Certain holidays throughout the year seem to get more attention by skinners than others, but I was surprised when I saw there were quite a few Valentines Day themed works in the galleries at Wincustomize.  Since there are a wide variety of Valentines skins I thought I would put together a theme guide similar to the one I did at Christmas time.

I received several recommendations from the community and I always appreciate your help when I am writing these guides.

These are just some that I found throughout the galleries.  If you know of any I missed that you feel should be included, please post them in the comment area. 

Windows Vista is here and we've been doing so many articles that it's tough to narrow it down to just a handful to recommend to users looking to find out more about Windows Vista.

But we're going to try...

• Vista Purchase Caveats

• Windows Vista: Parental Controls

• Stardock's Windows Vista Road-Map

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 1

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 2: UI Changes & Additions

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 3: Controls, Apps & Games

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 4: Tools for the Power User

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 5: Wrap-Up

Windows Vista has finally arrived! Many people have been asking us what are Stardock's plans? What can we do to take an excellent new OS like Windows Vista and make it better?

There have been a lot of articles on how users of Windows XP can get a lot of the visual benefits of Windows Vista using Stardock Object Desktop. And while that may be true, Windows Vista provides us a whole new canvas of cool things we can do.

For Starters: LogonStudio Vista

If you have Object Desktop already and Windows Vista, you can now change the way your Windows Vista logon looks with LogonStudio Vista.

We've developed a new format (.logonvista). While existing .logonxp files won't work on Windows Vista due to the significant change in the way logons are displayed, I have a feeling there will be no shortage of logons being made for Windows Vista.

LogonStudio Vista will be available for free when it's finished. If you want it now, you'll need to get Object Desktop.

Availability: NOW for Object Desktop users.

Your GUI your way: WindowBlinds 5.5

Windows Vista's new look -- Aero, looks awesome. I like it a lot. But I also like to personalize my UI to look how I want it to look. Luckily you can -- with WindowBlinds 5.5.

With thousands of different visual styles to skin the look and feel of Windows Vista, along with the ability to change color, saturation, and all kinds of other elements, Windows Vista users will be able to make Windows Vista look however they want it to look.

And for power users -- WindowBlinds cuts battery consumption over Windows Vista Aero significantly. On our internal tests, running Vista with a WindowBlinds skin gave back over 40 minutes of battery life on a Dell laptop. You can test for yourself, it's pretty consistent. And if that's not enough, WindowBlinds is faster too thanks to DWM caching.

Availability: NOW for Object Desktop users (in beta). Public release, February 5th.

Animated Wallpaper on-the-fly: DeskScapes

If you have Windows Vista Ultimate, you will be able to get Microsoft's new animated wallpaper extra called Windows DreamScene. It lets you play video as animated wallpaper.  If you like the computer generated animated wallpaper that comes with it, then good, we made it, including the one shown at launch and the default official one (animated Aurora).

Object Desktop users will be able to get exclusive animated wallpapers not available anywhere else. And they'll be getting our new program that lets Windows Vista Ultimate users have dynamic animated wallpaper. Dynamic animated wallpaper is generated on the fly and it's all done on the video card so even on a mid-powerful computing rig, you'll see virtually no CPU use and incredibly cool stuff.

Moreover, it supports a new format we've designed called .dream.  Amongst the various features it supports, one really straight forward one we think artists will enjoy -- credit. Look at the screenshot on the right and you'll see that we've extended the wallpaper dialog to support author info (which can be a link to a website).  Creating a good animated wallpaper is non-trivial and we figured artists would want to make sure their hard work gets credit and send them traffic.

Availability: As soon as Microsoft releases Windows DreamScene for Object Desktop users.

Gadgets: The Next Generation = DesktopX

Windows Vista includes the Sidebar. That's good.  Making sidebar gadgets is not particularly easy. That's bad.  But sidebar gadgets provide a standard format. That's good. But the native functionality of the Sidebar gadget APIs is painfully low. That's bad.

Enter: DesktopX 3.5. Nearly ready for beta, DesktopX allows users to export their creations as Windows Sidebar gadgets!  This is significant because of the massive functionality and API support built natively into DesktopX.  From a technological point of view, it's a superset of every widget/gadget implementation out there. With 8 years of development behind DesktopX and thousands of widgets, objects, and gadgets out there,  it provides a huge boost to Windows Sidebar gadgets and a great way for users to be introduced to the power of DesktopX.

Because DesktopX doesn't just make gadgets, you can build desktops (we even make an enterprise version of DesktopX for corporations wanting to create secure branded desktop environments).

Stardock also has developed a technology that allows users to create gadgets in .NET (including WPF gadgets). We'll be talking more about that soon.

Availability: Late February Beta for Object Desktop users

Changing Icons for Windows Vista: IconPackager 2.5

Changing the icons for Windows Vista is not quite as easy as previous OSes. For one thing, the folders are done differently -- they have "live previews".  But no worry, we've got that nailed down now and you can now even change the live folder preview icons and still get live previews! 

Availability: Early February in beta on Object Desktop.

Your own boot screen: BootSkin Vista

Stardock BootSkin allows users of Windows XP to change their boot screens. So what about Windows Vista users?  On Windows Vista, the default is not boot screen at all!  With BootSkin Vista, you'll be able to have your own high-resolution, high color boot screen of your choice.

Like BootSkin for Windows XP, when completed it'll be released as freeware.  But the initial beta will be on Object Desktop only.

Availability: Mid March for beta on Object Desktop.

Tweak Vista with...TweakVista!

We've partnered up with TweakVista.com to bring you a new program called TweakVista.  Designed both for power users and their friends and family, TweakVista lets users get into the guts of Windows Vista but also allows casual users to maintain their systems.

Many people reading this are probably the family "computer guy".  If you are, you'll definitely want TweakVista to hand out to people because it helps take care of the most common problems people run into with a Windows PC. But it also lets you dig into the guts of Vista to change undocumented settings and get more data on your system than..well probably more data than you really need to know.

Availability: Mid March beta.

A Dock for Vista: ObjectDock

If you have ObjectDock 1.5, you have the version that already runs on Windows Vista. But the good news is that we are busy at work on the next version of ObjectDock which is due out later this year. If you don't have ObjectDock (particularly ObjectDock Plus) grab it! You can get ObjectDock right now at www.objectdock.com.

Availability: Summer

Better Cursors for Vista: CursorVista

CursorXP is the defacto alternative to the Windows XP mouse cursors. On Windows Vista, CursorVista is being designed to make it even more powerful. Thanks to the new DWM (the composited, 3D surface that is the Windows Vista desktop), all kinds of fun should be possible.  We are getting fairly close to having a beta of this available.  If you have Windows XP, you can get CursorXP at www.cursorxp.com

Availability: Early Spring

And now a peek at Stardock's lab!

Working on stuff that's about to get released is very exciting. But the stuff that's just getting cooked up in the labs is just as exciting. When Windows Vista's RTM build was sent to us, we were able to start digging in and seeing what's possible. As video driver quality gets better and we get a handle on what parts of Windows are more easily extended than others, cool stuff results.

My #1 reason I like Windows Vista in terms of customization is that it's free from a CPU point of view.  Now that the desktop is a 3D surface, we can do all kinds of cool stuff without affecting system performance.

For instance, Microsoft's Windows DreamScene plays video as your wallpaper. Now, I've seen people say "You could do animated wallpaper on Windows with <insert hack here>." Please. What is possible and what is practical are two different things.  The only CPU used by DreamScene is in the decoding of video which is not a major deal now adays.  Other effects are completely done on the video card.

On Windows XP, we had to develop a DirectX interface ourselves to get universally good performance with this stuff (which people noticed in WindowBlinds 5).  But on Vista, everything's already on the video card, it's great!

Rise of the Super-Gadgets: Code-Name DesktopVista

With Microsoft providing a standard gadget format, Stardock can then concentrate its resources into what it does best -- making really cool technology.  Not a competitor to DesktopX, DesktopVista is designed to enable the creation skinnable gadgets.  That is, a system in which a standard gadget skin format can be created and used to skin gadgets.  Right now, it's just a technology. 

A New Style for Windows Vista: Code-Name StyleVista

Windows Vista is pretty polished. But it could be polished further. Enter StyleVista. This new program will let users alter the little touches that Microsoft has in Windows Vista that don't quite fit into skinning but also are just beyond what is included. Want a different blur effect? Want to change that Start button? StyleVista is for you.  We're still inventorying what we can and can't do with the DWM now that finalized video drivers are coming out so we'll have more news on this soon.

Build your own 3D desktop: Time for 3D modelers to get their day

For years, a significant percentage of artists were locked out of customization. 3D modelers might be able to make pretty rendered icons but beyond that, things were limited.  But now, thanks to a combination of Windows Presentation Foundation  (WPF) and Media Center Markup Language (MCML) we are exploring letting users take their 3D creations from Maya, 3D Studio (and if possible XAML) and turn them into working, fucntional 3D desktops. Not 3D in the sense that you move around the screen but rather where the objects you interact with are 3D.

What we can and can't do will heavily depend on the capabilities of WPF/MCML and the DWM which we're still exploring (as well as video drivers).  We hope to have something to show late summer.

Other Cool Stuff(TM)

People on Linux have been showing off XGL for awhile.  Anyone with Windows XP should try out WindowFX and know we've been doing window scaling, 3D dragging of windows, and all kinds of effects since Windows XP launched and we didn't have the benefit of a 3D accelerated desktop.  Now we do.  That's all I'm going to say on that.

It's going to be an exciting year! Stay tuned!

Windows Vista is almost here, and there are some features that I am happy to see included.  Along with all the cool stuff like Ultimate Extras, and Aero, is something that is a little more important to me.  This is something included in Vista that I think isn't talked about enough, and that's the Parental Controls feature.

Anyone with children will tell you monitoring their child's internet activity is vital, and I can't agree enough.  My kids are at the age where they need to access the internet to do research for homework, projects, etc., and I have tried many types of software to monitor or limit their activity.  I haven't found one that I am extremely pleased with, so I welcomed an integrated parental control tool inside Vista.

With that being said, I wanted to take a small tour through the Parental Control tool, and give you my impressions as a parent.  In my case I will assign a user account that the kids use, and my administrator account is protected by password. 

Configuration

Configuring the parental controls is done through the Control Panel, under "User Accounts and Family Safety".  From there you can select which user accounts to apply the parental control settings to.

 I turned the parental controls on, and made sure activity reporting was turned on as well.  I will go into the activity reporting a little later.  From the User Control window I can also configure the web filter, time limits, games, and allow/block specific programs. 

Starting with the web restrictions, I will set it to medium, and block file downloads.  You are given the option to add custom restrictions based on the type of content you wish to block, but I want to see how effective the default settings are.

Web restrictions is the one I have been waiting for, and now it's time to see how effective it is.  I fired up IE7 and went to Google, and typed in various search terms with a range from sexual in nature to violent, and it blocked just about every "creative" term I could think of.  I had also compiled a list of........lets say "questionable" websites to test, and the parental controls blocked every one.  I also wanted to make note these restrictions worked on both IE7 and Firefox.

My next task was to see if I could easily get around the controls.  My first search was for "bikini" which was immediately blocked, but using the words "bikini islands" allowed the search.  The sites which were about the Bikini Islands I was able to view with no problems, and sites which featured images of "bikinis" were blocked.  It also blocked a few sites which used pictures of the islands, but did not interfere much with my research.

For the next hour or two, I proceeded to visit many sites of questionable content, various searches using a variety of terms, and just general web browsing to get a wide scope of how the parental controls in Vista would handle normal and not so normal use.

Overall, I can give the parental controls in Vista a big thumbs up.  Is it perfect....no, but it does offer good protection out of the box, and I think it will be a solution that will satisfy many parents.  Take notice that the parental controls will not keep your child completely safe online, and nobody should rely on software alone for their child's online safety. 

I was invited a few weeks ago to attend a Microsoft Vista/Office 2007 launch event in Orlando which was being held today.  So I decided to get up early and brave the cold and rain to see what Microsoft had to offer.  It was being held at the beautiful Rosen Plaza hotel in Orlando.  Unfortunately, there was more than 2000 people at this event and parking was almost impossible, but I eventually made it in.

Microsoft had a very nice registration area setup with beverages and a light breakfast for participants.  There were several representatives there to direct people, and they were all very friendly.  I handed them my ticket and they gave me a string backpack full of goodies.  By goodies I mean a pen and a t-shirt.

The presenter had just started a few minutes earlier, and he was showing some of the basic functions and some of the new features of Vista.  He started off showing us the Documents folder and how in Vista you are able to "look in side the documents" and how the use of metadata makes finding and browsing your documents easier.  He went on to show off other things like Windows Flip, Flip3D, and desktop search.

For some reason he spent just an hour or so on Vista, and the rest of the time telling us how great Office 2007 was.  We saw a visual timeline of the progress of Microsoft Office, a few spreadsheet jokes, and a few minutes reminiscing about "Clippy".  I will admit I learned a few new things about Office 2007 that I didn't pay much attention to before like previewing e-mail attachments inside the mail message. 

During the breaks many people started "mingling" and I got a chance to talk to many people, most of which were from small or mid-sized companies.  The big topic of discussion was obviously Windows Vista and many of the people I spoke to planned to upgrade to Vista.  The interest in Office 2007 was quite high also, which I didn't personally expect.

Overall it was a good event, and I even learned a thing or two, maybe even three, and met some really nice people.  Microsoft put on a great presentation, and it was well worth the drive.  The Microsoft Launch events are still going on for several weeks, so if you have the opportunity to attend, go for it.  You can get locations and dates from the Microsoft events website below.

Conclusion & General Thoughts

This article series was not a "Is Vista Worth It?" sort of sales pitch.  When I started writing this article series, I intended to just write a "Day with Vista" sort of thing, a stream-of-consciousness narration of what it's like to use Vista over the course of one work day.  Nothing really pro or con, just the thoughts on average use.  It quickly morphed into a more detailed examination of what is in Vista and what it might mean for power users looking to get the most out of their purchase.   So it turned into a walkthrough of the OS for those who haven't used it yet, a glance at some of the bits and pieces of Windows Vista they might not have heard about.

As I stated at the beginning, this wasn't an in-depth look at Vista, but more of a skimming of the top layers, looking at some of the more obvious improvements.  Others have spoken at length about the technical underpinnings and very specific features.  Considering how long just this high-level article series ended up running, if I had dug deeper and broken out into more detail, you would have been reading the beginnings of a book rather than just a collection of tech articles.

So after a week solid writing (and a few weeks editing), digging around Vista, learning about the various nooks and crannies hidden away, how do I personally feel about Vista?  It's a step in the right direction.  The operating system is finally reaching a level of detail and sophistication that seems to match up with general level of technology we're seeing rapidly develop around us.  In Windows 98, 2000 and even XP, Windows was just a shell within which the user placed interesting items.  Now, with Vista, many of those interesting bits are built into the OS.  The diagnostic tools alone are miles above and beyond what we've seen in previous versions of Windows, or even Mac OS X.  The addition of Live components gives me the sense that not only will my OS be a framework for other applications to connect into, but that it will also become a channel of its own for services and content distribution.  For the first time it's starting to feel like Windows is an actual platform. 

All of that said, if you're an XP user, you have little to gain immediately from upgrading to Vista.  The new features are great and everything, but there's nothing that screams "must have" just yet.  Add to that the generally buggy and incomplete state of device drivers at the moment and spotty application compatibility as developers race to certify their software on Vista, there just isn't much advantage (and honestly, a few disadvantages currently) for most users.  And, with the rearranged interface and resorting of where tools are placed, troubleshooting those bugs could be extremely frustrating. 

If you're a gamer, stay away from Vista until NVIDIA and AMD/ATI get their drivers sorted out.  If a game even runs under Vista, chances are you'll see decreased performance compared to the same system running the same game under XP.  At the moment, NVIDIA's drivers are in particularly poor shape.  Driver support on video cards and the fact that no games are using DirectX 10 yet make Vista a poor choice at the moment for gamers.

Pros:

• Stability.  My experience with the RTM build is that it's just as stable as XP is.  This is a nice contrast to using Windows several years ago where a restart at least once a week was required.  I rarely restart my PC anymore and see crashes even less frequently
• Search Bar in the Start Menu.  Despite my gripes about the overly complicated new Start Menu, the search bar acting as a hybrid search/run command has grown on me significantly.  It's one of those things that seems dumb at first, but quickly becomes essential to your day-to-day use
• Improved Diagnostic Tools.  I can now see why my hard disk is thrashing, and the event logs give me something that's actually useful.  There's a lot of power hidden underneath the hood here.
• Integration of Live services.  This mostly depends on how Microsoft handles this new distribution channel, but I think if they do what they did with XBox Live, they'll have a huge success on their hands that provides a good service to customers.

 Cons:

• New Start Menu.  Outside the new search bar functionality, I don't like the Start Menu redesign at all.  I especially don't like the confusing way they handled shutdown/restart options.  I anticipate many frantic phone calls from my parents in the future asking me how they turn their PC off.  I'm also not too keen on the new way you navigate the programs list in the start menu.  I liked the ever-expanding tree of menus to the right.  Sure it looked ugly, but it was very functional.
• New Disk Defragmenter.  This is just utter crap.  It took a useful tool and dumbed it down to the point where it gives me nothing useful.  I used to be able to use the defrag tool to give me an idea of where potential performance problems were coming from.  Not anymore.  Now I just have to press a button and let magic happen in the background, hoping that it fixes what's wrong.
• UAC.  I turned it off shortly into writing this series.  I'm sorry, but I don't want to have to answer a dozen confirmation messages to do simple system tasks.  UAC could have been useful.  It could have worked like the MacOS method where you authenticate once as the administrative user on the first system-critical task you were trying to perform, and for a certain amount of time, you remain authenticated and aren't prompted again.  The way UAC is right now, less confident users will be too terrified to delete even a shortcut from their desktop after all the WARNINGS OF DOOM the OS tosses at them.
• Driver Support.  It's still in poor shape, especially for gamers.  This is partially the fault of both Microsoft and hardware vendors.  Microsoft failed to provide a stable OS to code against until very late in the game, and evidently hardware manufacturers waited until the very last second even then to start putting serious effort into development. 

Final Verdict:

Overall, it's a solid entry into the Windows family, it fixes issues seen in previous versions, it's stable, and offers a lot of promise.  It's just that at this moment, much of that promise is yet to be fulfilled.  Unless you're getting a copy with a new PC early this year, I'd wait to consider Vista for as a primary OS until at least the middle of 2007, by then drivers, applications and such should be sorted out. 

On issues of price and value, I can't really say.  I personally wouldn't shell out $400 for a copy of Ultimate no matter how fantastic the OS turned out being.  So until I purchase a new computer at the end of the year, I won't be running Vista at home.  Not necessarily because of technical issues, but because I can't afford it.  Personally, because I do find myself working from home, and I do use my PC as a multimedia hub, I need the functionality of both Business and Home Premium (i.e. Ultimate).

Pick up Vista when you buy a new machine starting around 3rd Quarter 2007.

There's a bunch of different versions of Windows Vista out there. But there's only 3 versions that most people will care about:

• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Ultimate

Home Premium includes Media Center which is very cool.  Having been a Snapstream (BeyondTV) user and Tivo user, I have not been a fan of Media Center to say the least. But the Vista edition of it has won me over. It's just totally incredible. Windows Vista Business adds domain logons and better Remote Desktop Features. 

So for power users, there's a problem -- I want/need to be able to remote desktop into my machine and I use my machine on a network of computers and the business edition has all kinds of goodies for working with networked PCs.  On the other hand, I also want Media Center.

Microsoft predicted this and the result was Windows Vista Ultimate which combines them both.  And just to sweeten the pot, Microsoft has also includes "Ultimate Extras". These are basically downloadable super-power toys that Microsoft provides as an extra benefit.

As some may be aware, Stardock worked with Microsoft on Windows DreamScene, the animated wallpaper feature.  I'm quite a fan of the feature as many people have wanted animated wallpapers for years.  And before some net-geek says "But dude, there's been animated wallpapers for years" my answer is: yea right. Because yea, we've all been using them right? Oh..no, wait, that's right, previous attempts sucked down massive CPU and did flakey things to the icons and icon text on our desktops. 

By animated wallpaper I mean actual animation that a normal human being might actually use and not just a tech demo.  Windows DreamScene plays loopable high-definition wallpaper. Like static wallpaper, you'll likely see obnoxious things be created and useful. For me, it's about subtlety. If it's not slowing down my computer, what do I care if my desktop background isn't static? You can read more about it here.

So then it boils down to cost.  Which is where things get less fun...

UPGRADE PRICING:

• Windows Vista Home Premium: $159
• Windows Vista Business: $199
• Windows Vista Ultimate $259

Which means for Home Premium users they have to wonder whether Ultimate Extras, Remote Desktop, Network tools, and Domain logons is worth $100.  I'd itemize it like this personally:

• Remote Desktop $50 (if you're one of those people who think VNC is "just as good" see "go away" part at the beginning or better yet, go get Linux and be done with it)
• Ultimate Extras: $40
• Domain Logon: $30
• Network Tools: $20

Total: $140.  Now your mileage may vary on how much you think each of those is worth. I'm just saying how much those things are worth it to me.  If the number adds up to over $100 then you're in a good shape. If not, then there's a problem.

Personally, Ultimate it where it's at.  I want my cake and eat it too. I want to be able to Remote Desktop into my machine and I want to be able to have Media Center on it too. And having cool Ultimate Extras is icing on the cake.

It has been a very exciting week here with the launch of Wincustomize 2007.  There have also been many great submissions over the past week also, and it was hard to pick a few for this feature because many have caught my eye.

BuzzDock for DesktopX
by buzzh58

This is a great sidebar-type theme that features drag and drop menus, and it's very easy to configure to your liking.  Nice work!

Download

Vista Look v.2 for DesktopX
by adni18

This is a very clean and functional theme with that Vista "look".  I especially like the Sidebar.

Download

Bohemia for Iconpackager
by Bohemy

This is a big icon pack with over 230 icons in 9 sizes.  This is a really great set, so be sure to download this one.

Download

Orange Crush for Windowblinds
by navigatsio

An awesome theme, and I really like the color combination.  It's very usable and is easy on the eyes for everyday use.  Very nice work.

Download

Slate-X for Windowblinds
by Josephs

This came in later last week, and a few members made me aware of it.  Josephs says it's based off an early Longhorn Style.  It's a fantastic skin....definitely recommended!

Download

Great work as always everyone.  Keep those skins rolling in and be sure to drop me a line and let me know what skins and themes catch your eye.  See you next week!