It’s a roaring Friday and we have another stack of sweet deals on Impulse this weekend.  While I have your attention, remember that time is running out to get into this phase of the Elemental: War of Magic beta by pre-ordering.  Get in before the end of September or you will have to wait until the next beta opening.

Now lets check out this weekends deals!

	Project Aftermath for 50% off - $4.99
	Fairy Tales – Three Heroes for just $19.99
	East India Company is 50% off - $19.99
	Capitalism II is 50% off - $6.99
	Age of Booty is 50% off - $4.99
	Scrapland for just $6.99

Check out the current sales we have going on in Impulse.

http://www.impulsedriven.com/explore/onsale

I came across the XP .msstyle convertor tool today, and I was very curious of what an XP visual style would look like on Windows 7 after conversion to a WindowBlinds theme.  To my surprise, it actually looks pretty good.

A little work needs to be done in SkinStudio, but overall the conversion worked pretty well.  I’d like to know the interest in wanting to use old XP themes on Windows 7.

A brand new feature in WindowBlinds 7 , and one of the coolest is the ability to add textures to a WindowBlinds theme.  This opens up a whole new area of desktop customization as it can easily bring a new look to old or new themes.  WindowBlinds current has 20 textures available, and you can easily add your own for even more advanced customization.

Texture files can be found in: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Stardock\WindowBlinds\Textures

A tip for creating textures:

For those of you who want to make .texture files, you should make a copy of an existing .texture file and open it in notepad.  You will then see there are three sections.  One for the taskbar, one for the startmenu and one for the frames.  The images do not have to be the same for all three.

Edit the file pointing to new images (saved as .TGA in the same folder) and you have a new texture.

For skin authors, you can also put .texture files in your skin folder and they will only show for that skin.

The screenshots below show an example of a theme without and with a texture applied. 

For more information about WindowBlinds, please visit the sites below.

www.windowblinds.net

www.objectdesktop.com

Today we are happy to announce an update to the WindowBlinds 7 Beta.  The WindowBlinds 7 beta is currently available for active subscribers to Object Desktop , and can be downloaded via Stardock’s Impulse. 

New in this update:

1. XP toolbar & animations settings are back in the UI. They are under Settings now
2. On Vista the sidebar skin settings are back in the UI. Also under Settings.
3. Explorer backgrounds tab has been added to the UI. This will show on XP, Vista AND Windows 7.
4. New Textures tab added to the UI.
5. Support for enlarged menus on Vista / 7
6. Some additional skin sections added for Vista / 7 including new shadow sections.
7. The fixes for the start button clipping on multiple monitor Win7 boxes are in this build.
8. The old WB UI has a bigger button for the new UI and says Beta 2 rather than Beta 1.
9. You can drag wallpapers to the large preview area and it will copy them into the wallpapers folder off WB skins as it used to in WB6. Note that its the large preview area and NOT the list itself.

Today is a busy day, so lets get right into this weeks featured theme picks.

	EcoGlass by B2R This CursorFX theme is unique in its design, and that’s why I like it.
	The Captain’s Gadget by theAVMAN This is just slick.  No need for more words, just download it.
	Win7Rayz by Ausvet This is a very cool animated wallpaper.  Bright colors and smooth animation.
	Four cubes by IdetSneg It’s hard to see some of the details in the preview, but this is a very cool wallpaper set.
	First Winter by kenwas The details here are amazing.  Still not sure whether I’m looking at a 3D render or a painted picture.
	Test by Xiandi This is the WindowBlinds theme for the Test series.  Great job!
	Magnetek XP by 2of3 I can always expect a fantastic WB theme from 2of3, and once again I’m not disappointed.

It’s time once again to wrap up this week, and as is customary we will kick the weekend off with another round of Impulse Weekend Buys!  Aside from these specific deals, I would also recommend checking out the newly released on Impulse, Civilization IV series.  Don’t forget to check out Majesty 2 which was just released this week.

Now for the Impulse Weekend Buys!

	Pre-order Tropico 3 for just $32.50 – 10% off
	Scavenger is 50% off - $4.99
	Droplitz is 50% off - $4.99
	Aztaka on sale for $14.95

This is a video I created for the Object Desktop website.  It’s showing how you can take a “normal” Windows desktop and transform it into something much more using the included desktop enhancement components.

Summer is starting to wrap up, although the heat down here isn’t letting up anytime soon it seems.  This summer was a great one for skinning, as it didn’t slow down too much which is usual during this time of year.  I’m also seeing more and more new faces around, so welcome to any new skinners we have!

Now for this weeks picks!

	Santa – Rear View by Mark Snyder I think we have our first Christmas skin for the year!
	Custom Clocks by Richard Mohler The details are just superb, and make a great DX gadget.
	Dark World by CarGuy1 This is just a sweet .dream.  Put it with a dark WindowBlinds theme and it’s perfect.
	Ozone V@ by Snowman Snowman is bringing us some great themes for RightClick, and this is one of my favorites.
	Ming’s Backyard by Gammeldansk I just really like the scene in this wallpaper.  Great job.

A year ago if someone would have told me that Impulse would have become nearly as popular as it has I wouldn’t have believed it.  The growth of digital distribution has been explosive across the board.

Impulse Phase IV, launched today, is a major overhaul for the popular digital distribution platform in more ways than one.

First, there is the client itself.  While some users have requested more visual options (like darker backgrounds and such which are in the works), the big change with the Impulse client is performance.

A year ago, developer Stardock had to have a “fast load” option in order for the pokey client to load at a reasonable level. It did this by having part of itself launch on start-up which was objected to (rightly so) by many users.  Fast-forward a year and Impulse loads quickly and uses very little memory.  Even when web controls are used, the amount of memory used is still far less than many commonly used programs as the screenshot above makes apparent.

In addition, a year ago Impulse’s content included basically Stardock’s plus a handful of indies.  Now, a year later pretty much every major player in the PC game market is on Impulse.  This week EA’s flagship titles go up and most new games arrive on Impulse at the same time as anywhere else with its prices being typically lower and its download speeds being higher than elsewhere.

A year after launch, Impulse now boasts most of the top games at launch day and supports applications and utilities as well.

The original Impulse store was…painful.  The new one allows per category featuring.

The new store catalog is quick to browse

Now, that isn’t to say that Impulse represents perfection.  There are still several things that need to be added in my view to Impulse:

1. For Gamers. Ready to Play needs to get out there as soon as possible.  Users who go to http://readytoplay.stardock.com and sign on for the beta which will start getting out there in the next few days.  However, Stardock does not intend to bundle Ready to Play with the Impulse client at this time in order to keep the base download size of the package as small as possible.

2. Community Features. These remain an area Stardock will need to focus more on if it hopes to see it be more competitive with entrenched players like Steam.  That is, groups, clans, developer support features, third-party support for Achievements, rankings, and match making are all things Impulse needs to improve on.  Still, Phase IV of Impulse sets up a good foundation to get there.

 
Impulse’s Common Virtual Platform (CVP) supports achievements, rankings, and match-making but it isn’t expected to be made available to third-party developers until this Winter. Since it’s .NET based, developers can support it with virtually no code changes to their games. But it’s not out yet for third parties so it’s academic.

3. Catalog. Catalog. Catalog. While Impulse has done a good job in catching up to other players in this space in terms of getting new third-party content, there’s a huge back catalog that Stardock needs to get onto Impulse to make it compelling.

Right now, Impulse’s biggest advantages remain very “bread and butter” (i.e. boring): Stuff on it tends to be cheaper, its download speeds higher, and  you don’t have to have it running to play your game. 

The last part above is going to be a defining feature.  While Impulse tries to componentized itself (with a separate tray application and Ready to Play) other players are increasingly putting more and more into a single ubiquitous client. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages and it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Of course, the real winner in all this have been the gamers. Anyone who has purchased a game in one of the “weekend sales” online can attest to the importance of competition.

Stardock is excited to announce the release of the fourth phase of its popular digital download platform, Impulse .

Impulse enables users to quickly purchase, download, install and update any of thousands of available games, applications, and utilities to their machine. Once purchased, the program becomes associated with their account. If a user purchases a new PC or reformats an existing PC, a user can install Impulse, log in with their account and instantly re-download all their programs.

In the year since its initial release, Impulse has garnered widespread support from major game and application publishers. Most new PC games, for example, are now released on Impulse and a growing number of application developers are releasing their titles on Impulse as well.

“The objective of Impulse is to make it so that your software truly belongs to you,” said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock . “Anyone who has ever dug through boxes of CDs or looked through old emails to find a serial number can recognize the advantages of Impulse.”

In addition, PC gamers will soon be able to make use of a new Impulse feature called “Ready to Play”, a revolutionary new free program that allows users to create instant virtual communities based on profiles in order to quickly get multiplayer games going with like-minded people.

“Imagine Match.com or eHarmony for PC gamers where users enter in their gaming preferences and some profile data and with that data, Ready to Play can recommend other gamers with similar gaming preferences. My idea of what is ‘fun’ in an online game is probably different from that of say a teenager,” said Wardell. “With Ready to Play, now you can quickly get games going with ‘recommended’ friends.”

Ready to Play will go into wide beta as part of the Impulse Phase IV roll-out this week. To learn more about Impulse visit www.impulsedriven.com .