Hey all!!

Happy 2006. I was looking at some of my work in DX this past year, and I was curious as to what YOU think are the BEST & WORST Widgets or Gadgets of 2005?

Rules:

• The Gadget/Widget has to have been posted or created in 2005 - not just updated!!
• It has to have a trial/demo (if its on DG) so everyone can check it out
• You must post a LINK to the widget or gadget so we can easily get to it!!
• You need to post WHY you think its worthy of this list.
• Also post why you think it sucks (if its a looser!)

Also,

What is on your DX wish list for 2006? 
Or, What is the BIG DX widget/gadget you have planed for 2006??

A lot of great widgets/gadgets have come out of requests from you, so this is a great time to let us know what you want!

I need to look thru the system and see what I would put on my list..

RomanDA

Stardock Magazine is nearing its 10th year anniversary.  In the old days, Stardock Magazine was done as a regular magazine.  The ones from 1996 were done with Page Maker 5 (Which I can't convert with Adobe InDesign).  So here's one from early 1996 as a PDF.  Some of the graphics and fonts are wrong (i.e. the layout errors and such weren't in the actual paper version) but it gives you an idea of what kinds of things Stardock was up to way back then.

Weekly Widget Report for December 11th - December 18th 2005

Kapsules


Mr. Fruit 1.0.0
Make your desktop fruity (in a good way).


My Widgets! 1.0.0
Just open your widgets directory!
What is special in that? There is no need to configure. The widget tries its best to respond to a single click (even if you were using another application/widget before).

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AveDesk Desklets


RoAr 1.0
Roman & Arabic numerals forth and back converter


WhatPulse Desklet
This desklet reads whatpulse statistics from any account that has XML Feeds enabled. You input the userid and everything else works on it's own. This is just a first version and there will be updates to support teams.


Curs valutar 1.0
Show euro and US dollar currency exchange rate and graphic evolution (usefull for romanian people).

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AveDesk AveScripter Widgets


Reflective Albumart v1
This desklets shows the current albumart from iTunes on your desktop, but it does a nice reflection-effect to it.


Proportional Calculator 1.0
The widget to calculate according to the rule of three

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Yahoo! Widget Engine
(Due to the extremely high number of Rss readers, clocks and webcams, they have been excluded from this report)
(Also, due to the 50+ some odd widgets that were posted this week, I unfortunately wont be including all of them.)


FGDL Update Widget 1.0 [Rating 4 of 4]
This Widget monitors additions and updates to the Florida Geographic Data Library (FGDL). The FGDL is a mechanism for distributing satellite imagery, aerial photographs and spatial (GIS) data throughout the state of Florida. You can download new layers and view their metadata directly from the Widget interface.


The DALEK 0.9 [Rating 3 of 4]
Meet an old "friend" of Doctor Who: The Dalek! Indestructable it explores your desktop, just waiting for something to exterminate.


UV Index 0.1
Shows the UV Index at Lauder, Otago, New Zealand (~120 km NW of Otago) as measured by NIWA.


SoccerDatabase 1.0.1 [Rating 4 of 4]
Display standings, scores, and fixture of the selected world soccer league or cup in two languages, English and Turkish. Widget gets its data from www.mackolik.com.


Car Rental Widget 1.0
An easy one-click way to compare prices and availability on over 40 car rental companies at every city and airport in the world. You can specify any brand or class of car to include in your search or even the "Best Buys" for each company.


Image Croppers 1.0
A simple Widget to enable photographers to use onscreen 'croppers' (or L's) to assist in making cropping decisions. Useful for critiques and other non-destructive/evaluative image editing.


wwndata.worldofwar.net Search 1.0
This Widget searches the worldofwar.net database.


Chicago Area Traffic 1.0 [Rating 3 of 4]
This Widget will display real time traffic information for the entire Chicago area; from Downtown to Joliet to Elgin to Deerfield.


RadioPack #1 1.0
Three audio webcast Widgets : DNA Lounge (Techno), Morning Becomes Eclectic (alternative/college rock), and nugs (jam bands), all available to you in one convenient download. Double click window to turn on/off. Requires Realplayer installed to play.


Slimline Radio Players 1.0 [Rating 3.5 of 4]
12 small radio players that play the live streams from their respective websites.

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DesktopX Widgets


Silica RAM Meter
Shows RAM usage in Percentage. Idea from Stardock's Silica CPU/Disk Meter.


Vista Search 2.0


SD System Navigator Update (3.02 beta)
This device is not only measures and indicates more than 60 parameters which characterize your System's Performance but it is a portable User Interface also.

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DesktopX Gadgets


SD System Navigator Update (3.02 beta)
This device is not only measures and indicates more than 60 parameters which characterize your System's Performance but it is a portable User Interface also.


SportStrip
Shows LIVE sports scores, updated every few minutes.
Keeps you current on all the latest games, scores, and more!

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Samurize Widgets

Nothing new since October 10th.

Talk radio commentator Dennis Prager states often that downloading music is the same as stealing, and I'll grant that on the surface it does seem like it. Particularly to the artists who generated the original soundwaves. But consider the following:

I have a neighbor. He just went to the store and bought a brand new widget. It's a really cool widget, and it's manufacturer has the appropriate patent.

My neighbor invites me over admire his new widget. I bring my tape measure, my calipers, my camera, my scale, and my laptop for taking notes.

I reverse engineer the widget, and build one for myself in my shop, with my own material. I like my cool new widget, especially since I didn't have to pay for it.

Now I get even more clever. I build a machine that has the ability to copy widgets. Whatever widget you have, you pop it in, and a copy is made. I never sell the copies I make (that would be a violation of the patent), but I do borrow alot of my friends widgets to make myself a personal copy.

Having perfected my widget copying machine, I get a patent, and begin to sell widget copiers. They're a hit, and the manufacturer of the original widgets sees a decline in sales, and blames me!

At what point in this fairy tale have I committed theft? If it is illegal to make copies for personal use, how exact does the copy have to be? In a world where nearly everything is available commercially, will it become illegal to make anything yourself if you got the idea from someone else?

Perhaps the real trouble is that the revenue generating paradigm for Musical Artists is antiquated. Maybe instead of trying to collect money from people listening to synthetic reproductions of their music, they should find another way to generate income from their work. More concerts, for example. Maybe the days of unbelievably wealthy music studios are over, and musicians are facing the inevitability of technological progress. Physical manufacturers may also one day face this scenario, like in the story above!

Just in time for Christmas, Stardock has released the Desktop Pet.  The Desktop Pet lives on your Windows XP desktop. He will interact with various included desktop objects. A sophisticated artificial intelligence engine helps bring him to life by giving him needs such as hunger, sleep, boredom, and even (ahem) the need to take a potty break. 

Users can set the various included desktop objects to be automated or take care of the feeding and cleaning up on their own.  It also includes options for muting sound, pausing, and unloading. The pet is saved to disk regularly so that if you close it or reboot he will be back to where he left off when you bring him back up again.

Stardock hopes to keep updating the pet after release to keep adding new behaviors, additional objects, and new habits to help keep the experience fresh and to respond to customer input.  The Desktop Pet is a fun $10 diversion and makes a great stocking stuffer for the computer user in your family. 

The home page for the Desktop Pet is https://www.stardock.com/products/desktoppet 

Recently I recieved permission from the site administrators to compile and make a weekly post regarding new widgets each week for Kapsules. It was suggested however, that users here (and elsewhere) might take more interest if this report of sorts was for every widget enabling application out there.

I feel that this is a great way to highlight each program and get the word out on new widgets for each. Afterall, the widgets really make the app. Please feel free to lend your suggestions, but keep in mind that this is intended to be a summary of widgets.

What I had in mind:

• A 'section' for Kapsules, AveDesk, Konfabulator and DesktopX
  
• Preview screenshots for each widget (hosted at imageshack of course, or directly linked with permission)
  
• Short description of the widget
  
• Current widget rating (if applicable)
  

To that end, and since I really dont use any other widget app other than Kapsules, I will have to rely on you - the user - to let me know what new widgets you would like showcased for the week. I have setup an email address with gmail (because its good at trapping spam) specifically for people to email me details on widgets for the report. kapsules@gmail.com.

Please feel free to send a short description if you like, but make sure to include a link where the download can be found. For instance, a link to the widget's card on www.widgetforge.com, the information page on www.wincustomize.com for DesktopX widgets, or even a forum post here on AquaSoft. If the demand is there for Dashboard widget's I would be happy to include those as well.

I'm relying on your input and suggestions for the report, so please help a brutha out

 

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.