You know what day it is, and you know what to expect, right?  Yes, it’s time once again for This Week in Skinning.  The greatest collection of featured skins found anywhere on the internet today!

Now for this weeks picks!

	Drag and Drop Shortcuts Templates by sViz This set of templates for DesktopX will definitely be a help to people creating objects/widgets.
	Kurvy by gef This DesktopX theme is really slick, and I really like the curved styled.
	Ribbons by CarGuy1 I think this is my new favorite .dream.  Very smooth, colorful, and just looks great.
	Springleaf by boss1090 Another clean Logon for Windows XP.  Great job!
	Broadside by kenwas It’s almost hard to tell if these are rendered images, or actual pictures.  Fantastic job.
	GB-02 by gmc2 This is a WindowBlinds skin with a bold color, and cool start menu.

Stardock announced today that the forthcoming update to its digital distribution platform, Impulse, will include a new technology aimed to pave the way to solving some of the common complaints of digital distribution.

The new technology, known as Game Object Obfuscation (Goo), is a tool that allows developers to encapsulate their game executable into a container that includes the original executable plus Impulse Reactor, Stardock’s virtual platform, into a single encrypted file.

When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo’d program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.

Goo has a number of unique advantages that developer Stardock believes both gamers and developers will appreciate:

1. There is no third-party client required. This means a developer can use this as a universal solution since it is not tied to any particular digital distributor.
   
   
2. It paves the way to letting users validate their game on any digital distribution service that supports that game. One common concern of gamers is if the company they purchased a game from exits the market, their game library may disappear too.  Games that use Goo would be able to be validated anywhere.
   
   
3. It opens the door to gamers being able to resell their games because users can voluntarily disable their game access and transfer their license ownership to another user.

“One of our primary goals for Impulse Reactor is to create a solution that will appeal to game developers while adhering to the Gamers Bill of Rights,” said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock. “Publishers want to be able to sell their games in as many channels as possible but don’t want to have to implement a half-dozen ‘copy protection’ schemes. Game Object Obfuscation lets the developer have a single game build that can be distributed everywhere while letting gamers potentially be able to re-download their game later from any digital service. Plus, it finally makes possible a way for gamers and publishers to transfer game licenses to players in a secure and reliable fashion.”

Because Goo ties the game to a user’s account instead of the hardware, gamers can install their game to multiple computers without hassle.

Goo will be released on April 7 as part of the upcoming Impulse: Phase 3 release. Stardock also expects to be able to announce multiple major publishers making use of Goo in April as well as adding their libraries to Impulse.

Impulse is poised to exceed one million customers in the next week despite only being launched nine months ago.

To learn more about Impulse, visit www.impulsedriven.com .

An update to WindowBlinds is available today bringing it to version 6.4.110.  WindowBlinds is an application that allows you to completely change the look and feel of Windows XP and Vista by applying visual styles, also known as skins, that change the Graphical User Interface of Windows.  Thousands of skins are available for download on WinCustomize.com, and WindowBlinds is safe to use as it does not alter or patch any system files.

This update brings:

• Updates for Safari, Skype 4, and IE8 tweaks.
• Bug fixes

Current users can download this update via Impulse.  WindowBlinds is available stand-alone, or as part of the Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancements.  A free trial is available and the full version is only $19.95. 

For your free download, and more information about WindowBlinds, visit www.windowblinds.net.

GDC (Game Developers Conference) is going on this week, so Brad Wardell along with other members of the Stardock team made an appearance on the ExtremeTech.com podcast.

They talk about Impulse, skinning, gaming, Windows 7, and more!  It’s a great episode so be sure to check it out!

• A Closer Look at Windows 7 with Impulse Podcast
• Podcast

I am so glad it’s Friday, aren’t you?  Well of course you are, and as in typical fashion, This Week in Skinning is here to give you a taste of some featured skins you might have missed this past week.

Now for this weeks picks!

	Black Ovation by Murex This is a simple, dark theme for DesktopX.  Fantastic job on this one.
	Neurons by muckman This .dream looks pretty awesome on the desktop, especially with a dark skin.  Check it out.
	ObjectDock Config by theAVMAN If you need a new config icon for ObjectDock, look no further as theAVMAN brings us this slick icon to use.
	Microsoft Special System by wstaylor This is a cool set of wallpapers created by wstaylor, so be sure to grab these.
	Fuzz. by skinhit This design reminds me of something, just can’t quite remember what it was.  However, it’s still cool.  Great job.
	Alien farstar wb by madcat21 This is a very detailed, and well thought out design.  Great job on this.

Windows XP is not down for the count yet, and I still use XP on a daily basis with VM’s and with my Acer Netbook.  Speaking of Netbooks, since their popularity is really taking off I thought it would cool to feature some XP theme and WindowBlinds skins that really work well with the smaller screen on the Netbook. 

Many of us enjoy some of the wild and bold themes available, but in all reality, they are a bit difficult to work with on a Netbook, so these skins I have found to be more minimal and look great at the same time.

SouLuna

This skin by The Morphium has a basis in the Windows XP luna theme, so it’s good for people who don’t want to stray too far from the default look. 

Arzo

If you want to get a just a little bit more wild with a theme, then Arzo by JJ Ying might fit the bill.  Arzo makes great use of transparency that will surely make other jealous of your desktop.

Chocolate

This skin by patrick24 is a beautiful minimalist skin, that also includes a few substyles with different colors.

OpusOS

One of my all time favorites is OpusOS by b0se, ported to WindowBlinds by Snidely Whiplash.  This works perfectly on a small screen, and has a very clean design that is easy to work with.

As you might know, we announced that Stardock will be giving away a custom built gaming PC worth over $4000 to the millionth Impulse customer.  I was told the specs, and I’m just in awe of what an awesome machine this is.

I wanted to share the specs of the gaming PC just to give you a taste.  I will update the post once we get some pictures taken.

Custom Built:

• Case: Ikonik RA-X10 Full Tower
• Processor:  Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz
• RAM: 12 GB DDR3/1600 MHz Corsair
• CD:  Sony 5X Blu-Ray Player/DVD-RW Burner
• Power: 1,000 Watt Power Supply
• Video: 2xATI Radeon 4870x2 in Crossfire
• Monitor: 24" LCD Widescreen
• Sound: Creative Labs SoundBlaster X-Fi Fatality Pro
• Speakers:  Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Surround System
• HD:  2 TB RAID-0
• OS:  Microsoft Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Whoever ends up with this, is going to be one lucky gamer.

Stardock Corporation announced that its digital download platform, Impulse has grown to close to a million users since its launch last summer. Impulse (www.impulsedriven.com) enables users to purchase and download PC software including games, utilities and applications. The nine-month-old Impulse platform now boasts games from THQ, 2KGames, Atari, Capcom, Dreamcatcher, Epic, Paradox as well as numerous new applications, utilities, anti-virus and more. To celebrate its success, Stardock will be giving its one millionth Impulse customer a brand new top-of-the-line gaming PC worth more than $4,000.

Impulse attributes much of its early success to customer-friendly experience as well as aggressive pricing such as its "Weekend Impulse Buys" in which selected titles are up to 70 percent off for that weekend.  Another reason Stardock cites for Impulse's success has been its support of local currency conversion which has been popular with both users and publishers that use it. 

"We're very pleased with how quickly Impulse is growing," said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock. "The digital distribution market is still in its infancy, ensuring that publishers and consumers both have choices this early on ensures that this market will continue to be dynamic and competitive."

Stardock will be at the Game Developer's Conference meeting with publishers as it prepares to formally unveil Impulse Reactor, a library that allows publishers to provide effective protection for their software, in-game chat, ‘friends’ lists and micro-expansion purchasing. Impulse Reactor does not require publishers to change any code in their software or include a third-party client with their title. This allows publishers to have a single executable to be sold at retail or digitally that is vendor neutral.

Wardell continued, “A big part of our upcoming focus with Impulse is to work with publishers to ensure that they don't lock themselves and their customers into a particular vendor. That means providing technical alternatives to publishers they can count on and the best possible user experience for our users."

Next month Stardock plans to release the third major update to Impulse since its release which will include features such as Impulse Anywhere (ability to download your title from a web page on one PC and then install on your home PC), and the full release of Impulse Reactor, which will provide in-game features from Impulse seamlessly and an updated Impulse client with a host of tweaks and changes.

Gas Powered Games' new real-time strategy game / RPG Demigod will showcase the new Impulse Reactor features on April 14th.

"By Impulse's first birthday, we expect Impulse to be the 2nd largest digital distributor of PC games and to have nearly all of the major PC game publishers on board," said Wardell. 

To learn more about Impulse, visit www.impulsedriven.com.

I was happy to see so many people found the first edition of Impulse ‘Tips and Tricks’ so helpful, so I was anxious to be able to write the next one.  In the first article we covered the 'Blue Orb’, and some of it’s basic functions like pre-release versions, log-in’s, etc.  I wanted to expand more on the Orb as it holds much more than what we first discussed.

Download Impulse from www.impulsedriven.com.

The Orb….continued

As mentioned, we will continue on with our journey with the ‘Orb’ in the upper left-hand corner of Impulse.

Reset Data

Clicking the ‘Preferences’ text will open a new settings Window that holds more settings, including some advanced ones.  Lets start with the ‘Reset Data’ button as seen in the screenshot below.

Pushing this button will redownload the XML data, and can be used when you are encountering some problems.  Those would include having trouble updating or installing applications or games. 

Folders

Choosing the ‘Folders’ link under the advanced settings option, will give you access to install, archive, and temporary files locations.

This area is pretty self-explanatory, and if you need to change the location of any of these directories, then just click the ‘change’ button and select the new location.

That covers a majority of the settings found in the Orb, and should be enough information for most users to know their way around preferences now.  Next up, we’ll talk about organizing and customizing Impulse to your liking.

We are just about at the mid-point of the month, and one of the biggest things going on right now is the work on WinCustomize 2009.  I would give more details, but not today. 

Good skins coming in, and not much else going on this week, so here are this weeks picks!

	River of Dreams by DEVJIT A new version of BootSkin Vista was released this week, and this bootskin just looks great.
	Winter by BoXXi This was made to match the Winter skin, but even though it’s getting warmer, it’s still a great cursor theme.
	Whoville 5025 by TheMasterBaron This is just an incredible .dream.  Just download it.
	Drive Mastery by AHiLdesigns Hard to describe this wallpaper, but it’s a beautiful design, and that’s good enough for me.
	wicked. by Skinhit This is his first “sci-fi” wallpaper, and I say keep them coming!