As you may know, Multiplicity is a program that lets you take your various laptops and PCs that you have nearby and combine them together as a single computer. It’s a great way to increase how much power a given user has available to them. Pretty much everyone at Stardock uses it, particularly the art and development teams.

There’s been some great technology coming out of the Multiplicity 2 project.  One of which was released as a stand-alone program – Acoustic Bridge.

It’s still some months before Multiplicity 2 will be ready but there’s some pretty exciting things coming for it.

We are getting ready to close out another month and not a better way to finish it off than with a new edition of This Week in Skinning.  It’s been a pretty good week for skinning as we had several Master skins released along with a bunch of other skins in the galleries. 

Now for this weeks picks!

We have completed our annual customer report for last year.  Each year we send out a survey to our customer base asking them a host of questions so that we can better serve them.

In exchange, we share the results of these surveys along with a report on what went right and wrong the previous year along with plans for the forthcoming year.

We are pleased to present you the full report here: https://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/Stardock2011.pdf

We are halfway through the month of March and we end the week as usual with a new edition of This Week in Skinning.  If you missed some of the news this week, we released Beta 2 for WindowFX 5 which include improvements to the UI and new options to check out.

Now for this weeks picks!

Start8 was introduced this past week.  Who is talking about it?

• http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/08/start8-download-resurrects-the-start-button-on-windows-8-niche/
• http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-Start-Menu-App-Stardock-Brad-Wardell,14931.html
• http://www.ghacks.net/2012/03/06/stardocks-start8-brings-back-the-windows-8-start-menu/
• http://www.techspot.com/news/47695-stardock-releases-free-start-menu-app-for-windows-8.html
• http://www.neowin.net/news/interview-stardock-ceo-brad-wardell-talks-about-start8
• http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-start-menu-app-start8-released

Welcome back to another edition of This Week in Skinning!  Lots of talk this week going on about Windows 8, and if you have downloaded the consumer preview, then be sure to check out our newest app, Start8.

Now for this weeks picks!

A big annoyance for me with Windows 8 is that it takes multiple steps to simply shutdown or restart.  In Metro you have to sign out, then slide the lock screen, and then finally have the shutdown button.  That’s quite a few steps just to shut off your PC!

Start8 brings the start button back to Windows 8, and in doing so it also simplifies the shutdown process.

https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Just right-click the start button and you can shutdown from there.  Simple.

The lack of a start button and start menu in Windows 8 has made using Microsoft’s new OS a non-starter for me and a lot of other people. 

I like Metro, I really do – for tablets. But as a desktop user, I need a consistent work flow that lets me have my windows together on my desktop and don’t want to be jerked out of that environment every time I want to start some new program.

So here’s a free utility we put together that brings the Metro start menu onto the Windows 8 desktop:

https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

We got a start button / start menu up and running this afternoon.

http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/418946/Windows_8_Start_button_returns

I’ve already seen a lot of Microsoft fanboys complaining about how “Stardock always makes Windows look old” which is pretty ironic since it was Stardock that first introduced Windows users to the concept of ZIP files as folders, widgets, gadgets, docks (which we were doing before OS X), side bars, shadows, GUI skinning, composited desktops, open file dialog short-cuts, file version revisioning, etc. etc. 

What we do at Stardock is take Windows to try to make it better. Normally, it means adding new features to the OS. Having to bring back the Start button and Start menu is something, ideally, Microsoft will do before Windows 8 ships.

While Microsoft is at it, here’s a few other things that would be nice:

• Option to show Metro apps on the Windows desktop inside of window (there’s no reason they need to be full screen).
• High DPI mode
• Better multi monitor support
• Option to have the charm hot spots activate on mouse over rather than mousing over and clicking
• Being able to use the mouse to click drag around Metro (i.e. pretend the mouse is the finger)
• Some sort of…design understanding that 99% of Windows users will be using this as a desktop computer, not a tablet. I love tablets. I have several. I’ll happily use Windows 8 as a tablet. But when I’m at a desk, I have a keyboard and a mouse. PLEASE design the user experience with that in mind.

Here’s what we’ve put together in 24 hours:

So if Microsoft doesn’t restore the Windows 8 desktop to being able to work without jumping back and forth between it and Metro, we’ll do it.

Obviously we can improve on this but we’ll see how much Microsoft fixes things up before we invest too much time on this. Comment here if you think you’d be interested in something like this.  As the Windows 8 beta evolves, we can start to look at what sorts of usability things need to be addressed and put together something more comprehensive.

Update: GO HERE to get it: https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/