I wanted to take this moment and share some of the skins that have caught my eye in the last few weeks or so. I will try to keep this going every week.

Windowblinds

Eminence by rjsmith2007

A dark skin is something that is sometimes hard to pull off, but I think
Eminence has done it very well. Now I can have another dark WB on my computer
without the word Vista in it.

Eminence





Noctilucent by Fuzzy Logic

A simple and clean skin with lots of color choices. What more could anyone
ask for?

Noctilucent






Neutronium by I.R. Brainiac

I don't know what to say.  It's just a very cool skin.

Neutronium






CursorXP

Red Flame by TYCUS

A great cursor that will go with many WB skins.

Red Flame






DesktopX Widgets

Clear Weather No. 2 by Richard Mohler

I have always been a fan of the "clear" series by Richard Mohler.  This is
just another great addition with other one's in his gallery.

Clear Weather No. 2





Rabid-MP3 by rabidrobot

One of the best MP3 players I have seen in a while.  Be sure to download this
one.

Rabid-MP3




There are many more skins by these and many other
artists here on Wincustomize.  These are just a few I wanted to share with the
rest of you.  Please add your suggestions to this thead for some other great skins
you have seen lately.

Be sure to check out the Wincustomize Gallery for more great skins.

I own a Mac. But I mainly use a PC.  What really makes me sour on using a Mac or even buying a Mac is firstly the fanatical Mac community that acts more like a cult at times and secondly the pretensiousness of Apple in how they market the thing. It's like they consider the on-line "jerk" to be their core market demographic.

When I hear some Mac guy talking about how they're doing all these neat things I just want to say "Yea, that's nice. I've been doing preemptive multitasking for a decade now. Sit down."

Check out this parody / spoof of the Mac vs. PC ads.

I do a podcast -- PowerUser.TV. It's a tech podcast but with a lot of tongue in cheek. I play up my more offensive side of things with lots of weekly rants.

We really enjoy doing the podcasts, but the problem is that the work vs. reward is just not there.

Here's some of the problems with podcasts:

1) The sites that syndicate the feeds are the ones who get all the rewards. ITunes, PodNova, Yahoo, they're the ones who make all that advertising revenue without having to create the content. It costs Stardock thousands of dollars each week to do the podcast. Even the Neocast version costs Stardock money too even if it's not producing it, it runs/maintains the site for it. But the iTunes of the world merely have to link to the MP3 file leaving the content providers out in the cold.

2) The effort vs. reward is totally not there in terms of listeners. Take PowerUser.TV -- it involves 3 salaried people plus 1 volunteer to produce the show plus another salaried person to maintain the website. That same staff could put together a pretty impressive website. A popular website like Neowin.net might get a million visitors PER DAY. A popular podcast might get 100,000 listenres PER WEEK. It's not even remotely as effective a means.

3) Podcasts aren't sticky. You can't say in the middle of a podcast "Hey, go check out this post on Neowin.net" and the user be taken to the website somehow.

Can you imagine me saying http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry587710294 on the air?

"I repeat, that's st=0%#..."

4) Bandwidth costs. A page view on Neowin.net might use up 60K. A download of a podcast might be 60 MEGABYTES PER LISTENER. Ack.

5) Podcasts are being crowded out by radio shows and other NON-podcasts (i.e. things that were produced with a totally different audience in mind and then tossed onto the web as an MP3 with an RSS feed and called a "podcast"). You can't even find most real podcasts anymore.

Of the top 50 podcasts on Yahoo, nearly HALF of them are now NPR (that's National Public RADIO) shows that have been tossed onto the net as "podcasts" despite them not really being podcasts. It really aggravates me because a) they're paid for by taxes and they're abusing the medium. It would be like Electronic Arts submitting games into the independent games festival.


That doesn't mean podcasts are doomed. It's too early by far to say that. What is really needed first off is a way to filter out the NPR's of the world off the various podcast lists so that people can actually find genuine podcasts.

Secondly, we need to learn who the listeners really are. The lack of raw numbers could be made up for if the listeners are "industry influencers". For example, Neowin.net may not get even a fraction of the traffic of a Digg.com but the difference is that (I believe) Neowin.net's average viewer has a lot more influence over what kind of technology people around them use over the average Digg.com viewer (and the average Digg.com viewer has a lot more influence than say the average MSN home page viewer and so forth).

It will be interesting to see what happens to podcasts. I don't think it'll be going away but I think it may become like blogging where at first everyone was starting to have blogs (and just as annoying then was on-line columnists turning their articles into "blogs") but now it's found its own particular niche.

This past week the EU put another $357 million fine on Microsoft over anti-trust issues. This is on top of the previous $300+ million fine and the on-going $2+ million per day ongoing fine.  When it comes to dealing with the global threat posed by American software giant, Microsoft, the EU is quite brave.

Meanwhile, Europe heads towards year 4 of completely unproductive negotiations with Iran, a country that has made it clear that they are pushing to have nuclear weapons.  Iran, as you may recall, has publicly promised to annihilate Israel in a ball of fire and whose missiles are likely able to reach Europe.

Luckily for Iran, they are not bundling a media player with their nuclear program or else the EU might then finally take the threat seriously.

Neelie Kroes, the "competition" commissioner for the European Union, apparently earned her nickname "Nickel Neelie" because she's tough in the same way as the "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher -- at least that's what pundits are saying.  Really? REALLY?

No, I don't see the similarity. One was a leader in the war against terrorist forces, tyranny, and oppression around the world even when it was unpopular.  The other is a beareucrat who is sticking it to a foreign software company for reasons I doubt she fully grasps in a move that is very popular with "the people".

Kroes claims that what Microsoft has to do to comply with the ruling is "crystal clear".  Microsoft disagrees.  I would be interested in the "crystal clear" camp to come forward and demonstrate that clarity. As a software developer, I find the EU's demands to be vague in the extreme. You can read the official document here.

For example, the ruling demands that Microsoft "disclose complete and accurate interface documentation" so that their cmopetitors can achieve "full interoperability" with Windows PCs and servers.  What the hell is "interface documentation"? What exactly is the official excuse of its competitors in not being able to work with Windows PCs and servers? 

Tiny software developer Stardock, where I work, has managed to create software that seamlessly extends the feature set of Windows as if it's part of the OS.  Heck, we have software that actually can alter the Windows GUI -- a pretty low level part of the OS -- to look like whatever we want. And we did that without "interface documentation" let alone source code or any other special help. 

The only aspect of the ruling that seems clear is that Microsoft has to provide OEMs a version of Windows without Windows Media Player.  But even that is vague if you're a software developer. Does that just mean the player app or the underlying codecs and libraries that are relied on by thousands of programs?

My point isn't to make Microsoft out to be an angel. They're not. They've been quite ruthless over the years.  But it strikes me as absurd to see the court jump on Microsoft with massive fines while playing footsie with nations like Iran.  Heck, the EU had a lot more patience with Saddam Hussein -- a decade of UN security counsel resolutions -- and still didn't want to do anything particularly strong.

From an outsider's point of view, it just strikes me as ludicrious to see how quick the EU can muster significant sanctions against a computer software company but demand "patience" if the threat against them is actually, you know, real.

Kroes writes:

I must say that I find it difficult to imagine that a company like Microsoft does not understand the principles of how to document protocols in order to achieve interoperability.

Spoken like a true non-technical person. It takes two to, ahem, interoperate. I suspect that there are plenty of people at Microsoft scratching their heads wondering "What more do these people want? Do we have to actually code up the software used by our competitors for them, hand it to them and provide a developer to sit there and answer CS 101 questions?"

How about answer this question: What specifically is the problem that these unnamed competitors are having? What specifically do they need in order to interoperate?  If the answer includes "source code" then they need to start hiring software developers who have training in...software development.

Lest someone think I'm some sort of Microsoft fanboy, I spent the first several years of my career as an OS/2 developer. I saw some pretty unsavory tactics used by Microsoft to win the OS market. If the EU (or US courts for that matter) had gotten involved then, they could have made specific requirements that would have made sense not just to lay people but software developers as well (such as "You can't charge an OEM $6 to bundle Windows for Workgroups but then charge IBM $20.50 for every WinOS2 license used in OS/2."). 

But the EU isn't doing that. They are basically asking Microsoft, after the fact, to magically make its competitors more effective and at some point, the competitors have to step up and...start competing.  And by levying such massive sanctions, it only brings into stark relief how weak the EU is on real tyranny, oppression, and danger in the world.  The whole situation would appear a little less ridiculous if, for instance, the EU could muster up some sanctions against say Iran.  The Iron lady would certainly support that. 

I dig gadgets. I really do.

Well, okay, I lie. As someone who has DesktopX installed, I think objects are vastly inferior to widgets. I see the plus of objects not needing DX installed, blah, blah, blah. But for those of us who have DesktopX already, gadgets just really, really suck. Oh, and as an aside, it would appear I feel like whining today.

Why do I think gadgets are inferior to widgets? There are a number of reasons:

1) They don't auto-install. A small point, sure, but a point nonetheless. If I download a widget, open the zip file and double click, the widget runs AND drops itself in my Widgets folder. It is all about convenience, and in my sloth I can't tell you how many gadgets never stayed on my system because I double clicked from the zip, then closed the zip, only to realize I didn't manually extract that gadget somewhere.

2) They don't respond to F9 and F10. This is huge for me. Widgets responding to these keys (either to bring to the front or to hide completely) was actually the functionality that got me to finally use DesktopX. I don't like lots of things cluttering my desktop, so I love being able to hit F10 and make them all go away. And when I want to change the song, see the temp, date, news bit, etc. I love to be able to hit F9 and have my widgets come to the front. With gadgets I have to manually bring it to the front, or minimize all my other windows. Again, a HUGE step back in terms of convenience when it comes to gadgets vs. widgets.

3) You can't customize them. Heck, this is WinCUSTOMIZE, so this should be a no brainer. There are a number of widgets that I have downloaded, imported, looked at their scripts and then changed something small, or changed a font, a color, or an image, to make the widget behave a little more how I would like. All for personal use, of course. But the fact that I can't import a gadget, tweak it a little to make it fit my personal style a bit more, or even get scripting ideas, means they are far inferior to widgets IMO.

Again, I understand the reason behind gadgets. But I don't understand the reasoning behind only releasing the gadgets over here at Wincustomize.com. Isn't that what DesktopGadgets.com is for? It is a shame to head to the WIDGET section, only to seem some nice, new toy is actually a castrated widget (aka gadget).

Bring on the "shut up and make it yourself" bitch-slaps.

I've shown friends my beta of Windows Vista and they love the clean look, the glass UI, the dark Start bar.

But I wonder how they'll feel about it say a month after they've been using it.  As I've begun to mess around with the betas more and more, the sexiness starts to wear off and my desire to personalize my experience for my own preferences returns.

What looks like glass at first starts to just be a bitmap that's at 20% opacity with a blur effect on it.  Sure, I can change the opacity or the color but essentially, from a customization point of view, Windows Vista is actually a step back from Windows XP in some ways in my opinion.  Even XP users could hack uxtheme.dll and apply hacked msstyles to their system.  This time, the story isn't quite the same. Now, at best, you'll have someone hacking bitmaps to replace the border and button PNGs/BMPs with another and even then, what do you do about things like Office 2007 which are literally hard-coded.

My prediction is that skinning, which has been steadily growing in popularity to the point of being mainstream (which has not been completely good news for skin sites -- as skinning becomes mainstream, cottage sites become less needed), will take a new turn with the demand increasing even further.

I think WindowBlinds and other Stardock programs will likely see real competitors because the demand for customization will grow much higher.

And I haven't even touched on Microsoft's gadgets which are definitely going to need third party help to be viable IMO.  As it stands now, the Microsoft gadget platform is in desperate need of third party attention to expand what developers can do easily so that worthwhile content can be made.  DesktopX 4 will likely step up to the plate when it's released but I think you'll see a whole cottage industry for that.

But what do you think? Do you think Vista will be good for skinning or do you think the cool, clean look of Vista will be enough?

I don't usually blog about computer related topics.  My hubby does more than enough of that for the both of us   I felt compelled to write about Natural Desktop though.

I am one of those people who can't function when there is silence.  I usually have the radio or TV going in the background when others aren't up and about making noise.  Last week my boys had left Natural Desktop running on their computer and I heard wonderful sounds of birds chirping when I got up in the morning.  I enjoyed it so much I didn't bother turning the radio on.

Throughout the day and night Natural Desktop changes sounds according to the animal noises and local weather.  The other night there was a forecast for scattered thunderstorms so I got to enjoy the sounds of the rumbling of thunder and the pitter-patter of rain.  I love it!  I highly recommend it too!!

Microsoft has released the public betas for Vista and Office 2007.

You can download Office 2007 here - http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/download/en/default.mspx

Vista download will be available soon here - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/get_it.mspx

 

Anyone who's been around Stardock's various websites knows the pattern.  We find a new way to make things faster or upgrade some piece of hardware to make the sites run smoother and the traffic instantly jumps which brings back the problems for the regulars.

The #1 performance hogging feature on all of Stardock's sites (whether it be JoeUser or WinCustomize or GalCiv2.com or TotalGaming.net) is the same thing -- the referrals.  That is, all items actually look at where a visitor is coming from and then adds to a massive table in a massive database on where that referral came from and what the URL was to get back to it. 

When you have, literally, hundreds of thousands of people coming to the site every day (which is thousands per hour) it's a significant strain.  There's no OFF button for it, it would be a lot of changes in a lot of places in code. 

But people feel the pain of that database being hit because it's tied to the article database -- commenting timing out being one of the most common. 

We have a new server for the database that is a real monster. It has 12 gigabytes of memory, 4 dual core CPUs, you get the picture. But it will take some weeks to migrate things to it.  The same person doing the migration could be asked to go and turn off the referrals which would make things nicer but that would delay the migration which will make everything faster.  Hence the dilemma.

I am tending to just let it suffer so that the migration goes quicker and refrain from writing articles like this one (that is why today was so slow) until the migration is done.

An aritcle on www.pcworld.com talks about Symantec suing Mircosoft to stop development of Vista...