Over the past couple of days, there has been quite a few rumors that big-name game retailers were going to cut down sales of titles such as Dawn of War II.  The reason behind this was that executives didn’t like the fact that the game would install the Steam client, which includes their store.  Let me point out again that this is a rumor, but it does bring up a good point. 

Impulse Reactor is slated to be released this spring, and this will allow game developers to use the Impulse system, without the need of installing client software.

“However, the next version of Impulse Reactor, as Wardell revealed to Big Download in an exclusive phone interview Thursday, will also have a feature that will give developers a way to protect their game's IP without some of the issues that have plagued other DRM set-ups such as Steam or SecuROM (used in a number of Electronic Arts titles.)

As Wardell explained to us, developers who use the next version of Impulse Reactor can include a small DLL that will allow developers to use Stardock servers for registration and updates. For example people who install a game with Impulse Reactor for the first time might be asked for a CD Key and an email address. Once that's done the game is registered with Impulse Reactor servers.”

I don’t want to impose too much on Big Download, so head over there and check out the rest of the article. 

Read more at Big Download.

And another week is down, which means another edition of This Week in Skinning.  Lots of good stuff going on this week, and don’t forget the WinCustomize Subscription Drive is still on, so tell your friends.  Speaking of subscriptions, we also released Aero Frost this week as a WinCustomize Subscriber premium skin.  It’s a fantastic skin, so be sure to grab it in the subscribers resource area.

Now for this weeks picks!

BootSkins (XP and Vista)

DesktopX (Themes and Widgets)

Dreams (Animated Wallpapers)

LogonStudio (XP and Vista)

Wallpapers

WindowBlinds

The latest Demigod blog on IGN is up, and I think the title alone is reason enough to read.  This blog gives a great intro into the story of Demigods, and of course, why they fight. 

“Demigod is a strategy game that adds a host of action RPG elements such as item purchasing, spells, battle experience and much more in order to add a new dimension of skill and excitement for players of real-time strategy games.

Because of Demigod’s RPG roots, the question arises, why are these Demigods fighting? What is their ultimate goal? The short answer is simple: Godhood. The long answer has a great deal more to it. “

That’s all you are going to get from me, now head over to IGN and check out the rest.

Link: Demigod – Why We Fight

So there I am, doing an all nighter at Stardock, minding my own business as I logon to people's machines to read their private email when lo and behold, I find a mother lode of secretly stashed work in progress skins from Stardock Design.

Now, I don't even know the names for some of these skins. I don't know when they're coming out or in what form. But there's some cool stuff here. And this is just the tip of the iceberg (I'm too lazy to take screenshots of all of them).

Oh and look what I found, a mark up of the next version of MyColors!

They're going to want to kill me you know so this will be my last post for awhile.  I'm going to have to "go away for awhile".

It seems like Windows Vista just came out yesterday.  And now Windows 7 is coming.  What does this mean for WindowBlinds users? The answer is: A lot.

First off, the reports are true, Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista.  It is also true that Windows Vista has gotten treated unfairly.  Vista was just released too early.  I bet Microsoft rues the day they didn’t address what was in this post (and yes, I talked to Jim Allchin at the time about it).

But as good as Windows 7 is, it’s pretty hard coded.  If you love glass (Aero) and that Windows 7 super bar, then you’re all set and can stop reading.

Let’s take a visual tour here.

In all, Windows 7 is going to be an awesome upgrade.  I think one of the directions we’re going to see WindowBlinds evolve is to provide more personalization options for users, enhance functionality and usability of programs and the OS.

The WindowBlinds 7 betas will likely start to show up on Object Desktop in the next couple months. At that point, you’ll have a better idea of the direction we’re going to take. 

We’d like to hear from you.  Let us know what features you’d like to see in Object Desktop in general and WindowBlinds in particular.

The new WinCustomize is going to be a radical departure from what we have today.

In the web 2.0 age, we can do a lot of interesting things that should greatly improve the navigation of the site. The days of clicking, waiting for the page to load, clicking, waiting for the page to load and so forth will go away.

Instead, the site will feel more akin to a desktop application. Want to see the most popular skinners, click on tab and it'll expand to show it.

The site will end up being far cleaner, far faster, and far easier to use than what we have today.

It’s Friday, and another busy week is just about over.  As I said in another post, the galleries had quite a bit of activity this week, especially in the WindowBlinds gallery.  I got a great response for the new format for TWiS, so I think I will keep it like this, at least for the time being.

Don’t forget to show TWiS to your friends, and show them what types of cool stuff they are missing out on.

Now for this weeks picks!

Logons (XP and Vista)

IconPackager

Dreams (Animated Wallpaper)

ObjectDock (Backgrounds and Icons)

DesktopX (Theme, Gadgets, and Widgets)

Wallpapers

WindowBlinds

I’m still enjoy Windows 7 so far, and I have been playing around with it ever since I got it installed.  I wanted to share some screenshots for those who are going to test the beta.  I’m also trying out the photo gallery feature in Live Writer.

View Full Album

If you use a PC day in and day out, customizing your desktop environment is something you can do to bring a more “personal” touch to your desktop.  WindowBlinds allows users of Windows XP and Windows Vista the option to change the look and feel of their desktop by changing the visual style of Windows, also called skinning.  There are literally thousands and thousands of skins for WindowBlinds created by hobbyists, all the way up to professional graphic designers.  There are skins to match just about every taste and style, however, sometimes you might want your own style or just a few simple UI changes.  This is where SkinStudio comes in.

Windows XP (Un-skinned and skinned)

SkinStudio is an application developed by Stardock, which also develop WindowBlinds.  SkinStudio’s main function is to create and edit skins for use with WindowBlinds.  At first thought, creating skins for Windows could be a daunting task, but SkinStudio has been developed for making skins or modifying existing ones easy for the every day user.  You might like the look of a particular visual style or theme, but just want to change the start button for example.  You can easily do this with SkinStudio, and I wanted to share some resources to get your started.

Some things you will need:

• A copy of SkinStudio.  SkinStudio is a free download, and SkinStudio Pro is available for purchase for just $20.
  
  
• Graphics editor of choice.  There are many options here, some paid and some for free.  My favorite free editors are Paint.NET and the Gimp.  Other applications I recommend are Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Paint Shop Pro.
  
  
• SkinStudio tutorial.  This tutorial was created with beginners in mind, and goes through the complete process of creating a skin from start to finish.  It’s also available as a .pdf download, so you can print and follow from there as well.
  
  
• WinCustomize Wiki.  The WC Wiki has a ton of resources, many of which are generated by the skinning community themselves.  It’s a great place to get other tutorials.

With the tools above, you can have your new or modified skin going in no time at all.  SkinStudio has different categories to help you find the section of skin you want to create. 

For more information, including screenshots and downloads, visit www.skinstudio.net.

Well I finally got Windows 7 installed on my laptop.  The only issue I had was getting the partitioning right, but that was my problem. 

Installation took about 10 minutes, and in about 20 minutes overall I was on the desktop ready to work.  Very impressive!

So far, Windows 7 seems very fast and haven’t run into any problems as of yet.  No problems with application compatibility yet, and I’m really liking some of the design changes.

Still have a lot to go through, but my initial quick impression is great!