The big and long weekend for Labor Day is coming up in the U.S., and to kick it off we have a huge sale on Impulse.  Grab some games off Impulse, and use this long weekend to get your game on!

Impulse Labor Day Weekend Sale

	Cities XL Limited Edition pre-order - $39.99
	Dawn of Discovery 50% off - $24.99
	Demigod for just $20
	Hearts of Iron Mega Bundle - $59.99
	World of Goo just $9.95
	Sins of a Solar Empire Bundle - $20
	Sword of the Stars: Complete - $24.99
	Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - $19.99
	Flatspace II - $18.95
	Evochron Legends - $18.95
	Aaaaa! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity – 25% off pre-order
	Time of Shadows – 10% off pre-order

You can go directly to the Impulse store and see all the current sales!

Stardock and NVIDIA have announced a special Impulse ‘NVIDIA Edition” which will be specially branded for NVIDIA users.  Gamers will be able to be informed of video card driver updates and install them via Stardock’s Impulse.  Users will also use Impulse to see the latest gaming news and purchase and download PC games straight from Impulse.

"The single biggest issue preventing PC gamers today from having an optimal experience is a failure to update their video card drivers," said Brad Wardell, CEO and president of Stardock. "For many users, updating video drivers has been a complicated and sometimes confusing experience. As PC game developers ourselves, we recognized those concerns and, in partnership with NVIDIA, have taken a step to make the process more accessible."

Full press release can be read here.

Download the Impulse NVIDIA Edition here - http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/impulse_setup_nvidia.exe

 

 

It’s the double-up, jam-packed edition of ILDX! An edition I just made up seeing as how I missed last month’s…

 

Well, it was a busy month (on and offline), but we’re back—and with some really great picks thanks to the awesome work some authors have been putting out.

 

Let’s get to them!

 

 

Outstanding General Info

 

INFINITY Ultimate DX Weather by RedneckDude

 

 

Who says weather is dead?

 

This slick widget matches the WB and DX theme of the same name. It features The Weather Channel current and five-day forecast information, and you’ll need to sign up with them to use it. For DX 3.2 or higher, this one has some really nice graphics that goes well with several different styles. It also contracts to reduce its footprint on your desktop.

 

 

 

Star Trek Original clock and date by Maraudeur

 

 

 

I’m not much of a trekkie, but these are some cool looking widgets I can appreciate nonetheless. The zip includes two widgets—clock and date—that are designed to look like the Star Trek navigation consoles. It’s got neat details like buttons that turn the lights on/off, and others that open up Windows calendar or date & time.

 

It’s something out of the ordinary and can really spruce up your command center.

 

 

 

 

Most Creative / Original

 

The Captains Watch by theAVMAN

 

 

The AVMAN is always coming up with creative and original DX objects and this one is no exception. I simply love this. Beautiful, you-just-have-to-see-it graphics, and smooth animation. You might not be able to stop opening and closing the thing! If you must have a clock on your desktop, I highly recommend giving this one a try.  

 

 

Mood Lighting by BuzzH58

 

 

These realistic down lights would make a wonderful addition to any desktop. They look great on most medium to darker walls, adding a warm ambience to the overall feel of your workspace. You can move them around to set them up just right, and they come with an on/off switch.

 

This and the Captains Watch really exemplify the variety of simple ways you can add more fun to your desktop with DesktopX.

 

 

 

Most Innovative / Resourceful

 

Weather List by Vad_M

 

 

This is mostly for builders. It’s an extensive example on how to use the TreeView, Image List, and ListView activeX controls. If I ever work up enough courage to try something this professional-looking, I know I’ll be taking this widget apart and combing the scripts.

 

Thanks Vad!

 

 

 

DX Timer by RomanDA

 

 

This is a simple application that does exactly what it says. You click the button enter a number of minutes and the timer will beep once time’s up. It shows your start time, end time, and current time. You can get the gadget version - HERE

 

Resourceful, practical, and useful. Another great example by RomanDA that shows how quickly and easily you can put DX to work for you.

 

 

 

Themes of the Month

 

Notable DX by Redneckdude

 

 

This is a very clever design with a nice color palette and font choices that make the whole theme a delight to use. It feels so…summery and breezy, which I normally wouldn’t associate with post-it notes, but it worked and I loved it.

 

All the standard goods included, except weather.

 

 

 

Insect Music by Vampothika

 

 

For her first DX theme, I’d say Vampothika is off to a roaring good start.  Made to match the WB of the same name (and same author,) this theme includes all the standard goods plus weather. Everything can be hidden out of the way, but really, it looks good on the desktop.

 

I love the unique, contrasting color scheme and the nice details on the buttons (check out the animation on the play button.) The overall design itself it has a very dark, techno, electronica feel to it.

 

One thing’s for sure, there ain’t another theme that looks like this one, and I hope we’ll be seeing more DX themes from this author.

 

 

 

 

 

Autosave to the Rescue!

 

Have you ever been so caught up in a DX project that you forgot to save? Not only did you spend hours working on it and forget to save, but DX suddenly crashed and you Lost. Friggin! EVERYTHING!

 

Hate when that happens. If you do, too, this trick might be for you.

 

We are going to create an autosave object to run while you’re working. You’ll have the object remember to save your theme at intervals, so you don’t have to.

 

First create an object.

 

Open its properties and go to the General tab. Click Change object type. In the drop down, choose DesktopX. In the second drop down to appear, choose Save Desktop and then click OK.

 

 

Now, whenever you click on the object it will save your desktop. But there’s nothing automatic about that, so we’ll create a script to Execute the Command on a timer.

 

Still in the General tab, click on New to create a new script.

 

Copy and paste the script below:

 

 

'Called when the script is executed

Sub Object_OnScriptEnter

            Object.SetTimer 1,600000 '10-minute timer

End Sub

 

Sub Object_OnTimer1

            Object.ExecuteCommand

End Sub

 

 

In the script above, I set a ten-minute timer (1000 = 1 second, 60000 = 1 minute, etc) You can adjust this to your liking.

 

Close the DesktopX Script Editor and apply properties.  Presto, bingo, nothing to it!

 

As you know, DX pops up an information box every time you’ve successfully saved your desktop, so you will have to clear that each time. I would not recommend setting the timer to a frequent interval, or leaving this object running unattended—you’d either end up with a frequently nagging info box, or a screen full of unclosed info boxes.

 

When you’re done, add a snazzy image and export it, so you can quickly import it into whatever project you’re working on.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading. Until next month, Happy DXing!

When you see the new DeskScapes 3, the first thing you are going to notice is the totally new user interface.  It’s much sleeker than before, and one big new feature is the ability to preview the .dreams before applying. 

Check out the video to see more!

There was an issue with the beta appearing to expire earlier than expected.  There is an update on both Impulse and the download page that corrects this issue.

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

It’s Friday!  Lets start off by saying a big congrats to the winners and everyone who participated in the Summer ‘09 wallpaper contest.  There were an amazing amount of wallpapers submitted, all of top quality so everyone benefited from this. 

Now for this weeks picks!

	Captain’s Pointer by theAVMAN This CursorFX theme is fantastic.  The colors and animations are perfect.  Great work!
	Mood Lighting by buzzh58 A really cool DesktopX widget.  This puts some “lighting” on your wallpaper, very creative.
	Under the Sea by CarGuy1 Another one of my new favorite .dreams.  If you like ocean or water scenes, grab this one.
	_Test_ by skinhit Here is a wonderful icon pack from skinhit.  Very detailed and looks great with many themes.
	Aurora Shine by amitsaran I was looking for a more simple wallpaper, and the colors here just caught my eye.
	Splash of Gold by CountryYokel I like the colors and design of this WindowBlinds skin.  Download it and check it out.

Here is another quick video I was working on today.  This shows the WindowBlinds 7 theme coloring feature being used on two skins, both with great results.

It is that time again to talk about the Impulse Weekend Buys that are up for this week.  Always good stuff, and this week our featured pre-order special is for Majesty 2 , which pre-ordering will get you Majesty Gold for free !

We also have more deals on games including sales on Trine, Supreme Ruler 2010, Gish, and more!  Check below for the list and links.

	Pre-order special: Get Majesty Gold free
	$9.99	$19.99
	$9.99	$19.99
	$7.50	$9.99
	$14.99	$19.95
	$22.49	$29.99

You can get more information about Impulse, and your free download at www.impulsedriven.com .

Kotaku has a preview of Stardock’s Impulse Phase IV.

Impulse is a new digital distribution platform in which PC users can purchase, download, install, and update any type of PC program – games, utilities, applications, etc. Launched about a year ago, Impulse has increased its user base at an exponential rate as it has gotten the support of major PC software and game publishers such as THQ, Ubisoft, 2K Games, Activision, Corel, Paradox, and many others.

The new version of Impulse comes with an update client that allows users to associate their purchases with a single account – a user who gets a new PC can then install Impulse, logon, and then download and install all their Impulse purchases easily.  It also includes a new store designed to handle the vastly increased library of games, applications, and utilities that have been being added over the past few months and to prepare for this Fall when back catalogs from major publishers are being added.

Stardock will be demoing the new version of Impulse at PAX with it becoming generally available in September.

Screenshots:

 

 

Full Article:

Ever since Fences was released as a community preview, people have raved over it.  Anyone in need of help organizing their desktop icons immediately found out how useful Fences is for cleaning up the clutter, and for making a more productive desktop environment. 

Since the beginning we have stated that there will be a free and Pro version of Fences, but we really haven’t said much about Pro.  Until now that is!  Of course we’re not going to let all the features out of the bag, but I wanted to start off by talking about a couple that people have been recently asking about.

Skinning

In the free version of Fences, you have some basic customization options, which really consists of the ability to change the color of your Fences.  Fences Pro will introduce the ability to skin your Fences.  Creating themes for Fences will be skinning friendly, and the ability to upload themes to WinCustomize.com is part of the plan.

Here is one example of a themed Fence.

There will be more customization options available as well, but more on that another time.

 

Auto-Fences

This is a really cool feature.  With the free version of Fences you have the ability to manually organize your desktop icons into a variety of ways using Fences.  With the Pro version, you will be able to assign rules to create new Fences.

Examples:

• Set a rule so that icons of a specific type go into a designated Fence.  Need all Word or Excel files to go to a specific Fence?  That’s what it can do for you!
  
• Another possible rule is to set any new icons added to the desktop to be assigned to a Fence.  Stop the clutter even before it starts!

This is something you can show off in a screenshot, but when the time comes we will have some videos showing how cool this is, and how it will help keep your desktop organized.

More info about Fences Pro will be coming soon, but for the time being be sure to download a free copy of Fences from the link below.

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