of day your wallpaper can change.

Triggers are another way of saying that if a certain condition is met, then do something. Stardock DeskScapes lets .DREAM files have triggers. For instance, IF time is morning, then play wallpaper A, IF Time is afternoon, play wallpaper B and so forth. It's not that huge of a thing but something that wasn't hard to do that we think enriches the experience.

Summary

Probably the key thing that Stardock DeskScapes does is extend Windows DreamScene to support the .DREAM format. You don't need DeskScapes to play video (MPEG or WMV) content as your animated wallpaper. But consider this -- which will be easier to find in a year from now to use as your animated wallpaper? Googling .DREAM or Googling WMV?

If it's .DREAM you get all the advantages I mention above plus you know it's designed to be an animated wallpaper. And it costs nothing to create them (use DreamMaker) and nothing for Windows Vista Ultimate users to use them.

We'll be providing additional free content on Dream.WinCustomize.com over the coming weeks, months. Essentially, we created a host of high quality, high definition video content for the Microsoft project and Microsoft chose some to distribute and we kept the rest to distribute.

We hope you have fun with this and that as time goes on, more and more people will come to find that animated wallpapers are pretty nice.  While the concept of them isn't new (lots of people/developers have hacked at it for years), the key thing about Windows DreamScene / Stardock DeskScapes is that you get to have your cake and eat it too. When perfected, you'll have it without any performance or usability drawbacks. It'll be like the static wallpapers of the present except with more frames.

So the steps are...

1. Get Windows Vista Ultimate
2. Download Windows DreamScene
3. Download/Install Stardock DeskScapes
4. Start enjoying .DREAMs!

Have fun!

Enough about Valentines Day, lets see some of the best skins submitted over the past week!

AquaMorph for CursorXP
by J .Aroche

I have featured a couple of J. Aroches cursors before, and he continues to put out some awesome work.  Make sure you check his gallery for many other cursors in a variety of styles.

Download

Welcome to Hogwarts Clock 3.2 in DesktopX Widgets
by HeirOfSlytherin

One thing I have always liked about Heir's Windowblinds skins and related works is the "wood" look.  He does a great job and the matching colors always create a great look.  Nice work!

Download

Black Glass CPU Meter for Sidebar Gadgets
by ShadowlineDesigns

The Sidebar Gadget gallery is slowly growing, but I think we are going to see some great gadgets come out of that gallery.  This is a perfect replacement for the CPU meter in Vista.

Download

Hunter in Wallpapers
by Pixel Z

This is a really beautiful wallpaper made in Photoshop.  The colors and design really caught my eye.  Fantastic job!

Download

Vision Zero Core Release 3 for Windowblinds
by continuum2

This Windowblinds skin features 32 substyles and every single one is very cool.  Not much else to say, just download it and check it out.

Download

Thanks for the submissions and I look forward to seeing more works from all the artists featured here today.  As always check the artists galleries for more great works.

With WinCustomize 2007 launching recently I wanted to highlight a feature that some people may have overlooked.......Personal Sites.  I wanted to take a more in depth look at them, and show you how to create and use your personal pages here on WinCustomize.  They are now available to registered users (Citizen and up), and you will get your own personal page with a photo album, guest book, and a sub-domain such as http://islanddog.wincustomize.com, and more!

The first thing you have to do is register with WinCustomize.  Go here and click "create new account", and that will start you on your way.  Once you register and verify your account you will now be able to log in to WinCustomize using the username and password you created.

Once logged in you will see a graphic that says "create your site now", click that to begin.

Now fill in your sites title and description, choose your country, read the TOS, and click "create site". 

From here you can add links to your site, adjust your descriptions, and use the tabs at the top to navigate to other areas of your settings page.  In Personal Information you can add information such as martial status, your motto, favorite music, favorite authors, etc.  Under Update Images  you can upload a screenshot of your desktop, your avatar, and picture of yourself if you wish. 

After you finish customizing your site to your liking then you can access it now by using your sub-domain on WinCustomize.  For instance, mine is http://islanddog.wincustomize.com.  If you go there you will see what a personal site on WinCustomize can look like.  You will notice that you can browse my personal gallery, look through my photo gallery, and even sign my guestbook. 

Your personal site is great for showing off and directing people to your work that is here on WinCustomize.  As you can see in my site, people can browse through works that I have submitted to WinCustomize throughout the years, and there is even an option to submit your work only to your personal page.

If you write articles you will also be able to view them from your personal page.  You also have access to a watch-list and favorites section, where you can keep updated of activities of other people on WinCustomize.

Members often ask how they can get people to know about their personal sites, and it's very easy actually.  Promote your sub-domain url!  If you frequent other forums/message boards then include a link to your page in the signature.  Do you use an e-mail client like Outlook?  Well include your url in the signature there as well.   I even know someone who puts it on their business card. 

If you are a registered member then take the time to check out the personal sites, it's a great benefit to our members and I encourage everyone to use it.  Remember that by becoming a subscriber you will remove the ads and help support the site.

• WinCustomize subscription