It’s a short week for many of us, but I still wanted to put out an issue of TWiS because there were some great skins out this week.

Now for this weeks picks!

	Carbon Fibre GTV by theAVMAN This is a simple cursor theme, but it’s still a great one and works with many WindowBlinds themes.
	SFO Sidekick by sViz I’m not too familiar with SFO, but that really doesn’t matter as this is another stunning gadget from sViz.
	Cloudy Bliss by CarGuy1 This is just a beautiful scene, and perfect for a .dream.
	Adobe CS4 D by philmar83 Need a different set of icons for your Adobe apps?  Check these out, they are definitely worth the download.
	Smokey Mountain Valley by AnnBee Another beautiful landscape scene that immediately caught my eye this week.
	Carbon Fibre GTV by Mirsguy I love the texture of this skin.  Simply awesome!

Impulse: Phase 3 was recently released, and one of the new features was Impulse Now.  Impulse Now is a small tray applet that lets users know about available updates and provides an easy way to access features in Impulse.

If an update is available for a game or application in Impulse, this icon will flash to notify you of updates.  There are two different sets of menus available to view, you can access one or the other by left and right clicking on the tray icon.

Left-clicking

Left-clicking the Impulse Now icon brings up the main tray menu, which gives a variety of options. 

• Open Impulse: Pretty self-explanatory, and also double-clicking the tray icon will open Impulse.
  
  
• Application Groups: There are two categories under this, which are My Software and My Games.  Both of these are a way to quickly access an application or game installed in Impulse.
  
  
• Updates: If Impulse Now is signaling that a new update is available, clicking View Updates will show you what’s available.  If you need to check for an update, just click Check for Updates.
  
  
• Configuration:   Here you can access the configuration menu which gives you many options to configure Impulse Now to your liking.

Right-clicking

Right-clicking Impulse Now gives you mostly configuration and help options. 

For more information, and a free download, head over to www.impulsedriven.com .

Stardock announced the third major update to its digital distribution platform, Impulse today. Known as Impulse: Phase 3, the update includes a host of new features.

Impulse Phase 3 includes five major new features that developer Stardock believes will be compelling to both PC users and software publishers. These new features are:

1. The Impulse client has had its user interface significantly improved and updated with features such as player rankings, achievements, intelligent match-making, and more. It also includes a new tray application that lets users track friends, receive update notifications, and much more.
   
2. The beta of Impulse Anywhere, a new web-based method for users whose home Internet connections are non-ideal to download their software on another machine, take the files home and install them.
   
3. The release of Impulse Reactor, a development platform that lets users add many new features to their games without having to re-distribute a third-party client (i.e. users don’t have to distribute the Impulse client). Impulse Reactor includes features such as intelligent match-making, multiplayer tournament support, NAT negotiation, friend lists, rankings, community features and much more. Gas Powered Games’ much anticipated PC game, Demigod, is being released next week and makes full use of Impulse Reactor.
   
4. Impulse Reactor Overlay, an in-game overlay that lets users instantly access chat, friends lists, profile data, micro-expansions, and more. Demigod will also be the first title to make full use of this.
   
5. Game Object Obfuscation (Goo) - An alternative method for developers to protect their intellectual property. Goo allows developers to associate licenses with people rather than their PCs which will eliminate the issue of “limited activations”. It also provides the underpinnings to support vendor neutral software downloads and transferring of licenses.

“One of the key things about Impulse Reactor and Goo is that it’s a win-win for users and publishers. For users, it begins the process of our customers owning their software license. For publishers, it provides the highest level of security for their software but in a way that doesn’t inconvenience legitimate customers,” said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock. Stardock is in the process of migrating from traditional activation on its digitally distributed software to Goo and working to incorporate Impulse Reactor into its existing titles.

One of the first publishers to adopt Goo is Paradox Interactive, whose titles on Impulse will soon be protected via the new technology.

In addition, Stardock and Activision Publishing, Inc. recently signed a distribution agreement which will make select Activision titles available on Impulse in the near future. Stardock expects to add additional major publishers this spring.

“With Phase 3 of Impulse completed, we are now focusing on bringing the catalog of games and applications on Impulse up to parity with what is available on other services,” said Wardell.

For further details about Impulse please visit www.impulsedriven.com.

Since I began running 3 years ago I have been looking for a way to bring my two passions together; Icons and Running. This year I joined the “Team In Training” to help raise money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I am running 5 marathons this year, including the Alaska Mayors Marathon, along with my wife, as a member of the “Team In Training.” We set a fundraising goal of $10,000 dollars between the two of us. This gave me my chance to finally bring my two addictions together. I’ve done this by creating the “Marathon” Icon suite.

In the Marathon Icon suite I tried to capture the scope of running a marathon by creating a uniquely colored IconPackage for each mile of the Marathon -  26 IconPacks for 26.2 miles. The result is an amazing variety and over 1200 icons that will complement any desktop. To top this all off I included three additional IconPacks, themed for the “Team in Training” so you can show your support to the world, making a total of 29 IconPackages. This, to my knowledge, the largest Icon suite ever.

Stardock has been generous enough to join in my efforts, and will donate all the profits from this pack as well, so 100% of the profits from this suite will go directly to the The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help save lives. 

I hope you will join me in supporting this cause. As someone who has lost family to Leukemia, it is near and dear to my heart. On June 20th of 2009, my wife and I will be running across the finish line in Alaska, in memory of my Uncle, and in support of my brother-in-law. In the end it will be those of you who support me by purchasing the “Marathon” suite that will have made it possible.

For additional information about our story, or to donate directly to the cause, go here:

For additional information about The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, go here:

If you don’t already have IconPackager, you can download try it out, get it here.

To help save lives, and get the full 29 pack suite, go here.

It’s Friday!  It’s Friday!  I had to say it twice just because it’s finally Friday!  This week was a little slow for submissions, so lets get working on turning that around.  We did have another great feature from sViz this month for DesktopX, so be sure to check that out.

Of course, don’t miss the WinCustomize 2009 preview.

Now for this weeks picks!

	Covert Ops Dx by theAVMAN This clock for DesktopX is just slick.  It doesn’t even feel right calling it a clock.
	Fire Dance by CarGuy1 The name of this .dream is spot on, and fits perfect with a dark WindowBlinds skin.
	Monsters Inc. by Iconshock_web_icons This is a great set of icons, with a beautiful design.
	S.D.V. Tabbed & Side Docks by WebGizmos Don’t need to say much but a new set of dock backgrounds from WG.  You know they are going to be awesome.
	Maze of Blue by Frankief This design just happened to catch my eye, and the variations of blue is perfect.
	BlueBloodware by tippytoenail The start menu alone is worth a feature.  Great job on this.

This May we intend to launch a completely re-designed WinCustomize.com. The new site will be a major departure over the existing site with an emphasis on speed, ease of access, and efficiency.  The site will “seem” a lot simpler because there’s a lot fewer clicks.

What you see above is an early version of it (all the thumbnails will, for instance, be re-created as high quality PNG’s instead of low quality JPEGS).

One thing not shown here is that the Library list in the Explore menu won’t say “CursorFX” of “Dream” but instead say “Moue Cursors”, “Animated Wallpapers”. When the user’s mouse cursor goes over it, the right-side will explain what it used to make it happen. This way, new users understand intuitively what they are customizing and experienced users can quickly see which programs are being used for it.

With over 3 million monthly users, WinCustomize is the world’s most popular site dedicated to desktop customization so we’re putting a lot of work to make sure it’s done just right.

Even in beta, one of the things that’s really amazing is how easy to navigate the new site is versus the existing site.  For example, on WinCustomize today, if I want to read articles I have to click on”Articles” and wait wait wait for the articles page to come up. Then I get a list of top articles and newest articles along with a running log of featured articles.  It’s just a lot of “stuff” to deal with.

By contrast, on the new site, I click on articles, a menu comes down that quickly lets me navigate to what I want to get to, often without having to go to a seperate page.

Same thing for the community page.  Right now, users click on community which then takes them to the master forum list page which takes a good 5 to 10 seconds and then they decide what they want to read.  On the new WinCustomize, a user clicks on community and the menu pops up listing the most recently responded to threads along with options to jump to a particular forum right away.

Of course, it’s in the libraries (which are currently called galleries but are being rebranded as libraries to support Sins, GalCiv, Demigod, and Elemental mods along with other mods in the future) that the magic will really come in handy. For instance, right now, if I just want to find a wallpaper, it’s a pain to find one that fits my monitor.  On the new WinCustomize, I’ll be able to just search on 1920x1200 wallpapers and then download.  IF I’m a WinCustomize subscriber, you’ll be able to simply press a button to make that wallpaper your background immediately (to give you an idea of the direction we want to take for subscribers).

Stay tuned for more info.

Fences is one of my favorite applications I have running on my desktop.  Having a clean and organized desktop is very important to my productivity, and Fences solves any issues I had with a messy desktop due to icons scattered all over the place.

I wanted to give another quick walkthrough of Fences in case this is the first time you have seen it.

Fences is available as a free community preview, which you can download from here.

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

Fences on the Desktop

You can organize your Fences however you want on the desktop, but there are also pre-defined styles you can also use.  You also have a preview Windows shows an example of how they will look.

There are also a variety of options for customizing the look of Fences.  You can easily adjust the opacity of Fences by using the slider control, and you can even adjust the colors to fit the theme you are using.

My favorite feature of Fences is the ability to hide the icons currently on the desktop.  By simply double-clicking the desktop, the icons will disappear and re-appear when double-clicked again.  As you can see in the screenshot below, the Recycle Bin icon didn’t change.  That is because you can right-click an individual icon and exclude it from being hidden.

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.