Skins, flames, and 'tude
Criticism or advice?
Wednesday, April 13, 2005 by Jafo | Discussion: Skinning
Something prompted by a recent upload....probably worthy of a general post.....
Just a 'gentle reminder'..skinning started long before XP came along. It has always been a personal process. Someone who 'could do it' 'would do it'. Then, they may, or may not subsequently choose to share it with others and upload it.
Because they were 'personal creations' they may suit the author admirably, with or without 'issues' that others may perceive on their own systems.
[Case in point...my WB skins were all designed for Litestep and, to the XP Explorer shell user they are not just 'buggy', they are very incomplete....yet on an LS system they work just fine.]
When suggesting there are errors, etc...and the author remarks 'I don't use IE so it doesn't affect me'...you are left with 2 options. Either adjust it yourself, or POLITELY suggest it could benefit with/from amendments.
There really are only two rules to remember.
1. The skins are given freely...appreciate that.
and
2. Fellow site members deserve consideration and respect.
Remember...skinning is supposed to be fun. There IS no room for 'attitude'....
The Mac of Today - Is it Time to Switch (Part 2)
Readjusting to the MacOS Interface
Wednesday, April 13, 2005 by Zoomba | Discussion: Personal Computing
Part 2 - Readjusting to the MacOS Interface
Welcome back! This is the second part in a five part series examining the Macintosh to see whether it has come far enough to seriously entice PC users to jump the fence and try living the Steve Jobs way. Part 1 was meant to establish a bit of background so you know where I'm coming from in these articles. Essentially I started on Macs, made the jump to PCs in 1996 and have just recently returned to the Mac fold so-to-speak. This segment will focus on the User Interface of MacOS X.
My Powerbook's Desktop
The Hard Adjustments
It's never easy switching between Operating Systems, they all do things differently. While many features are at least similar in location and behavior between platforms, some changes just toss you for a loop. Several times in OS X, both my knowledge of the old Mac world as well as Windows completely failed me.
1) The New Apple Menu
 The new and improved Apple Menu |
The new Apple Menu is something that took me a while to get used to. Under the old MacOS, it was a sort of catch-all space for you to place shortcuts, get quick access to system configs etc. Think of it as a disorganized Start Menu. The new Apple Menu is streamlined and you can no longer hide shortcuts within it for quick access. Now, the menu is meant for quick access to the core system tools. You can get to the System Preferences (Formerly called Control Panels), make changes to the Dock, determine which location you are at so your computer can utilize the proper network settings (I have configs for my apartment here in CT as well as for my parents home in PA whenever I visit), access to recent items, system software updates and the core Shutdown/Restart/Sleep options as well as a logout choice. So basically, out of the box you have nothing in OS X that comes close to the Start Menu in Windows, or the old Apple Menu from days long gone. This meant I had to relearn where a lot of system tools were hiding. This led me to my second adjustment problem... |
2) Where the (&$#@ are the printers?!!?
Ok, if you are familiar with the old MacOS, you know that the printers are handled through the Chooser, which you get to from the Apple Menu. The Chooser was sort of a swiss army knife as it was where they threw in all the system functionality they couldn't fit somewhere else. This was where you handled printers as well as connecting to network drives etc... Well problem number one is the Apple Menu as I knew it was gone, so I had to find out where they went and hid them. First I went running off to see if they were hidden in the System Preferences (Control Panels)... nope. I was left to dig through the directory structure manually to find it. I finally found it as a Printer application within the Utilities directory under Applications. Now in retrospect this is a logical place for a Printer tool to be kept, but it is counterintuitive to what Mac and Windows has done in the past. Once I got used to where it was, I found the Printer tool to be incredibly useful and very easy to use! |
3) Why won't it sort the icons how I want them sorted?
| I'm accustomed to the Windows way of sorting items within a folder. Folders first, sorted alphabetically, then files sorted alphabetically. This allowed me to quickly find a folder if I was looking for a folder, or a file if I was quickly looking for a file. Unfortunately, in OS X it seems to want to force me to always list in pure alphabetical form, mixing folders with files. This is such a disconnect to how I'm used to working that I *still* haven't grown accustomed to it in the year I've been back on the Mac. This is one of those cases where I butt up against the Apple mindset that they know best how I should use my machine, and lock away certain customizations. There HAS to be a hidden config somewhere that changes this, so I can get things sorted the way I like, but I've yet to find it. |  |
Old vs New - The Old MacOS to the New OS X
When you look at the older versions of MacOS and then at the new OS X, it looks like you're dealing with a completely different interface that holds little in common with the old version. In some cases, that's certainly true, but in many cases it's the same functionality with a new, pretty set of graphics over it.
Pre MacOS X |
MacOS X |
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| Desktop |
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| Folder Navigation |
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| System Configuration |
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| Accessing Open Applications |
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| File Sharing |
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There are a multitude of other common activities that map between the two systems, but the above suffice to show the differences and how, while different, remain pretty similar in form. It's not too hard to figure out the new way of doing things if you're used to the old way.
But comparing the how the two are similar and accomplish the same tasks is pretty boring, and since most people reading this are pretty computer saavy this is all painfully obvious stuff. The real fun with OS X is what it brings to the table in terms of NEW stuff...
New Toys!
So what new and flashy things does MacOS X bring to the OS world that have been sorely lacking from other standard Operating Systems? Well, lots of stuff actually. Now, some of these, such as the Dock, have been recreated by other developers for the Windows platform. I'm not looking at these as features that are necesarily EXCLUSIVE to the Mac, just ones that are bundled as standard features. It's all well and good to be able to add functionality through third party software, but it's at times preferable to have some functions built into the system, allowing for greater stability, as well as interesting hooks into other applications. I don't need a flood of comments like "Oh you can get that functionality with Software XYZ!" That's not the point here.
There are four new aspects to the User Interface that I particularly like. These are by no means the ONLY UI improvements you'll find in OS X, as there is a LOT of functionality built right into the Finder (such as CD Burning), these are just my favorite ones.
1) Exposé
Exposé is probably one of the neater features bundled with MacOSX as of 10.3 (Panther) It allows you to quickly gain access to several views of your system with just the press of a key. This is a function I don't think I've seen in any version of Windows, MacOS or Linux, but I bet we'll start seeing it in the next major versions in the coming years. There are three views you can activate with Exposé, the first being the ability to essentially "Zoom Out" and view every window of every application you have open on your computer by pressing the F9 key. You are presented with a series of thumbnails of your currently open windows, mousing over them gives you a little bit of information on the window such as the application and document title. Clicking on an item will zoom it to the forefront. This is great if you regularly have a dozen windows open and become confused or forget what else you have running, or whether or not you already have a file or web page open in the background. The second view you can access by hitting F10. This will show you all open windows within the current application. This is nice when you have multiple word documents, or multiple browser windows open. Once again, clicking on a thumbnail will zoom that window to the forefront. The third and most familiar mode to Windows users would be the Show Desktop mode. By hitting F11, all windows zoom off to the edges of the screen, clearing the way back to your desktop so you can quickly access your hard drive, any disks, or downloaded files you may have sitting on the Desktop. In this mode, along the edges of the screen you'll see a darkened region, sometimes with the edges of windows showing. You can just click on the darkened regions to bring back all the windows that were hidden. To de-activate any view, you can also hit the corresponding function key again. It will return you to the window you were previously in. |
 Exposé screenshots and captions taken from Apple.com |
2) Dock
This is the one part that most people visiting this article (either through JoeUser or WinCustomize) are the most familiar with. Apple added a "dock" to the system that acts much like the task bar does on the Windows side of life. Active applications reside here, as well as shortcuts to commonly used programs and games (or whatever you want to put on there). This is also where they've decided to place the Trash Can, removing it from the desktop where I'm used to it being. The dock can be customized a number of ways. You can position it on any side of the screen. It defaults to the bottom, but I have it aligned to the right of the screen. You can also scale the Dock to any size you like, turn icon maginification on or off, add or remove shortcut items as you like etc... If you've ever used Stardock's Object Dock (free or Plus) you know how the Dock works, and you know how useful it can be. It fits in with the entire OS X motif in ways that the old AppleMenu or a taskbar from Windows would not.
3) Spring Loaded Folders
This is one of those features that once you use it you think to yourself "This is just so obvious!" I'm sure everyone has had to drag and drop a file from one folder to another, but first had to click through a ton of folders in between to find the destination, then, with both the destination folder and the origin folder open, drag and drop. Seems simple because that's how we're used to things working. Well, OS X does it much better! You have an application on your desktop that you want to move to your Applications directory. Click and hold on the file, drag it over the Macintosh HD icon, it will automatically open the Hard Drive in a window. Continue to hold down the mouse, and now drag the file over your Applications folder icon, it will then open that directory and you can just release the item in the window. Ta-da! It's incredibly easy and intuitive to move files and folders around, reducing the amount of clicking you have to do.
Notes for Windows Users
There are a few points that are going to confuse life-long Windows users about the UI. I'll try and address them now...
Windows |
MacOS X |
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| Program List |
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| Active Applications |
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| System Configuration |
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| Delete Files |
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| Printers |
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| Mouse Menu |
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| Kill Frozen Application |
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| Quit Program |
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Those are the big-difference items that every user new to Macs coming from the Windows world should know.
Ok, that's it for this fast-and-furious tour of the main UI features to MacOS X. I could have spent days just examining this aspect of the Operating System, but I just wanted to hit on the high points, compare and contrast it to the older systems and to Windows. The UI for OS X is clean, well laid out and good looking. It doesn't allow you the same sort of customization many will be used to from having used WindowBlinds and the rest of the ObjectDesktop suite, but I've found little need to tweak the default appearance of my Mac. In fact I've picked up Steve's MacOS X Tiger theme suite for my PC to make my experience a bit more uniform as I move back and forth from Mac to PC.
Part 3 will focus on Software for OS X, taking a look at the bundled apps you get with the system, what major software packages are available from third party vendors, as well as what sorts of games you can expect to be able to play on the platform. Keep an eye out for that article around the end of the week.
JR's BiggerWheel Adventure 4.8.05
Friday, April 8, 2005 by Flyin | Discussion: Developer Journals
This week was one that I desparately needed. Our sites have been it's most stable this week since our move to chicago.
Still things to do to help with that, but that will be discussed later
Bugs Fixed:
1. Cannot Edit or delete posts
2. Editing and/or setting article's status is too slow
3. Within the libraries, the "Top Authors" Section of the right bar wasn't showing correctly.
4. Page Count for article comments was displaying incorrectly. For Example, if there are 4 pages of article replies, it was only showing as having 3, you would actually have to manually type in the url the 4th page.
5. Users could not move his/her posts from one forum to another in certain cases.
These are all bugs i had a chance to get to this week and now are currently SQUISHED!
MISC things done to help with site/server performance:
1. Did some profiling of our sites as usual, and just made sure our key queries weren't taken longer than usual, and noted others that need some TLC
2. Created some stored procedures to help with syncing articles from one db to another so that the process would be much more zippy when editing/deleting/setting status of articles.
3. When creating/editing/deleting an article from your blogsite of JU, it now queue's a job to sync that particular to our articles DB.
4. This task took most of the time this week, but i feel will help us in the long run.
Late last week, one of our external developers who is a whiz at Databases made a suggestion on how to structure a few of our intense queries. Well, Here are a few "things" that his suggestion has made an impact with:
a. Article Comments. Our methods of retrieving article comments wasn't bad, but was very average. this change made a 300% improvement in speed and efficiency.
b. Skin Comments. Similiar to the skin comments, it has made a significant impact in change.
c. Viewing and paging through featured articles
In all, i updated roughly 21 stored procedures to benefit from Alberto's suggestion. I figure i mine as well do it now before it becomes a major issue.
Some Key things that need to be addressed next week:
1. When a skin is created or approved, it doesn't always show up properly throughout the WC Main site as well as that author's personal page.
2. Personal pages!!!! Three key words - "Faster" "Faster" "Faster
we will be concentrating alot on using the new static page system t-man created this week and implementing it within the personal pages so that the browsing experience is much much better.
Well, i'm sure i forgot a few items, but that is it for the week. Have a great weekend! the weather in detroit is beautiful!
Flyin
WindowBlinds 4.51 Reviewed on Extended64.com
Extended64.com checks out 64 Bit compatability
Thursday, April 7, 2005 by Stardock Central | Discussion: WinCustomize News
WindowBlinds 4.51 has been reviewed on the Extended64 web site.
The conclusions?
* Installation: 10/10
* Ease of use: 9/10
* Performance 10/10
* x64 Compatibility: 10/10
Extended64.com Application Overall Rating: 9.75/10
Extended64 is "the first community website devoted to the Windows x64 Platform."
According to Administrator Ryan Hoffman "Our goal is to provide you with the
latest news, tweaks, tips, and guides for Windows x64." And now Extended64 has
done an in depth review of WindowBlinds 4.51.
Review: ThinkPad T42
IBM's ThinkPad series gains security, hard drive protection, smarter batteries
Wednesday, April 6, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: Laptops
IBM's latest power user ThinkPad is the T42. The T series of ThinkPads provide the best combination between raw performance and portability. The ThinkPad T series is what I use when I travel to demonstrate our latest software. It's portable enough that I can lug it around but still powerful enough to show off our various programs.
The T42 I received from IBM is a bit heavier than the T40 it is replacing (about a pound -- 5.7 pounds). While a relatively small difference, it is something I am definitely noticing as I lug it around. But I am amply rewarded with a 15 inch display (instead of 14.1 inches). Other details include a 1.8Ghz Pentium M processor. The M series of processors aren't like other processors. The Ghz doesn't really tell the story. In terms of every day usage, it "feels" about as fast as my 3Ghz desktop in terms of computing power. With the larger battery installed, it gets around 5 hours of real world battery use which means I can watch movies and what not on a cross-country trip.
My configuration also includes the IBM Multi-Burner DVD/CD-ROM drive burner drive which lets me make both CDs and DVDs. The native display resolution is 1400x1050 which is quite useful when doing development, video work, or graphics design. Bundled software allows me to hit the Fn-Space bar to toggle between its maximum display and various lower "zoomed" displays for when I browsing or writing an article (such as this one). The actual adapter is an ATI Radeon 9600 Mobility which translates to meaning I can play most of the latest games just fine on it if I want and this is also important for me since I'm coding parts of Galactic Civilizations II on it.
One feature I didn't really notice when I ordered it but am finding I really like is the new Finger Print reader (see #9 in the shot to the left). Instead of using a UserID and password to logon, I just put my index finger the finger print reader and it logs me in. It's well, it's pretty damn cool.
The bundled software IBM has included has finally reached the point where I don't immediately try to scrub it all off. I still remove most of it as it makes the default boot time take forever (IBM take note, IBM Messages is annoying!). One piece of bundled software in particular I like -- IBM Active Protection. Basically it monitors the stability of the machine in real time. I mean the physical stability. So any jarring or rapid movement and it'll instantly turn off the hard drive.
One feature I've noticed other reviews haven't mentioned that is very important is the new way the battery is handled. In previous versions of the ThinkPad, the battery would keep charging even when plugged in. So IBM batteries tended to die out after around a year. But now the "Improve Battery Health" feature lets you turn that behavior off.
The included 802.11g connectivity has very impressive range (much the same as the T40's 802.11b). IBM also includes a lot (arguably too much) wireless network software to make it "easy" to connect to a wide variety of networks. In practice, I don't find this to be that useful as Windows XP SP2's wireless network features are more than enough.
In terms of usage, the ThinkPad T42 keyboard has keys that are spaced and sized the same as a desktop keyboard. The result is that moving from your desktop to the ThinkPad is a smooth transition.
There's not much to complain about here, overall it's a fantastic laptop for the power user. If you need a workhorse laptop that works both as a desktop and is quite portable, you can't do much better than IBM's ThinkPad T42. Now how things will go with Chinese PC vendor, Lenova in charge remains to be seen. I have been using ThinkPads since 1994 and can't even imagine using any other laptop (particularly one without a trackpoint). But for now, the ThinkPad T42 is my laptop of choice.
| IBM ThinkPad T42 Configuration: memory: 1.5 Gigs Display: 15 inch CPU: 1.8Ghz Video: ATI M9600 Drive: 50GB Price: $2,498 |
JR's BiggerWheel Adventure 4.1.05.
Friday, April 1, 2005 by Flyin | Discussion: Developer Journals
It's been a short week, but have made a few big strides!
Optimization was the name of the game this week.
As you guys and gals know, our sites haven't been as happy as we all would like them to be lately which is due in part to alot of things, but which has raised
a very very large red flag.
Now on to the Updates:
- We learned a little bit ago, for all you .net web developers out there, that when you use an SQLDataReader that it does not get closed naturally after it is done doing a databind rather it holds the connection to the database open until the garbage collector comes by and does the proper actions for the datareader. Well, This fix took me a while! I went through all of our Wincustomize based code, which as you can imagine is large and made sure that all instances of SQLDataReader are opneing and closing the datareaders in a proper fashion with the proper exception handling to wrap around each code block.
- One of our developers emailed T-man and I today with something he has seen us do alot of which apperently isn't the most effective way to page through mounds and mounds of records. Take for instance our Marathon thread, for quite some time now the thread has been unreadable and unmanageable on our part because the query to populate that bad boy has just been flat out painful. Well, with the suggestions by Alberto, we have cut that query down to be over 6 times faster now than before, and although still not as fast as you guys want, it does the job much more efficiently and most of all doesn't take as much server processing to complete!
- Our database that is currently serving up articles was very dependant on our huge master DB for information, so, if the master DB was slow in responding, articles would also be slow to respond obviously. Well, we thought it over, and the articles DB should be independant of the master database in such a way that if the master were to go down, the community should be able to still browse articles in most circumstances, well, we have made a large stride in doing so which didn't take much time at all. Basically, T-man setup replication on a few tables from the master DB to be copied over to the Articles DB so if need be, it can run the forum lists independently. All i had to do on my part was change some queries so that it would no longer look at the master for some information, but would look locally within it's own DB and now things seem to respond much better. We will see just how well.
- I assisted Andrew_ in the forums he is writing that will soon be up for public use. I wrote some cache callbacks for him so that when a forum listing expires from cache, it will refresh itself so that the next user will get a "faster" copy of the data and not have to wait for a call to the database. I also did cache callbacks for the subtopic dropdownlists, and the forum bookmarks.
- BUG: User was able to obtain the "Admin" Honorific! Little rascal, well, i make a check to see when you change your honorific, the code checks to see if you have the proper access and if so, gives you the honorific, else, STOP HACKING THE SITE!
Yes, if you can see i had my DBA hat on this week, well for the last few weeks profiling and such to see what is bringing down our sites. This weekend will tell alot about the strides we have made this week. Let's just now cross our fingers and hope for a solid weekend of sites running the way they were first intended to!
Have a great weekend all, and i don't have any good jokes, but APRIL FOOLS ANYWAYS!
Peace out
Flyin
What Computers & The Internet Have Done To My Brain
...ooh, shiny object...
Thursday, March 31, 2005 by Zoomba | Discussion: Living in Cyberspace
I'm one of those guys who has essentially grown up around computers. Since I first laid eyes on my dad's Macintosh Plus (one of the lunchbox Mac models) when I was 5 years old (1987), I was hooked. I spent hours crashing that thing, trying to take it apart bit by bit to figure out how it worked. Then, a few years later, I got to experience The Internet for the first time... but before there was a World Wide Web. I used to spend entire weekends in my dad's office surfing Gopher. I read articles and papers on topics that I had absolutely no interest in just because I could. It astounded me that I could read papers stored on computers on the other side of the country in the blink of an eye. As time went on, the computers we had at home became more sophisticated, the Internet really took off, and I was right there in the middle of it, living through every advance. I had an e-mail account before most of the adults I knew. I had a web page before such a thing as WYSIWYG editing existed. I was doing Internet Relay Chat while people were just coming to grips with AOL chat rooms. I was on the bleeding edge, and I loved it.
It was a common thing to see me at the computer in High School with 7 AIM conversations running, several email exchanges going on, a few web browsers open to forums, talking on the phone with a friend while holding a conversation with someone in the room standing next to me. There was multitasking... then there was what I was doing. I was keeping track of dozens of different things at once with ease. Most people who would watch me do this couldn't even keep up with what program I was currently typing in as I clicked around the desktop at the speed of thought.
Fast forward a few years to my Junior Year of college. What I had been doing wasn't so rare anymore, everyone had a dozen email addresses, anyone could make a web page, AIM was a staple of life (whenever AIM would crash for whatever reason, you'd see students wandering campus and building hallways with a lost look on their faces). Now, it was also at this time that my course work got serious, and my part-time job as IT Guru for the Biochem Dept got pretty involved and required a lot more attention. I suddenly found that when I had to concentrate on one item for a long period of time (i.e. a major project) I would be distracted within 30min. I thought maybe it was because I was bored with the task at hand... but it happened when I was doing IT work, something I enjoy a great deal. My attention span was completely shot. I had grown up juggling a dozen things in my mind at once, so when I had to just go at one at a time, I couldn't do it.
I pretty much exhibit all the signs of adult attention deficit disorder... I can't concentrate on any one thing for very long unless its something that is in some way continually changing. I can sit for hours and read books... I can play a video game all day... because both of those experiences are continually changing (story, dialogue, activities etc...). Ask me to work on the requirements document for a legal compliance project and I’ll start to zone out, start thinking of a dozen different things I need to do or wish I was doing.
This, I think, is the greatest danger associated with growing up immersed in technology. The world never sits still long enough to concentrate. Even the nature of work now is much different with people constantly shifting from meeting to meeting, tasked to work on half a dozen projects at once, juggling the flood of emails for each project and then having to go home and manage a personal life and finances. Technology has sped everything up, and now most people are simply unable to slow down.
Ooooh… look… shiny… *wanders off*
WinCustomizing like it's a big DVD
WC Browser v2.0 preview
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: OS Customization
The people who purchase WinCustomize premium subscriptions, or as they're known in the office "Givers of life and food" get a lot of really cool stuff. Of the 3 million people who visit WinCustomize.com each month, fewer than 0.01% of them purchase a WinCustomize subscription. Perhaps it's because people don't know all the cool stuff they get such as the photo album support, the personal pages, the unlimited bandwidth use, the premium suties.
Or perhaps they don't know just how cool the new WinCustomize Browser 2.0 is going to be. Now, if you have Stardock Central and a WinCustomize subscription, 2.0 will automatically integrate itself in when it comes out in the next several weeks. Some of the new features are cosmetic, but a lot of it is under the hood stuff.
The WinCustomize.com browser bypasses the website and goes directly into the databases. In effect, it turns our many gigabytes of content into a virtual DVD for you to peruse. The new version in beta integrates into the new design and underpinning for the site. For example, you can view the skins, themes, wallpapers, etc. in many different ways (thumbnails, details, etc.). The new version can bring up thumbnails very quickly. The new forum system is integrated into the latest build and it's hard to go back to slogging through the website to visit forum posts once you've used what's in WC browser.
If you don't have a WinCustomize premium subscription, you can get it HERE. It's only $20. And you get an amazing amount of goodies for it.
The Online Operating Environment
Slowly making the desktop OS irrellevant
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 by Zoomba | Discussion: OS Wars
Welcome to the new frontier of personal computing!
Each and every one of the technologies I listed above have been around for a number of years now in one form or another. I've personally been using blogs and webmail for about 6 years now, network file storage for about 5, streaming media for about 4, and downloadable apps & games for the past 2 years. I've picked up these services from places like Google, Yahoo, Stardock, WinAmp (Shoutcast), GameSpy and my former University (and employer). Because of these services, I'm storing less and less information on my PC. My e-mail sits on far off servers, my writing sits on blogs, many of my important documents reside on file servers (both in my home and in places abroad), much of my music is streamed, or stashed away on my iPod. I even have software on Stardock's servers that I download on-demand. My computer is quickly becoming interchangable with any other computer that comes with a standard set of software.
So the technology exists in bits and pieces scattered among a dozen different companies, not much of it pulls together easily either. Stardock is on the cusp with their offerings, but as yet it doesn't feel like they all fit together as one coherent piece, though I'm sure that's on the horizon. Brad has even spoken about the need to integrate many of the features I listed above into the Operating System itself. This is also a subject of speculation when it comes to Google, or the secret plans of Microsoft. We're sitting on the edge of the cliff when it comes to the next major technological shift in home computing. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Stardock are all looking to the future and trying to determine how best to proceed.
Microsoft is going its usual way by leveraging it's massive Windows Operating System as the end-all-be-all solution to everything. Just cram more into the OS and it shall be good! So far they've done a pretty bad job at leveraging their muscle in the integrated technology and services area for the average consumer. WebTV, the aborted set-top box, their music player effort etc haven't worked like they would like. Their online services via MSN (and hotmail) also haven't really gotten the foothold they would like. This makes Microsoft perhaps the least likely to be the ones to realize and bring to reality this next step in computing, which is ironic considering they have the largest install base possible. They'll do the same thing in this area that they did with the Web. They'll ignore it until someone else comes in and exploits the full potential and does the back-breaking work of making the public aware of it. Then they'll come in and leverage their resources to make their product the dominant one.
Google and Yahoo are taking an interesting direction on this. They don't install stuff to your PC (with the exception of a few services like Desktop Search or Yahoo Messenger). You can do email (and by extension file storage), writing, calendar planning, person-to-person communication etc all via their web sites. Their offerings are available to you wherever you find a computer with an Internet connection, and they don't care if you're running Windows, MacOS or Linux. The only tool you need is a Web Browser. The services they offer are limited only by the imagination of their programmers and the connection speed of their users. But with broadband becoming the standard, speed is less of an issue now than it was. (On a side note, since Google publishes all of its APIs for use, I wonder how long before someone writes a program that uses a google email account as a file storage system, and instead of displaying mailbox contents, sorts and displays the attached files, using the emails attached as comments/descriptions)
Apple is one of the more interesting in this arena. The Mac Mini, the iPod (and soon wireless iPod... wiPod? Because! yuk yuk yuk...) and their focus on sleek, incredibly user friendly interfaces. Adding in a strong wireless integration feature to their products, connected with the .Mac services (file storage, email etc) and they'll have a very easy to setup (though expensive) sleek and sexy home information system. Video, music, television, Internet... all controlled centrally, all accessed easily from any device in the house. All connected to an unlimited number of online services. Pull out your iPalm anywhere there's a wireless network... grab your iCal calendar from your .Mac service, which is also instantly accessable from your home. The transition between home and work, or the mall or wherever becomes seamless as you carry with you your entire library of information. E-Mail, music, calendar, it's always with you.
Stardock presents a completely different side of the integrated/seamless online services issue. Stardock Central (SDC) is your one-stop-shop for everything SD related. All your products are downloaded from there directly, all you have to do is provide the system with your login and serial numbers. I have near-instant access to my software from any computer with SDC and a net connection. Add to SDC, JoeUser (and BlogNavigator which isn't quite where I'd like it to be yet in terms of usability) and WinCustomize and you have the integration of a strong online community and set of services. All of which are equally accessable from any net connected PC (sorry Mac and Linux users...). While Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Google are providing the service side of the networked platform, Stardock is providing the content... the applications and games. Same coin, different side.
Things have already progressed to the point that I have a small set of installers and files that I keep backed up to a CD, so that when I have to do a new install of Windows, I can get up and running and have my system customized as I like it within an hour. I need Firefox, Norton, SDC and my theme suite file. Install, download, done.
What we're moving towards however is the ability for me to reinstall my OS, fire up a web browser and click a button that says "Setup My System!" and boom, it's all there, pulled from web sites automatically, installed and configured the way I like it. All online. Take it one step further and it could be my network profile I pull up on any computer I ever sit down at in the world. We're getting there, just not quite there yet.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in this arena in the next 5 years.
Visual Styles
A definition
Monday, March 28, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: Customization Software
Visual Styles:
A visual style is a partiuclar type of "skin" designed to change the look and feel of the entire user interface of an operating system.
On Windows XP, there are two popular formats for visuals tyles - WindowBlinds and MSStyles.
WindowBlinds visual styles are designed to be more flexible than MSStyles but require the user to use the commercial program, WindowBlinds ($19.95) in order to get the most out of them.
MSStyles are very basic but are also free. They cannot move title bar buttons, cannot change border sizes, cannot add additional buttons to the title bar, cannot change styles on title bar text, cannot control alignment on controls or text.
Advocates for MSStyles will argue that these limitations are a good thing because most msstyles tend to be pretty derivative of the existing Windows XP look and therefore are more "usable". Proponents for WindowBlinds will argue that WindowBlinds users can use msstyles as well via SkinStudio and that the whole point of "skinning" your GUI is to be able to make it look and feel how you want not just tweak it a little bit. MSStyles cannot change tool bar buttons or progress animations and don't skin as many parts of the Windows XP OS.
The advantage of WindowBlinds (the program) is that in addition to being able to use WindowBlinds visual styles as well as MSStyles via SkinStudio that it can provide hardware acceleration based on graphic card improvements that have been made since Windows XP's release back in 2001. In addition, WindowBlinds provides features such as color changing on the fly, per application visual style support, mouse button customization, mixing and matching progress animations and toolbar icons, and can skin non-theme aware applications.
For a full list of WindowBlinds features versus the bundled msstyle system, visit http://www.windowblinds.net/wb4