Skin Roundup

Christmas Edition

Since Christmas is coming soon I thought I would use this weeks "Skin Roundup" to highlight some of the most popular Christmas and Holidays skins here on Wincustomize.

 

Realistic Animated Christmas Snowflakes

This is supposed to be updated soon, but just in case you couldn't wait.  I think this is the one of the coolest objects available.  It's amost a necessity for any winter desktop. Be sure to stop by Greenreapers gallery for more great skins.

Greenreapers WC page - https://www.wincustomize.com/info.aspx?acid=2172

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/Preview.aspx?Source=GreenReaper/dx/3762.jpg

 

 

 

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Christmas Lights

Here are Christmas Lights I created because I love putting up Christmas lights on my house.  So why not the desktop as well?  These come in a .zip which has 4 different sets.  Just right-click and clone to "string" them to your desktop.

Island Dog's WC page - http://islanddog.wincustomize.com

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SkinID=3768&LibID=3

 

 

 

 

 

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X-Mas (weather)

Richard Mohler has update this weather object for the Holidays.  I especially like the font that is used and it fits great into your Holiday desktop.

Richard Mohler's WC page - http://rmskins.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=655&LibID=34&comments=1

 

 

 

 

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Christmas Time

This is my personal favorite WB for Christmas.  With almost 300,000 downloads I would have to say others might agree also.  If you are looking for a Christmas WB then you have to check this one out.

moregemil's WC page - http://mormegil.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=3702&LibID=1&comments=1

 

 

 

 

 

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Winter Blue

Here is another great Holiday WB by don5318.  The "snow" is enough for me to put this on my desktop.  This WB goes great with the animated snowflakes to make a real Winter desktop.

Don5318's WC page - http://don5318.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=4710&LibID=1

 

 

 

 

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S@nt@ Cl@us

Lgp85 has created this cursor set for the Christmas skinning contest.  The graphics are very detailed and a lot of work was put into these.

Lpg85's WC page - http://lgp85.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1722&LibID=25&comments=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Christmas Holidays

Here is a great iconpackager set created by adni18.  Great detail was put into these and fits great into the Christmas holiday.

Adni18's WC page - http://adni18.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1081&LibID=2&comments=1

 

 

 

 

 

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There are many more Christmas and Holiday skins available.  Just search the Wincustomize galleries and you find many to choose from. 

Merry Christmas

 

I am sure I am not the only member of JoeUser who has ogled the shiny translucent screenshots of Windows Vista builds, eagerly awaiting the day whenst the same eye-candy would find its way onto our own humble desktops.

Thanks to Stardock, that process has been accelerated considerably. Obviously you know this, as perpixel borders are the Big Feature for WindowBlinds 5. And now, because of some nifty work with 3D acceleration, we can not only enjoy alpha-blended windows, but faster performance. That's not a bad deal. My impressions follow.

Installation went smoothly over a previous 4.6 build, no messy errors or other nonsense. A word to the wise though, if you've removed MDAC from WinXP for whatever the reason, it's time to go poking around in your CD's i386 folder because WBconfig uses the Jet database (a part of MDAC) to store skin manifest data now. You'll get some unpleasant Data Source dialogs without this. Most users won't be troubled by this, the removal of "critical" Windows components is mostly a power-user thing.

Like I mentioned before, one of the great allures of WB5 is getting the Vista look on XP, or something close enough. I achieved this by applying KoL's excellent VistaXP skin, which to my eyes follows the Vista design a little better than MikeB's Arrow. I suppose it is a matter of preference. Anyway, everything worked as advertised, and my system wound up with some very slick looking window borders.

However, looking past the good stuff, I have found my share of little quirks. Understandably these will exist, as this perpixel code is new and has received far less testing than the Ye Olde Rendering Engine. Some of these little annoyances might even be the fault of the skin. One learns by asking questions.

The VistaXP skin offers me some slick new shadows on the glass subskin. My beef here is that the resizing handles for the window act as though the shadow was the edge of the window. Technically, to WindowBlinds, the shadow is the edge of the window, but can a window margin be set in SkinStudio to exclude part of the border from interaction? The behavior of grabbing onto a shadow is just slightly peculiar, and the fact that you can't select desktop icons through the shadow is a minor trouble.

To be honest, this is a great product, and I wholeheartedly recommend purchasing it. Enjoy my biased opinion.

PROS:
- Support for translucency in window borders. Amazing.
- No more wbload! As an added bonus, this means no more uxtheme savages complaining about "extra memory"
- GDI subversal? Now, an application on the bottom doesn't have to redraw when a window on top is moved. MUCH faster and more efficient.

CONS:
- That wbload data got wadded up into a DLL and is still there, just not listed as a process. Not a bad thing, but the "native" claim is misleading.
- The "shadow thing" bugs me. Is there a way to exclude parts of the border from interaction? An parameter in SkinStudio perhaps?

WISHLIST:
- I would love to see that blurring effect for the underneath content on the window borders be implemented in WB5. I really don't know how likely this is, but it sure would be a cool feature.

RATING: 9/10

A quick note about "native integration." The stuff that wbload used to do (aside from .WBA extraction) was just moved to a couple of DLLs that obviously aren't listed as processes. This isn't at all a bad thing, but the claim of total "nativeness" isn't valid. The "native" skin of Windows is "Windows Classic". From this point of view, you can't really say uxtheme is native either, because both WB5 and it both skin in the same way: via DLL. Ignorant people just consider uxtheme "native" because it shipped with Windows. For all purposes other than nitty-gritty technical, WB5 is now native.

Since this is Stardock we are talking about here, I have no doubts that any problems encountered will be rectified, and fast. The updates alone are worth the price. This is a slick piece of work. Become the envy of the non-skinned infidels by getting a copy of WindowBlinds 5 today.

Don't know if this has been posted before, but I just found it, and it's pretty cool. It's a screen saver that cycles images and displays information, sorta widget-like. Check it out.

from the site:

With the new MSN Screen Saver (Beta) you can:

* Personalize with background photos and news and weather information from MSN® or any RSS feeds from websites you choose.
* Search the Web and click news headlines directly from the Screen Saver.
* Stay connected with MSN Hotmail®, MSN Messenger, and MSN Spaces. Track how many unread Hotmail messages and current Messenger conversations you have, and display blogs and photos from your friends’ MSN Spaces.

Plymouth, MI- (November 16, 2005) – Ideazon Inc., designer and developer of the Zboard™, the world's first keyboard designed for PC gamers, has selected DirectSkin from Stardock to make their next generation of software skinnable. Users will be able to change the appearance of the software by selecting from a number of skins.

 

 

“Ideazon is committed to enhancing the PC gaming experience. Adding skinning to our ZEngine software allows us to do on a software level what our keysets already do for our keyboards,” said Michael Aronzon, Software Development Manager for Ideazon. “We were impressed with Stardock’s excellent reputation and the wide-spread acceptance of Stardock’s skinning standards across the technology sector. Stardock is a Microsoft Gold Partner and their skinning products are used by companies in our industry such as Blizzard and Alienware, so we were assured of compatibility with accepted standards.”

 

The next release of the ZEngine software will include a special Zboard skin created with Stardock’s SkinStudio as well as three skins created by the Stardock skinning community. In addition to the default look, users will be able to change the appearance of the software by selecting Seti Green, created by David Knott (DavidK), Ketix by Tim (Essorant) Dagger or DogmaX by Jim (Brewman) Brubaker.

 

 “We are really excited by the opportunity to work with Ideazon,” said Larry Kuperman, Sales Manager at Stardock. “They are a recognized leader in the gaming industry and with Stardock’s TotalGaming.Net PC games division, it was a natural partnership.

 

Ideazon is working with Stardock Media, the graphics design division, to create a number of skins based on today’s most popular PC games. Users will be able to download these skins to further enhance their PC experience.

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About Ideazon, Inc.
North American-based Ideazon Inc. develops, manufactures and markets the next generation of gaming peripheral technologies that enable a new level of interaction between end-users and their PC games. Zboard™ products enhance the gaming experience, accelerate gamers through the initial stages of a new game and ultimately improve gamer satisfaction. Ideazon is headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario. For more information, contact the company at pr@ideazon.com or on their website at www.zboard.com

 

 

About Stardock:

 

Stardock Corporation is the leader in the development and sales of award-winning Windows desktop customization solutions such as the Object Desktop software suite, featuring components including WindowBlinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, and more. Stardock Entertainment also develops best-selling computer games, including the Galactic Civilizations series, which are distributed electronically through Stardock’s TotalGaming.Net division. For more information, please visit the Stardock home page at https://www.stardock.com or contact Tom Ohle at tom@aegmail.com.

 

Skin Roundup - November 16th, 2005

Looking back at the skins of the past week or two I wanted to feature a few that really caught my eye in the Wincustomize galleries.

Over in the DesktopX Object gallery I spotted some objects by MountainDragon from his Dark Glass DX Theme. If you are anything like me you probably want to constantly see what state your computer is in. Whether it's how much memory you are using, or how much disk space you have used, the Dark Glass Meters will help you see your status. I tried this out with several of the new "transparent" WB themes and made a great addition to the desktop. He has several other "Dark Glass" objects so check out his gallery for more.

Dark Glass Meters

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Moving over to the DesktopX Widget gallery I found that Richard Mohler has made some Widgets in the "ClearCut" series. They are all beautiful widgets but the one that really caught my eye was the media
player with a unique transparent style that he has "clearly" mastered. Richard also has several related widgets
in his Wincustomize gallery.

ClearCut (media)

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With the coming Winter season RomanDA has turned a simple clock into a great Snow Flake clock. With the current Winter themes, and the coming one's ahead, I know this will make a great addition to any Winter desktop.

Snow Flake Clock

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Lihu1266 has made a beautiful Iconpackager set with a very nice "glow" to them. I tried this set with several different styles of Windowblinds themes and it accompanied them very well. Iconpackager doesn't a whole lot of submissions like other galleries, but it's nice when a great set like this is posted.

SkyscapeIP

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When I was rearranging ObjectDock I was looking for another icon for Windowblinds. A quick look at the ObjectDock gallery and a new icon by D. Arnaez was just what I was looking for. Windowblinds 2808 is another icon with a style that is all his own. For more icons with this "style" go check out D. Arnaez's gallery.

Windowblinds 2808

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That is the skin roundup for this week. Be sure to keep a lookout for more articles about featured skins by myself, or one of the other moderators here at Wincustomize.

What year is it again? Oh yea, 2005 I think.  I've been coding a lot lately on Galactic Civilizations II.  I work mostly on the computer AI.  So if it seems like I haven't been around a lot, the main reason for that is that I haven't.  Lots of coding. 

For GalCiv, we are using DesktopX as our way of designing the user interface.  Using DesktopX is kind of like our secret weapon. Next time you play a game, any game, notice how primitive the user interfaces, dialogs, and other non "action" areas of the game are. Even on huge mega-budget titles like Battlefield 2 or Age of Empires III or on console games, the parts of the game that have buttons, text, and other information/UI elements are typically very primitive.  By contrast, in Galactic Civilizations II, they look really nice.  And the kicker is, it probably takes less time for us to create a screen and hook it up than it does in those games with the more primitive UIs.  That's because, as any DesktopX user can tell you, when you're designing your creation in DesktopX, it's live all the time.  Literally.  For GalCiv, we wrote a DirectX 9 UI engine that takes .DXPacks (DesktopX packages) and runs them in 3D.  For instance, here's the Alert dialog as a DXPack.

To save this is the wave of the future is probably a cliché but it's true.  Microsoft certainly believes it.  For Windows Vista, Microsoft is delivering a new suite of software development tools called Expression.  One of these tools is called "Sparkle".  The idea is to split the GUI development part away from the coding part.  Anyone who has made an advanced Winamp skin or Windows Media Player skin or a DesktopX widget knows that there are plenty of cases where the artist and coder are two different people because it takes two very different types of expertise to get that down pat.  That's what Sparkle is to do. 

In some respects, one might argue that Sparkle is a DesktopX killer.  And if DesktopX doesn't evolve, then in the long term, Sparkle will kill DesktopX.  Here's why:  When you create something with DesktopX you save it as either a gadget/widget (.exe), a .dxpack, or a desktop (.desktop).  In realty, it's all pretty much the same with the file extension being there more to tell the system how to launch the thing.  Inside the given file is typically an XML file that describes visually the object, a VB Script (of Javascript) for the code and PNG files for the images.  The idea with Sparkle is that a user creates their UI and exports it as XAML (XML for applications).  XAML can be used to describe virtually anything visually. It's resolution independent and can handle 3D formats (3D Studio, Maya, etc.).  Then someone would use Visual Studio 2005 to create the C# or VB.net for the coding make use of the XAML as a resource.  It's very similar to what DesktopX does. 

So what does DesktopX need to do? It will (and should) evolve.  Vista marks a new generation for software development.  Sparkle and Visual Studio 2005 are way over-kill for the kinds of things people currently use DesktopX for.  I'm skeptical of how many people really are going to want to have to use those programs to create gadgets and such.  But DesktopX will need to embrace XAML in a big way IMO.  When you export your creations, they should be XAML inside.  That will mean they'll only work on XP and Vista but I think by end of 2006, Win2K/98Frogboy will be so legacy as to not be much of a factor.

For users and skinners, it'll be a glorious day.  For 3D artists it'll be a golden age.  And for developers it will mean being able to bring their visions to fruition.  One can imagine websites like WinCustomize.com having huge sections for people to upload XAML creations. In some respects, XAML could become a universal skinning format for applications.  In a sense, that's what it's designed for.  At that point you'll have two different kinds of skinning formats: WindowBlinds for the Windows GUI and XAML for everything else (only reason not to use XAML on the Windows GUI is because the GUI of the OS and its native UI apps is preset).

Stay tuned to WinCustomize.com as Sparkle gets closer to release.  And be prepared for a ton of software (both from companies like Stardock to many other third parties) to make use of this.  With a universal skinning format, the customization communities will likely become more unified and applications won't be starved for content.

I am so excited that Episode III will be released on DVD.  I thought it would be a great time to list some Star Wars inspired skins.

CursorXP

Lightsaber - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1445&LibID=25
Lightsaber Dark Side - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1452&LibID=25
Star Wars Cursors - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1596&LibID=25

Bootskins

Star Wars - https://www.wincustomize.com/Skins.aspx?LibID=32&view=1&sortby=4&sortdir=DESC&p=1&advanced=0&searchtxt=star%20wars

Iconpackager

Star Wars - http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/21002328/

ObjectDock

Star Wars Icons - https://www.wincustomize.com/Skins.aspx?LibID=29&view=1&sortby=4&sortdir=DESC&p=1&advanced=0&searchtxt=star%20wars

Rainlender

Lightsaber - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=443&LibID=37

Windowblinds

Star Wars - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=5206&LibID=1

Under The Skin: (Episode 3)
We are about a month late, but we finaly got the chance to sit down and recorded Under The Skin (Episode #3). This week we have Rich Kulesus, a.k.a. MrBiotech from skinyourscreen.com. He lets us know what's new with SkinYourScreen and his new podcast. We also fill you in on the latest in Skinning news, including the new beta of WindowBlinds 5.0
Show Notes: Under the Skin: Episode 3, Recorded October 6th, 2005. Host: Paul Boyer Guest Host: Kristin Hatcher. Special Guest: Rich Kulesus (MrBiotech) Intro, Skinning News: Topics: Allot has happened since episode 2. We did not get to touch on it all, but we tried to hit the highlights.     The news item being discussed most this week was the release of WindowBlinds 5.0 beta, for the first time allowing alpha transparency in window frames and title bars. WB 5 is also the first version of WindowBlinds designed to work on Windows Vista. It is still in early beta, but is working pretty sweet already.  For allot more about WindowBlinds 5 check out some of these articles. Windowblinds 5 Beta released and Windowblinds 5 Preview Guide.     We also touched on Microsoft's intro into the Gadget world with Vista and MicrosoftGadgets.com, and the controversy that has arisen from it. For my views on this check out my article here.     One of the big things that I ranted about was Microsoft's upcoming Xaml editor Sparkle. I personally think this is something that anyone who is serious about skinning should check out. To see a cool video on Sparkle check out this behind the scenes video over at Channel 9.     The last Item that we touched on was Autodesk purchasing  Alias Wavefront. Interview with Rich Kulesus (MrBiotech) Topics: We talk to Rich about his personal skinning website, www.skinyourscreen.com and his new SkinYourScreen Podcast. Rich lets us know about his influences as a artist, and a skinner, as well as his favorite skinning news site, www.blizzle.com All this and more, spiced with quite a bit of me ranting! It's yours for free in this week's exciting episode. Subscribe to any of the links below or stop by www.undertheskin.net to check it out.
Support Under The Skin by subscribing at: and
Under The Skin thanks Stardock.com for their support and, more importantly, their bandwidth. Visit www.stardock.com for all the latest skinning software. Thanks to Wincustomize.com for hosting my blog, which I am abusing by hosting our show notes and the Under The Skin, index. If you have any questions comments or suggestions please email us at undertheskin@gmail.com

Apple has released iTunes 6 for Windows and Mac. You are now able to download and view videos, and tv shows. This new release comes at the same time Apple unvealed the new video iPod.


From the Apple website.

"iTunes 6, the next generation of the world’s most popular music jukebox and online music store, lets fans purchase and download over 2,000 music videos and six short films from Academy Award-winning Pixar Animation Studios for just $1.99 each."