No, not the machines.  I still think they are over priced.  But their service.  We made another 2 trips out there yesterday (to the Apple Store).  But now I know how to make a reservation before going.

The first trip (and the second) was for my Son's iPod.  For some reason it wiped all his songs and then would not let him re-add them.  So we took it in and I let him do all the talking.  And the tech wiped it (the songs are still on the computer) and we went home.  And all seemed to be well.  But at about the same point of adding songs as before, it wiped them again! 

Ok, so I dont know iPods.  but I do know computers.  And this is a problem with the computer, not the software.  But what?  Like I know?  So we went out again.  And again I let my son do the talking (he will make a good tech one day as he had the exact error message written down).  So the (new one this time) clerk says "What is the problem?".  My son starts to explain and then he starts to say "Ok, we will reformat the iPod and....." and I cut him off with a wave of my hand and pointed to my son.  Who then went on to give him the Paul Harvey version - i.e. the rest of the story (as in it did it twice).

Zip, bing, and 10 minutes later, we walked out with a new unit.  No ifs ands or complaints!  Now that impressed me!  So far (and this is 24 hours later), all seems to be well with his iPod.  And I am impressed with their expertise and (somewhat) with their service.  As long as you have a reservation, you can get excellant service and competant service.

Now that I know how to do that on line, it is not so bad.  And the help cant be beat.

On a side note, not related to my travails, I did see them help a Mac customer.  When the "Genius" (that is what they are called, it is not a snide remark) could not help her as it was a problem with 3rd party software, they found another "Genius" that had experience with that package.  It was obvious the user was clueless (and probably a PEBKAC error) but they never were condescending or nasty.  Always professional.

I may not be buying a Mac soon (I figure in about a year), I am buying stock.  I am impressed!

I've been here a while and have ran into the same problem a couple of times on the forums...how can you tell when someone is funnin' and when someone is actually being serious? How does one relay sarcasm in a text only format?
I believe I have found an answer and want all of you folks to know that 98.7% of my posts will, from this point forward, contain the following picture



If you run into a forum post of mine that does not contain this picture after the date of this post, then you can acertain that I want you to take all the verbage contained in the post seriously...however, if the picture is present in the post, then know that any and every word of the post can be disregarded as a feeble attempt at humor or sarcasm. I am happy to provide this service and if you wish, you may borrow my picture for use in your own posts at anytime. Now, there we go, problem solved and all is right in the world again...carry on Skinning people!

Every now and then I get a little free time, and put together some 1s and 0s into something useful. I originally wrote this for the members of an Aqua emulation forum as a Windows equivillent to Snapshooter for OSX, but figured I would share it around.

I present to you RumShot 0.8.1. (download link at bottom)

PLEASE review the Rumshot Guide included in the download if you are new to the application or it's themes.

A few things to note...

• RumShot themes are just zip files - to see how to make your own, change the extension on the theme files to .zip, extract and have fun. The xml is really very straight forward.
• To report bugs please copy the exception text or error message (if any) and paste it using http://rafb.net/paste !!
• Feel free to throw out a bunch of suggestions, but please keep in mind that the interface isn't likely to change much, if at all.

Rumshot REQUIRES the .NET 2.0 Framework. Go here if you dont have it already. No, you can not use a beta version of 2.0 with this.

PLEASE DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT RESOURCE USAGE. I'LL JUST END UP IGNORING YOUR POST

This beta expires on September 1st, 2006.

And as always...
READ THE README OR LOSE ALL OF YOUR HAIR.

Preview of the app (cause someone asked for one)


Lastly -- If you have a theme/border that you created (or permission to port someone else's - you need proof, btw) for another app and would like me to port it for you, please private message me and I will be happy to help.

Download here http://dl031.filefactory.com/dl/f/f5c13d/b/6/h/5bcc9be859ba7aea/

 

In the past week I’ve written about the new Enhanced File Dialog utility, as well as the updates we’ve made to Keyboard Launchpad in advance of the release of Object Desktop 2007, coming tomorrow (Tuesday, August 1st). Today, with less than 24 hours before the official launch of ODNT 2007, I’d like to take the time to walk you through some of the other products that have received some new features and a great deal of polish.

Click on the links below to go straight to that section of the article...

Theme Manager 2.3
Object Desktop Launchpad 2.0
Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0

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Theme Manager 2.3

Theme Manager is the keystone application in the Object Desktop 2007 suite. Like in previous versions, Theme Manager acts as the centralized management and switching point for pretty much all of your customized content. Instead of loading WindowBlinds to apply a skin, IconPackager to switch your icon set, BootSkin to change your boot screen, CursorXP to change your cursor etc, you can just fire up Theme Manager and select which visual element you want to change from the menu on the left. You’ll even seen a preview of what you’re about to apply, so there’s no more guess work as to how something is going to look before you load it on your PC.

There are three ways to get to the Theme Manager:

1. Click on the "SUITES" button on the Object Desktop Launchpad (2.0, more on that further down)
2. Launch Theme Manager from within Stardock Central
3. Right click on your desktop, select properties, click on the Suites tab, and then select "Run Theme Manager" from the drop-down on the bottom of the window.

Theme Manager saves you a lot of time when you want to quickly change the visual elements of your UI. Just download and install any icon pack, WindowBlind, DesktopX theme etc. and it will be available to you via this utility.

For more information on Theme Manager, check out the product information page, here.

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Object Desktop Launchpad 2.0

Most of our users launch our programs via Stardock Central, our all-in-one application management/support tool that hooks you into just about everything we do from Object Desktop to TotalGaming.net, our websites and our online chat. However, in an attempt to make it easier for users who just want easy access to their Object Desktop applications, we present the new version of the Object Desktop Launchpad. On the new launchpad, the applications have been divided into three categories:

1. Personalize
   Launch the applications used to apply customized content to your computer. Theme Manager, WindowBlinds, IconPackager and DesktopX can be launched from this tab.

2. Create
   These are the applications that you use to create the customized content. Icon Developer, SkinStudio and DesktopX Builder are here.

3. Extend
   This is where you can find the utilities and enhancement tools included with Object Desktop. Applications like RightClick, Keyboard Launchpad, Enhanced File Dialog, Virtual Desktops and WindowFX.

Of course, you can still get to Stardock Central if you want the more powerful tools, that can be reached by clicking on the "Updates" button up top.

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Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0

A feature that Linux users have enjoyed for years is the virtual desktop; the ability to sort applications and windows between multiple desktop areas, reducing the visual clutter on any one desktop. Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0 brings that functionality to Windows users, and there's one way our product beats the pants off of what you see by default on any Linux distribution: Stardock Virtual Desktops separates the taskbar icons. Each desktop has it's own desktop space and its own taskbar space. This means you can have multiple web browser windows open across multiple desktops, and not get confused over which window goes with each desktop.

Some other nice features:

• You can quickly grab windows and applications from inactive desktops and bringing them to your active one by right-clicking on the virtual desktop space on the task bar and selecting the item you want to move.
• Each desktop can have its own background image.
• Fully compatible with WindowBlinds and other Object Desktop enhancements.
• Add as many desktops as you like and use keyboard shortcuts to easily switch between them

Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0 is a component of Object Desktop 2007.

For more information on Stardock Virtual Desktops, check out the product information page, here.

---

These are just some of the applications that are receiving updates to go along with the Object Desktop 2007 launch this week. As always, expect even more improvements to these and all of the Object Desktop applications over the next year.

In addition to these program update articles, look for more in-depth application profiles in the future. It's just a piece of the content build-up for WinCustomize 2007!

Windows is full of various keyboard shortcuts to do any number of different tasks and functions.  There's the standard copy, paste, cut, open and close shortcuts that almost everyone is familiar with, but what if you could have a keyboard command to play a sound, or open a specific application?  If that's the case, then ObjectDesktop.net has yet another program you'd probably want to check out; Keyboard Launchpad (KLP).

Keyboard Launchpad is a program that allows you to quickly and easily assign hot keys to launch programs, visit URLs, past saved clipboards, control individual programs, perform system commands and more.  With a quick keystroke you could launch your Instant Messenger application, another could take you to your favorite blog site, while another could load up your MP3 collection in your favorite player.

There are two ways to build a keyboard shortcut in Keyboard Launchpad.  First, you could open the KLP configuration screen by double-clicking on the icon in your system tray, and that will allow you to both add new shortcuts or modify existing ones.  The other way is to right click on an icon, select properties and then clicking on the Hotkey tab. 

If you go into the more powerful Configuration screen, you can build hotkeys that include multiple actions.  There are a total of 9 types of actions you can assign, and a single hotkey can take an unlimited number.  So you could have a hotkey built to execute a dozen applications, a handful of system commands, open a few URLs, simulate a few mouse clicks and play some music if you wanted to.

The 9 action types are...

• Link (Shortcut or URL)
  Execute any application, file or URL.
• Clipboard Snippet
  Store a copied image or section of text in a hotkey.  Very useful if you find yourself often having to paste something like a corporate logo or contact information into documents or emails.  The snippet stored in the command remains even if you clear your clipboard or go to copy something else in another program.
• System Command
  Execute a number of standard system commands such as Shutdown, Empty Recycle Bin, Eject CD etc...
• WinAmp Controller
  Use hotkeys to manipulate WinAmp.
• Time Delay
  For hotkeys with a long set of actions, you can build in time delays between actions.  This could be useful if you have an Internet Connect hotkey that dials in to an ISP, waits for the connection to establish, then executes all of your favorite Internet applications.  Time specified in milliseconds.
• KLPlayer
  Just like the WinAmp controls, only for KLPlayer.
• Mouse Click Simulator
  A feature for those with hand/wrist problems and can't click a mouse button, it will simulate either a right, left or middle mouse button click at the current position of the mouse pointer.
• Musicmatch Jukebox Controller
  Just like the WinAmp controls, only for Musicmatch Jukebox.
• Windows Media Player Controller
  Just like the WinAMp controls, only for WMP.

For the power user, this means you can further tune exactly what you have running on your machine.  As a gamer, I want to have as little running on my machine as possible, and I also appreciate a system that can load windows as fast as possible.  Keyboard Launchpad helps me towards this goal by allowing me to strip out almost every application that loads when Windows first starts up.  I can, with a few keystrokes, bring up any subset of programs I want.  So if I plan on doing nothing but gaming, I'll only load the graphics and sound card utilities.  If I'm going to be working on an article like this one, or doing any other sort of office work, I'd load up my standard set of work utilities such as Google Desktop, KeepSafe, Instant Messenger etc...

While a very simple program, it adds a great deal of utility to your system.  It can be much faster to execute programs, navigate folders and issue system commands than by hunting and clicking with your mouse.  Using more keyboard commands can also potentially help cut down on RSI you might experience through excessive mouse clicking.

---

A few of the great new features added into the 1.50 release for Object Desktop 2007:

• The "Hotkey" tab from the properties menu
• Added "Close CD-Drive" to system actions
• Actions now execute from top of listing to bottom (first added to last added)
• Added the Time-Delay action. 
• Bundling of WMP, MusicMatch and "Mouse Clicker" plugins
• Sample plugin source (SDK) added.

Ever wish that when you were going to open or save a file that you had a few more options to choose from?  Do you find the standard open/save dialogs difficult to read when there are a dozen or more files listed?  Coming to the rescue of frustrated users everywhere, Stardock presents the Enhanced File Dialog utility, a product included with ObjectDesktop.net that brings power and user customization to yet another aspect of the Windows Operating System.

Enhanced File Dialog is an application enhancement utility that replaces the standard Microsoft Windows file open/save dialog screens with a much more feature-rich interface.  It improves the usability of possibly the most used dialog screens in the entire operating system by giving you items such as a Recent Folders drop-down, an easier to read file list, an application quick-launch bar, a search button and a customizable sidebar to add your favorite folders to for quick and easy navigation.

Compare these two screenshots showing the file open dialog at first glance:

At first glance, the most obvious improvements are in the file list.  In the classic view, files are listed as Name + Extension (i.e. document.rtf) and there are no sort options or visual divisions between items in the list.  The second picture showing the enhanced dialog looks more like the detailed view you would see in Windows Explorer, breaking the file list down into columns such as Name, Size, Type and Date Modified.  This view can help eliminate guess work when trying to figure out which version of a file you want to be working on.  No more guess work on whether it's Q1Financials_a.doc or Q1Financials_b.doc that you need to be working on when you can clearly see that one of the files is from last year.  Also, to make it easier to read all of the additional data provided, the file list is divided by grid lines.

If you take a closer look at the two screenshots, you'll see three additional differences in the enhanced dialog:

• Recent Folders list
• Enhanced Sidebar
• Quick Launch Bar
  • Search
  • Enhanced Dialog Settings
  • Application Quick-launch buttons

The "Recent Folders" list is a drop-down menu that will show you some of the most recently access folders.  This makes it easier for users who are working in multiple applications save related files together.  For example, a web designer may want to save an web page file and some images to the same folder.  Both the graphics editing and web page editing applications likely have their own default save locations that will pop up when opening the save dialog.  Once you've saved within one of your applications, you can then select that folder from the Recent Folders list when saving from the other application.  Saving the user the time and trouble of digging through countless folders to reach a folder they've already recently worked in. 

The enhanced sidebar adds several more options over the standard one.  Instead of having to go to My Documents to reach folders such as My Music and My Pictures, they're included in the list.  Additionally, through the settings menu, or by simply dragging and dropping onto the sidebar, the user can add any folder they like to the list.  A student who stores all their class papers on F:\My Papers\ could add that to the sidebar and make the open/save process much easier. 

Finally, the Quick Launch bar gives you three primary functions:

1. Search.
   If you want to search for a file within a given directory, you can browse to it via the open/save dialog and launch the search utility via the magnifying glass.  It will default to searching that folder.
    
2. Enhanced Dialog Settings.
   There are a number of settings the user can change to suit their needs.  This is where you can add applications to the application launch bar, custom folders to the enhanced sidebar, as well as specify which applications you do not want to use Enhanced Dialogs, or alternately specify applications you want to especially force to use it.  Additionally, it will save dialog window sizes for applications that have a habit of defaulting to a very small dialog window.
   
   Please note: some applications like Microsoft Office do not use standard file dialogs and will not be extended by Enhanced File Dialog.
    
3. Application Launch Bar
   This is just like the Quick Launch bar you can enable on the Windows taskbar.  You can add application shortcuts to this bar through the settings.

	Quick Launch Bar
	Recent Folders List
	Enhanced Sidebar

 

While a small tool in scope, Enhanced File Dialog brings a great deal of power and flexibility to a key piece of every Windows application.  If you've customized your desktop with WindowBlinds, modified your context menus through Right Click, and built yourself a replacement Taskbar with DesktopX and ObjectDock, then why not dig in and improve your file dialogs too with Enhanced File Dialog!

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Some additional screenshots of the utility settings:

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. What I think is trash, you might think treasure. The cliches go on and on, but that doesn't make them any less true. And at a site like WinCustomize, that subjective taste really comes to the forefront when people rate and comment on submitted skins, icons and other items.

Of course, there are some things that almost everyone recognizes as high quality. Skins like eminence and Jaluran seem to be enjoying pretty wide-spread acceptance by the community, at least judging by the number of downloads and comments. But what is it about these two skins, which are very different in general style, that everyone likes so much? Personal tastes aside, what makes a skin, an icon, a theme etc. "good"?

Currently, I'm running eminence by rjsmith2007 for my blind, and Mormegil's Apogee icon suite. Hippy's Magic 8 Ball often graces my desktop and I have ObjectDock Plus running with the standard skin (because I can't find a good one for it). All of the enhancements I actually run on my system tend to be of the clean/minimalist style. Soft, clean edges, nothing extra/unnecessary generally. That's the style I like. But then again, I love MikeB314's Old Republic skin, which is generally a lot busier than I usually like.

What is it about these different skins? Is it their clean and well drawn graphics? Is it the interesting placement of borders? Is it the color schemes that do it?

What do YOU think are the essential elements to any skin, icon, theme etc? What separates the OK from the great? What are the things you always look for in the content you download?

Welcome to Brad's tips on how to use the new forums.  The new Stardock forums are custom developed based on the needs and uses of our customers. Over the years, we have experimented with many different layouts with varying degrees of success.

Background

The 2006 Stardock forums have many advantages over previous generations:

• Bandwidth - they use about 1/4th the bandwidth of previous forums we've used which means they load a lost faster.
• They use a lot more AJAX/Javascript based techniques to cut down the number of page views people have to go through.
• They allow for more categories to be displayed.
• They conform more to the style of the more common forum styles out there which reduces the learning curve for new users.
• They display who last commented on a particular post.
• They have much easier navigation between various sub-forums.
• They have more customization options for the user.

Stardock forums have one primary advantage over other forum systems. It's an advantage that is invisible to most users -- it is the world's only distributed network forum system (that we know of anyway).  Visit other companies or communities and they have one giant forum in one place. Visit a site using the Stardock.net forums and the forums displayed are specific to that site.  If two sites overlap, so do the posts.  A post on PC Computing on WinCustomize.com will show up on JoeUser.com but not TotalGaming.net.  A post about strategy games might show up on TotalGaming.net and GalCiv2.com and Joeuser.com but not on WinCustomize.com. This overlap means that users from different communities can interact together without even being on the same site.  It gives more options for users and customers and allows Stardock to interact with the varied communities much more easily.

Another key difference in Stardock forums is that new posts float to the top of the parent forum which in turn floats to the top of its parent.

In a forum system you might have:

Software
    Games
        Strategy
            Turn Based
            Real-Time
    Utilities
        Disk Utilities
        Security
        Anti-Virus
        Desktop Enhancements
    Applications

..and so on.

In a typical forum system, if you wanted to find out the newest post on a real-time strategy game you would have to dig all the way down to the real-time sub-category.  On a Stardock forum, the forums are set up almost like a search result -- The parent forum contains all the posts of its children arranged by the newest first. If the newest post is in the Real-Time area it will be the first post in the Software forum.  In this way, digging down allows users to get more specific if they choose but casual readers can stay more general.

One can imagine a forum like this:

Hardware
    PC
      Graphics Adapters
            nVidia
                7800
                    Overclocking
                        Utilities

In a Stardock.net forum, a user who clicks on the nVidia forum would see the newest posts from all the sub-forums. So if there's some hot new utility that lets users over-clock their 7800, the user who just clikced on the nVidia forum would see it without having to dig all the way down to the Overclocking utilities area.  As a result, it saves a lot of clicks. 

So why are other forum systems set up the way they are? There are lots of reasons, but one likely reason is that when forum software was first being developed, getting more page views was considered the goal.  Stardock's sites are designed to try to reduce the number of clicks and page views since it generates revenue from selling software and subscriptions. So our forums are designed to let users get to as much info as possible.

Tips & Tricks

Tip #1: Quick-Jump

One of the first new tips I'd like to show you is how easy it is to jump to other sub-forums.  If you click on one of the arrow separators between categories (i.e. Home -> General -> etc.) you will get a pop up menu that lets you jump to another sub-category.

Tip #2: View All Recent Posts

Near the bottom of the forums is a small link that we will probably make more prominent over time and that is the "view all recent posts".   By pressing that button, all the recent posts on the forum will be listed and users can go through and see all the actions anywhere. 

Tip #3: Smart Pins

Pinned topics are very important to new users but just get in the way for expert users.  The new Stardock.net forums let users minimize the topics and it will remember that you did so for future viewing.

Tip #4: My posts

At the top of the forum, "My posts" are there.  Click that link and you will get a list of the posts you have made.  Are also working on it so that it will eventually display all the posts you've recently interacted in.  That way, if a post you've been participating in scrolls off, no problem, you can quickly follow it.

Tip #5 Your Watch List

If you want to keep an eye on a post for the long-term, even if you're not participating in it, you can add it to your watch list.  To add a post to your watch list, click on the tools button.

Tip #6: Referrals

Is someone pointing to a post you or someone else made? Stardock.net forum posts automatically link back and let you see who is talking about it (and sends traffic back to the people who link to you).  Your account gets points every time someone goes to something you created from another site via a referral.

These are just some of the tricks that we have already.

The 2006 Stardock.net forums are still in their infancy and we are always looking for suggestions and ideas for them.  But we hope you find the new forum system fast, reliable, and effective.  Have fun!

 

One of the age old questions in computer customization is what looks good?

This is a skin I've been using. Yea, it has gigantic borders and it's not nearly as usable as many other skins. But for me...It's fun. It's neat. It's different.

In the old days, a skin like this would slow my computer way down. But as software such as WindowBlinds gets better and hardware gets faster, there's really no penalty anymore. You really have the freedom to do some weird stuff with your computer.

I also wonder how many WindowBlinds users remember to take advantage of the fact that you can change the color and gamma of a skin so that even if the original author makes a skin too light or too dark or just a strange color that you can change it.

Now if only I could find a matching ObjectDock skin.

 

 

Over the next few weeks you're likely going to notice some changes in how wallpapers are being moderated.

Previously, only a very small percentage of wallpapers were let through based on the views of our volunteer moderators who have years of experience in skinning.

Starting today, Zoomba, myself, and Karmagirl have taken over moderation directly in order to broaden the wallpaper selection.

This will mean a lot more wallpapers will come through.  Not everyone will be happy of course because a lot of wallpapers that are plain or not terribly creative will come through.  But we are looking to have more wallpapers that appeal to a wider audience of user.

We will still be moderating wallpapers. So people who load up Bryce and start rendering flying unicorns or take a picture of The Simpsons and paste it on a picture of your backyard are still out of luck.