How is everyone doing this fine Friday?  I am so pleased at all the Christmas and winter themed skins we have had come in this week, along with all the other non-holiday skins. 

This weeks skin picks!

	V DX by RedneckDude Made to match a WB skin from vStyler, this stands out on its own as a fantastic DX theme.
	Christmas Fire (dual) by CarGuy1 This is an excellent animated wallpaper created for dual-screen users.  Perfect for the cold winter days.
	Titans Forge IP by Xiandi Part of the Titans Forge set, this is a great looked and detailed icon set.  Nice work!
	Winter folders by ethylmorphin This is a fun set of winter themed icons that can be used in ObjectDock.
	Xmas Trees by BoXXi A “simple” but extremely nice Christmas wallpaper that will fit with many themes.
	Avante by navigatsio More of a minimal type skin, but that’s just what many ask for and navigatsio did a fantastic job on this.
	Happy Holidays by k10w3 More holiday skins are always welcome, and the latest addition from k10w3 is a beautiful example of how one should be done.

WindowBlinds is the application to completely change the look and feel of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.  It has been downloaded over 16 million times on Download.com alone, and there are thousands of skins that can be downloaded from sites like WinCustomize.com. 

Included in WB 7.2:

• Added advanced glass support including new sections for SkinStudio
• Improved compatibility with pre-release Firefox 4 and IE9 builds
• Added new IE9 sections
• Added support for per-skin custom colors
• Optimized skin changing speed on 64-bit Windows

A free trial is available and can be downloaded from Download.com.  More information about WindowBlinds can be found at www.windowblinds.net.

The holiday season is finally upon us, and with Impulse having tons of games and applications available, I wanted to take this opportunity to put together some gift guides to help make your shopping a bit easier.  Today we will start off taking a look at some of the desktop applications available on Impulse.

These are all great apps for either yourself or a friend or family member.  If you still aren’t exactly sure what they want, you can also pickup an Impulse Gift Card.

Fences Pro

Fences is a hugely popular desktop application.  It takes a desktop full of scattered icons and wrangles them up into “fences” that can be arranged in a variety of ways.  Pro version adds features like default Fences for new icons, automatic organization, sorting by type, and more. ($19.95)

WindowBlinds 7

WindowBlinds is the top app to have if you want to change the look and feel of Windows.  Thousands of skins are available for download, and customization options like Aero skinning, textures, coloring and more make this a must-have for any desktop user. ($19.95)

ObjectDock Plus 2

ObjectDock Plus 2 was released not too long ago, and is the follow-up to the also highly popular ObjectDock.  Many improvements and feature additions have been added to this release including, a new user interface, folder-view tabs, multiple docks, and new effects. ($19.95)

Multiplicity Pro

If you have more than one PC on your desktop, then you are missing out if you are not using Multiplicity.  Multiplicity enables users to control several PC’s with just one mouse and keyboard.  ($39.95)

Object Desktop

Object Desktop is a bundle of desktop applications which includes WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, Iconpackager, WindowFX, and many more.  It’s the best value at $49.95 and includes a year of updates.

There are so many wallpapers to choose from around the holidays, it is very hard to choose just one.  Personally, I use the wallpaper changer in WindowBlinds 7 to change them at certain intervals, so I can enjoy more than just one.  WinCustomize has a bunch of cool Christmas wallpapers available, and here are more of my favorites.

Winter is pretty much here, and although some of you may be experiencing real snowflakes outside, maybe you would also like to enjoy some animated snowflakes on your desktop.  DeskScapes 3 has a Snow effect that puts animated snow falling on your desktop.  Just select it from the Effects tab, and any wallpaper you are using will have a really cool snow effect added!

Get DeskScapes - https://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/

Welcome to December, and for many of you, much cooler weather.  The holidays are coming up quickly, and I hope to see more holiday skins and wallpapers make their way into the galleries in the next week or so.

Now for this weeks picks!

	ColorCraft by BoXXi I really like this CursorFX theme.  It works with so many WindowBlinds skins you really can’t go wrong with it.
	Happy Holidays II by amitsaran Just in time to get the holiday desktops setups, this beautiful animated wallpaper makes a perfect addition.
	Simple Po Christmas Another superb pack of Christmas wallpapers!
	Credo by essorant The latest Master Skin from essorant is definitely a top pick from me.  Great work!
	C5 by gmc2 Based upon the Civ5 game interface, this skin uses cool gradients and transparency for a slick design.

Fences is the widely popular application from Stardock that helps you wrangle up those icons spread out all over your desktop.  The v1.1 update for Fences Pro is out today with various fixes and improvements.

• Added ability to toggle hidden fences at startup
• Added "Hide shortcut arrows on desktop icons" to Appearance tab
• Reliability improvements based on user feedback
• Numerous small UI tweaks
• Improved multimonitor support
• Icons no longer have risk of falling out of their fence on F5 and/or monitor resize
• Fixed flicker when moving a fence behind the taskbar on Win7
• Fixed issue where new icons could become "stranded" until interacted with, particularly on XP
• Fixed issue where moving Fences beneath the bottom of the screen exhibited odd behavior
• Improved "Disable Fences" functionality
• Fences now "come to the front" when moved. Fixes behavior where you could move a Fence behind another and then lose access to it.

Current users can update via Impulse.  More information about Fences can be found at its website.

https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/index.asp

ObjectDock is one of the most popular desktop applications out there today.  Its functionality, ease of use, and variety of downloadable themes gives it an edge you won’t find with any other similar application.  As of today, ObjectDock has been downloaded over 9.7 million times on the popular Download.com website.  As we approach the 10 million mark, this is an amazing amount of downloads and look forward to millions more!

ObjectDock at Download.com

The big Impulse Thanksgiving Sale starts today and runs throughout the Thanksgiving holiday next week.  This is a fantastic sale on both PC games and desktop applications, so there is something for everyone! 

Impulse Thanksgiving Sale

A few highlights from the sale:

• Grand Ages Rome Gold Edition – $7.49
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Bundle Pack – $9.99
• Tropico 3 – $7.49
• Sword of the Stars - Complete Collection – $14.99
• The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom™ – $24.99
• Star Trek Online – $9.99
• Dark Void – $9.99
• The Political Machine 2008 – $2.99
• IconDeveloper – $1.99
• DeskScapes 3 – $14.96

This is a demo video showing off some examples of the Inactive Window features in WindowFX 4.

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