We are just grinding our way through August with another strong week on WinCustomize!  A nice variety of skins were rolled in this week, and we also had some lively discussion on the WC forums.

Now for this weeks picks!

People often ask me how to get more views and downloads for their skins.  We get a real decent amount of traffic on WinCustomize, but sometimes standing out from the rest of the pack is difficult.  We try to feature and promote people as much as we can, but there just so much that can be done by just one or two people here.  If you check out our WC Facebook page, we often post skins and news there which has introduced WinCustomize to a whole new group of people.

I wanted to share some various tips that can you and your skins get more attention, which in turns helps WinCustomize as well.  It’s a win-win!

Make a Tumblr blog. (www.tumblr.com)

These are quick blogs that people often use for photography and displaying images of all sorts.  I actually have one setup for desktop customization, but unfortunately I lack the time to post skins there on a regular basis.  Open your own blog, or even volunteer to help with this one.

Use e-mail signatures.

Whether you use a web e-mail service like Gmail or Hotmail, or a client like Outlook or Thunderbird, most have a way to create and save signatures that can be used on your outgoing mail.  Depending on what they allow, these are usually rich text or html-based signatures.  As you can see from my work one below, I have a link going to the Stardock.com page, and links to our various social networks.  E-mail is very common obviously, so placing a link to your galleries or profile is another way to spread the word about yourself.

Share Yourself!

Use social networks to your advantage.  Share your individual skins on whatever networks you have access to.  Many of these have tools like browser bookmarklets that make sharing pretty easy. 

Best places to share:

• www.twitter.com
• www.facebook.com
• www.stumbleupon.com
• http://www.delicious.com/
• http://plus.google.com

Let me make a reminder you don’t have to do any of this.  These tips are for people who are looking to expand their reach and willing to do a bit of work to achieve that.

And another week down, and another week of WinCustomize being filled with skins! 

Now for this weeks picks!

Hey, it’s the first TWiS for August!  Not a lot of news to report on this week, but we did have a steady flow of skins of which a few we will highlight today.

Now for this weeks picks!

Another month down, and another month closer to the end of this blistering summer heat.  We have a fantastic new Master skin in the gallery this week, along with some new animated and static wallpapers.

Now for this weeks picks!

People send us messages every day via Twitter and Facebook telling us how much they love using Fences to organize their desktop.  One thing I have noticed when talking with people is some don’t realize how you can customize Fences with a variety of options available.

If you don’t already have Fences, grab the free download here: https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

I would suggest upgrading to the Pro version as it has some valuable options like automatic sorting, fading effects, and more.

Customizing the Labels of Fences

As I said, Fences has a variety of options to tweak the look of the actual Fences on your desktop.  When I find a new wallpaper or WindowBlinds skin I like, I will adjust my Fences to fit in with the overall look I am trying to achieve.  Clicking the appearance button in the Fences configuration is where we will start.

The first way to customize Fences is choosing the layout of labels.  The label is the name displayed on your Fence, and the screenshot below shows my Links fence.  In the Fences configuration you can choose not to display the label, have it always displayed, or only display on mouseover.

Adjusting Transparency

Adjusting the transparency of Fences is probably what I do most option.  I do this to make the Fences either more or less visible on the desktop, depending on what wallpaper I am using at the time.  Adjust this is really simple, just move the slider left or right to adjust the amount of transparency given. 

Coloring

If you want to really change the look of the Fence, you can use the color, tint, and saturation sliders to adjust the coloring of Fences.

Misc. Tweaks

There’s a few more options available in the Appearance section to tweak Fences even further. 

• Change label text color
• Outline the Fence area
• Fade scrollbars when inactive
• Hide shortcut arrows on icons

A feature available in the Pro version of Fences is having Fences being faded until mouseover.  Right-click on a Fence, select View, then Opacity.  Select the transparency percentage you want, and then your Fence will be faded until mouseover.

I hope this helps you customize Fences a bit more, and be sure to show us how you are using Fences on your desktop!

Among the many capabilities of Stardock’s DeskScapes, one of them is the ability to manage wallpapers on your PC.  One feature in particular is DeskScapes applying random backgrounds at set intervals.  There’s so many great wallpapers out there, there’s no reason to keep just one on there all day!

Select Random Background from the wallpaper library.

Selecting this gives you a new tab to select wallpapers both animated and static.  You also have a new configuration option.

This setting lets you choose the intervals to which DeksScapes will change your wallpapers.  Now just sit back and enjoy the wallpaper show!

Get DeskScapes here.

Microsoft is expanding their network of retail stores in the coming years.  There’s only a handful of them now, but over the next 3 years they are going to expand to at least 75 new stores around the country.

Via Neowin:

Here's a great article about Stardock from a local website.

http://plymouth-mi.patch.com/articles/plymouth-based-software-game-development-company-looks-to-future

In lieu of a front-desk receptionist is a young, bearded man in a purple t-shirt, cut-off shorts and flip-flops. This is Matt Bertsch, a technical adviser for the independent software company. On his desk sits a variety of emptied craft-beer bottles, statuettes, a variety of props and an opened deck of playing cards.

Bertsch explains that the usual receptionist just moved to Dallas for other Stardock-related duties as he retrieves Brad Wardell, the president and CEO of Stardock, who occupies a top-floor office with his dog.

Happy July everyone!  It’s great to kick off a new month especially with our friends here on WinCustomize.  Just a reminder that we have the Summer CursorFX contest going on, and we are taking entries until July 11th so there’s plenty of time to get an entry in. 

Now for this weeks picks!