Windows has come a long way in the GUI department, but it is still limited, and it’s hard to fully express your personal taste with the default themes in Windows.  Windows 7 offers way more choices than it's predecessors, but if you want more than changing colors you are going to have to look beyond the default themes.  In comes WindowBlinds 7.

WB7 is still in beta at this time, but it already supports Windows 7, and there are skinners out there who are already creating new themes, or updating previous themes/skins to support Windows 7.  We will be showing off some of the cool features of WB7 in the coming weeks, but I wanted to show some themes I’m currently using on Windows 7.

The first theme is Leo, which can be found included with WindowBlinds, and the second is Carbon Fibre GTV which can be found in the WinCustomize gallery.

Yes, it is Friday!  Another summer month is just about over, but don’t forget about our Summer wallpaper contest we  have going on right now.  Anybody can enter, and it’s a chance to win some great prizes including a subscription to Object Desktop Ultimate.

Now for this weeks picks!

	DX Timer by RomanDA This is a simple DX gadget, but once again I’m impressed on how quickly something can be put together with DesktopX.
	Silky Sheets by Ausvet These types of .dreams are my favorite.  They just look fantastic on any desktop.
	Ambar Messenger by Libardo Is this the coolest Messenger icon or what?
	Cypress Lookout by boss0190 A beautiful scene, perfect for this time of year.
	FishW by ferdelli This is a very creative wallpaper.  Great work on this.
	INFINITY Ultimate by 1MrPaul1 This is his first Master WindowBlinds skin, and it’s definitely in the Master category.  Slick lines with clean transparency.  Grab this one.

The end of the week is rapidly approaching, and two good things always come.  The weekend, and Impulse Weekend Buys!  We have some big sales, including bundles and sales on complete catalog titles in the Impulse store. 

Check what’s on sale this weekend!

	50% off Paradox Titles
	Free DLC Pack with pre-order
	Free HoI 2 with pre-order
	$12.95	$24.99
	Complete Catalog Bundle	$44.95
	$9.99	$19.95

If you don’t have it already, be sure to grab your free copy of Impulse at www.impulsedriven.com.

Tweak7 from Stardock was recently released as a beta at the time of this posting, and I wanted to start making a visual guide for it so users can learn how to personalize Windows 7, and improve its performance.

Start off by downloading the Tweak7 beta from www.tweak7.com.  If you are a subscriber to Object Desktop Ultimate you can download it via Impulse.

When you start Tweak7, the first screen you will see is the Welcome Screen.  This is a starting point where you will see recommendations for your system, and also the latest news and available tweaks.

On the left side of Tweak7 you will see various buttons to the many sections that is featured in Tweak7.  Clicking each of these will open a new area allowing you to “tweak” those particular settings.  We’ll start off with the Start Up manager as that is one area that you will definitely want to pay attention to. 

Installing various applications on your PC will inevitably add some type of start up entries.  Some you will obviously want to keep, but many are unnecessary and can be safely disabled.  Tweak7 offers advantages over seeking out the entries in Windows and deleting them.  Many start up entries are not explained very well, and can be difficult to determine if it’s needed, or what application it is associated with. 

As you can see in the screenshot above, Tweak7 clearly lists the start up entries.  If possible, it will display the application name and icon.  By clicking the “?” in the entry, a dialog will popup giving a more detailed explanation of the start up program.  If Tweak7 doesn’t recognize the program, you can submit information that will be reviewed and used to help other users.

If you determine a start up program is not needed, you can disable it from running at start up by simply clicking the checkbox and making sure the box is un-checked.  Very easy!  If you want to learn more about the performance on your PC on start, click the System Events tab.

This event viewer will show you detailed times on the performance of your PC upon start up, how long applications took to load, and much more.  You can use this to determine what, if any, items are slowing down your PC. 

That should cover our first look at Tweak7, and be sure to check back for more Windows 7 tweaking tips soon!

www.tweak7.com

Stardock is excited to announce a new application, Tweak 7, which is designed to allow users the opportunity to optimize the performance and behavior of Microsoft Windows 7.  Tweak7 was created with both casual users and power users in mind. 

Tweak7’s key features include performance optimizing, start-up program management, program identification, benchmarking, security tweaking, Cost of Use reports, Carbon Footprint analysis and user profiles.

Features include:

• Security (User Access Control) Management - Tweak7 has easy to configure security settings for managing the new security features of Windows 7. Other security settings can also be configured with one-click. If you've found some of the security prompts in Windows 7 getting in your way, Tweak7 offers relief.
• Start-Up Manager - See what programs are being launched on start-up (even ones that you may not be aware of) and quickly find out what they are doing and whether you need them. By utilizing the startup monitor built into Windows 7 to analyze problems; processes that take longer to start or shutdown are flagged for review.
• Recommendations - Automatically evaluate all aspects of your Windows 7 configuration with detailed, yet easy to understand, suggestions provided to help you get more control over your Windows 7 PC.
• Process Identification - Leveraging the community, users can read and create information regarding each process currently running. When a user clicks on a program name Tweak7 returns information about that process to help in deciding what to leave running and what to shut off.
• Performance Optimization - Tweak7 knows all the default services on Windows 7 and many of them are not needed for most people. Tweak7 can safely guide users through common user configurations to optimize performance and memory use.
• Internet Optimization - Tweak7 can improve your Internet surfing performance by changing the underlying Internet settings on Windows 7 to fit the capabilities of your PC.
• Cost of Use and Carbon Footprint Analysis - Tweak7 calculates the cost of running your PC. In addition a Carbon Footprint index is calculated. How "Green" is your PC?

More features coming soon as well.  See more of what’s planned with Tweak7 here.

Tweak7 is available with a subscription to Object Desktop Ultimate, or stand-alone for $19.95.  More information is available at www.tweak7.com.

We haven’t a skinning contest in a while, and since this summer is literally heating up, I thought a wallpaper competition would fit right in and be fun.  The premise is simple, create a Summer wallpaper with your interpretation of the summer.  It could be vacations, tropical islands, scenery, the sun, etc., it just needs to have that “summer” feel to it.  How you create it is up to you.  3D, vector, drawing……show us what you got!

Remember, this is about quality, not quantity.  WinCustomize moderation will still be in effect, however, wallpaper submitted to personal pages will still be judged.  We want to see your brightest ideas for a summer inspired wallpaper and help others put their desktop on vacation!

WinCustomize Summer ‘09 Wallpaper Contest

• Starts today and ends at noon on Friday, August 7, 2009.
  
• Wallpapers for this contest must be submitted to WinCustomize first before being uploaded anywhere else.  New creations only!  All entries must have #summer09 in the title.  Example: My Summer Wallpaper - #summer09
  
• Previews must be at least 1024x768.  Minimum wallpaper size is also 1024, and multiple resolutions are encouraged.
  
• Entries will be judged by the WinCustomize staff, and winners will be announced soon after contest ends depending on how many entries come in.  Judging will be based on overall creativity, design, and interpretation of summer theme.
  
• Employees of Stardock are not permitted to enter.  We reserve the right to reject any entry.

Prizes

1st Place – Object Desktop Ultimate subscription (1 year), WinCustomize Subscription (1 year)

2nd Place – WindowBlinds 6 with free upgrade to 7 (when available)

3rd Place – 1 year subscription to WinCustomize.com

This weekend sale on Impulse is still going, and you still have a chance to pickup some great games at a great price!  You really don’t want to miss out on the Red Faction Guerrilla Special Pre-order, which also includes Red Faction 1 & 2 for free!

Check out this weeks deals.

	$9.95	$19.95
	$49.99	$70.00
	$4.99	$9.99
	$9.95	$14.95
	$9.99	$19.99
	$39.99

Also don’t forget the Meridian4 anniversary sale is winding down fast.  We have 50% off all Meridian4 games, plus a huge bundle pack of over 30 games!  Head over to www.impulsedriven.com for more specials!

TechRadar UK has published an article detailing 50 customization tips for Windows Vista.  They cover all aspects of the Vista user interface, and of course they included several Object Desktop components and the best place to get skins for Vista…..WinCustomize.com!

In particular, they mention DeskScapes which is used to enable animated wallpapers on all versions of Vista, and WindowBlinds, which changes the look of Windows by applying different themes, or skins as we call them.

Head over to TechRadar and check out the full article.

I have written some guides for Impulse which detail some “tips and tricks” for Impulse users in order for them to get the most out of their experience.  I wanted to list them in one article so people can find and use them easily.

• Impulse Tips & Tricks #1 – Orb, Pre-releases, Demo’s
• Impulse Tips & Tricks #2 – More Orb, Preferences
• Impulse Tips & Tricks #3 - Registrations
• Impulse Tips & Tricks # 4 – Tabs and Views

As many of you know from reading the forums over the past couple of days, that weather feeds being pulled in from DesktopX created widgets/objects have stopped working.  To make a short story even shorter, TWC has shown a requirement put upon all widget creators and users, and anyone else accessing their data to abide by new and quite specific demands/rules.  This goes for anyone using the feeds, not just WinCustomize users.

If you want to continue to use TWC weather feeds you will need to abide by their new rules, which includes a requirement to place a logo and links back to them.  Several DX coders including sViz and Vad_M have been posting new feeds, and some code fixes to help others fix their weather objects. 

An ongoing thread from sViz can be found here:

• https://forums.wincustomize.com/358753

Which ever new weather feeds creators decide to use, they need to make sure they also abide by any rules or guideline imposed by the originating feed provider.

Starting Monday, July 20th, we will start removing broken weather widgets from the WinCustomize galleries that have not been updated and/or violate any ToS/ToU in regards to weather feeds. The WC moderators are going to keep a close eye on the DesktopX queues so that updates will be pushed through as soon as possible.  When updating a current skin, please be sure to make a note in the description that it has been updated with a new weather feed.  If authors are do not have a copy of their widgets and are not able to retrieve them from Wincustomize, they are available by request to an admin.

We understand this has caused quite a stir, but this is nothing that can be easily fixed as it’s an issue that is not in Stardock’s nor WinCustomize’s hands.  Please keep an eye on the forums for updates from DX coders who are looking at alternative solutions.

Regards,

Spencer
WC Admin