End of the first month of the year is just days away!  January was a great month for Impulse, and for gaming in general.  Mass Effect 2 was released this past week, and response to it has been spectacular to say the least.  This week wasn’t all about ME2 though, as the pre-orders for the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2 opened along with the beta.

Of course any Star Trek fan should be ready as the head-start weekend opens today for Star Trek Online, available to anyone who pre-ordered.  Keep an eye out for me patrolling the Regulus Sector.

Lets take a look at what else was going on this week!

Articles to check out:

• The Spells beta is coming
• Applying Skins/Themes with WindowBlinds 7
• Elemental, one of the most Promising Games of 2010
• Stardock at GDC 2010
• The iPad: Not living up the the hype
• Spells & Magic
• Impulse Weekly Top 10
  

New Releases on Impulse:

• Mass Effect 2
• SHMUP
• KrissX
• Battlefield 2 Bad Company Limited Edition (pre-order)
• KeepSafe 2.01
• Grand Ages Rome
• M.U.D. TV - Mad, Ugly, Dirty Television
• Death to Spies Gold
  

Weekend Impulse Buys:

The month is starting to wind down, and this has been a really exciting week especially with the pre-loading of Mass Effect 2 starting today!  Last week I mentioned we needed a nickname for the Impulse publishing team, and our fan on Facebook posted some good suggestions.  Some of the suggestions were “the Impulsinators”, “The Impulse Drive”, “The Impulsives”, and “The Impulsers”.

I personally favor the “Impulsinators”.

Well anyways, lets take a look at the weekly roundup on Impulse !

Articles to check out:

• The importance of optimization
• Windows 7 Superbar Stomps the Old Taskbar – Part 1
• DeskScapes 3.1 Supports Multi-Monitor Wallpapers
• Elemental: The MUST HAVE 2010 TBS requirements
• Impulse gets jump lists
• This Week in Skinning - January 22nd
  

New Releases on Impulse:

• Bob Came in Pieces
• LogonStudio 1.7
• DeskScapes 3.1
• 4x4 Hummer
• Classic Car Racing
• 1C Racing Mega Pack

Coming Soon:

• Elemental: War of Magic
• Command and Conquer 4
• Star Trek Online
• Mass Effect 2

Weekend Impulse Buys:

		Most Kalypso Games 50% off!

LogonStudio 1.7 was released recently, and for most people they use it to change their Windows logon screens to their favorite wallpaper or image.  That is great, but speaking with a good friend yesterday he told me about how they use LogonStudio and I thought it was a fantastic idea that I wanted to pass along.

I will just quote him here:

“@IslandDog It's a fantastic branding tool. We use it on all client systems with our own small logo inserted as well, so they remember us ”

That was from my friend John Obeto from www.absolutelywindows.com and Logikworx. 

Whether you have a business that works on client systems, or if you do some side work on friends or families PC’s, what a great way to help spread the word about yourself or company!  Open up your favorite graphics editor and place your logo, website or social media text link so it’s there when people turn on their PC’s.  Take that image and drag it into LogonStudio and you now have your own personalized logon!

Of course, this is a simple and quick solution, but if you are looking for corporate solutions, be sure to click here for more info.

In Windows, one aspect of the user interface that most people see all the time is the taskbar.  It is obviously one of the most useful pieces as it contains the tools to launch and monitor applications and other sorts of various data.  In the skinning world it’s also one of the most important areas to skin as it’s a huge part of the overall UI.  The evolution of the Windows taskbar has come a long way, but Windows 7 has taken it to the extreme and literally stomps all over the old style taskbar found in Windows XP and Vista.

First, lets take a look at the Windows XP taskbar.

It’s pretty simple, it does what it was intended to do.  There wasn’t much advanced functionality here, at least not by default.  It was possible to add some very cool features using something like WindowFX, which in the screenshot below, it was able to add previews for minimized windows in the taskbar.

In comes Vista, which brought some much needed improvements in the taskbar area, but overall it wasn’t that much different as far as functionality.  The most exciting update was live previews in the taskbar as shown below.  It was a nice addition but still nothing groundbreaking to speak of.

With the release of Windows 7, we saw a huge update in the Windows taskbar, now dubbed the “Superbar”.  Not only was this a visual change to a point, it also introduced more functionality than we have ever seen before. 

Lets take a look at some of the new offerings.

Jump Lists

If I had to pick a personal favorite, this would be near the top.  Right-clicking a program icon in the taskbar gives you an expanded menu with a variety of options depending on the application itself.  This is a quick way to access items like recent files, quick tasks, application functions, etc.

Take the jumplist for Impulse for example:

Right-clicking the icon gives you quite a choice of options.  You can select recently played games, favorite applications, common tasks like going to the Impulse Store, and more.  Not all applications support jumplists yet, but more and more are being updated all the time.

Visually, this will be one of the most noticeable changes in Win7.  Gone are the days of the taskbar with the optional small quick launch icons.  Now the icons are bigger, and more accessible.  One of the most handy features here is Aero Peek.  If you work with a bunch of different windows open like I do, you will appreciate this. 

Just move your cursor over the icon of an open window icon and you will see a thumbnail of that open file and can easily switch between windows without having to minimize or move any of them.  It also works well with applications like Internet Explorer, which will show each open tab as a separate window which you can go directly to.

Today we have covered the basics of the Windows taskbar, and just a couple of the cool new features in the Windows 7 Superbar.  Stay tuned for part 2!

DeskScapes 3.1 is currently in beta for Object Desktop subscribers, and should be released in the very near future.  One of the main new features is the support for multi-monitor setups.  There have been tons of forum posts asking how to have different wallpapers on different monitors as this is something not supported in Windows by default.

DeskScapes 3.1 is now giving you that ability.  Remember, this will also work for static wallpapers, not just animated wallpapers. 

We are already at the halfway point in January, and we are definitely off to a great head start.  The Impulse publishing crew, which we need a nickname for, has been cranking out new releases, updates, and more as fast as they can.

There are some great titles out this week, so lets get to it!

Articles to check out:

• Elemental Multiplayer Revealed
• Another XP .Msstyle on Windows 7
• JoeUser Cares: Haiti Relief
• Oculus lives!
• Demigod - what's next?
• More DeskScapes 3.1 Screensh...

New Releases on Impulse:

• Champions Online
• Tribe
• Ice Land 2
• Take Command: 2nd Manassas
• Tom Clancy’s EndWar
• Mass Effect 2 (Pre-order)
• Star Trek Online Digital Deluxe Edition (Pre-order)
• Fluttabyes

Weekend Impulse Buys:

Without a doubt you have heard or seen the extreme devastation in Haiti due to the powerful earthquakes days ago.  This earthquake has literally leveled Haiti, and hundreds of thousands are estimate to be hurt, missing, or dead.  Larry (koop) came to me this morning and offered an idea to have a Haiti Relief and news blog where we can update it with the latest news, and links about the developing situation.  I thought it was a fantastic idea, and here we are.

Although we are in hard economic times, even donating a few dollars can help,and we have links to reputable donations that you can give to if you wish.  We will also keep this post updated with news.

Donations:

• You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti.  The donation will be added to your phone bill.
  
• Donate to the Red Cross Disaster Fund - http://www.redcross.org/
  
• Follow the American Red Cross on Twitter for updates - http://twitter.com/redcross

New and relief links:

• CNN “Impact Your World” - http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/
  
• Fox News updates - http://www.foxnews.com/topics/world/earthquakes.htm

CES 2010, the Consumer Electronics Show being held in Las Vegas is set to begin.  There are some big announcements and product unveilings expected, and if you aren’t one of the lucky ones to be in Vegas don’t worry, our friends over at Neowin.net are on the ground ready to let you know the happenings!

Keep an eye on the Neowin CES 2010 coverage at the link below.

http://www.neowin.net/news/category/live/ces

So what’s on the agenda for 2010 at Stardock?  Anything cool? Of course! That’s what we do!

Let’s walk through some of the items on our list…

Wincustomize 2010

In March, WinCustomize 2010 will launch.  It will go into beta this month.

The new site is a total rewrite and represents a great deal of development labor to clean things up to be faster and present information a lot more easily.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy

If you like Sins of a Solar Empire, you’re going to love the Diplomacy expansion pack.  Not just because it adds two new AI levels, not just because it adds a new multiplayer speed option, not just because of the new ships. No. The reason it’s turning out so well (besides the open beta where we’re getting lots of good ideas) is because it makes the game feel truly rounded out. 

Given able to give the pirates or other factions missions or send over envoys to get more money and resources and have other means to win the game rather than simply blowing everything up as fast as possible has really helped the game feel more well rounded.

Of course, I can’t just go without a little live battle.  With diplomacy, this scene belies my Palpatine like strategy of making the AI do my bidding.

Elemental

Another big thing for this year will be Elemental which we expect to release this Summer or Fall if all goes on schedule (which we make no promises on because Elemental is “our baby” and it won’t go out until it’s awesome).

The above screenshot is not really representative of what the final version will look like. The final version will look vastly better than this. But for anyone who has ever wondered what an epic turn-based strategy game and an role playing game put together might be like, Elemental is what we’re going for.  It’s our most ambitious game ever and has the longest beta program we’ve ever done in order to ensure we nail it down.

WindowBlinds 7.x

If you haven’t checked out WindowBlinds 7, you will definitely want to look at it. Even if you’re not into “skinning” the subtle improvements it can do to the Windows GUI can be quite nice.

WindowFX

Sorry, no screenshots yet but this is going to be a major effort this year too. There’s a lot of new improvements to Windows 7, Vista, and XP we will be making this year.  Users of Object Desktop get all our desktop goodies first. And this year, there’s going to be a lot.

DeskScapes 3.x

At the very end of last year, our animated wallpaper program, DeskScapes, got a major new version.  Last year was to get the foundation set.  This year, we can go to town with this technology.

What’s magic about DeskScapes is that on Windows 7/Vista it uses the DWM to deliver animated wallpaper. So what does that mean? It means the cool stuff happens on your video card rather than your CPU.  The only time your CPU gets touched is if you’re running a video as your animated background (and even then, it’s just the decoding of the .WMV or MPEG or whatever).

For this year, a lot of new effects and features are being added so that even your existing “static” wallpapers can get cool effects done to them – either kept static with effects or animated.

Impulse: Phase 5

It’s hard to believe that Impulse is barely over a year old.  In the past year, Impulse has gone from being a fairly primitive download utility with only Stardock software on it and a handful of indies to a full-blown digital distribution platform with titles available from Electronic Arts, Activision, Ubi Soft, THQ, and so on.

Impulse: Phase 5 might as well be called the “community release” of Impulse.  Because Phase 5 will be a nearly complete revamp of the platform to greatly expand its community features.  Moreover, a lot of work has been done behind the scenes to open up Impulse to third party developers to integrate community features into their applications and games as well as streamline their publishing and distribution onto the net. 

General Theme

The big theme for this year is probably “Community integration”. We will show screenshots of some of this stuff as we get closer.

That’s not all

Of course, this year we’ll still have plenty of updates to lots of other things from Demigod to DesktopX to new Object Desktop programs and so on.  Plus we have some unannounced projects that we hope to finally be able to make public this year.

It’s going to be an exciting year and we can’t wait to spend it with you guys (and gals!).

It’s Christmas Eve, and if you are like me you still haven’t finished shopping yet.  If you have friends or family across the country or the world, getting a gift to them in time now is pretty much impossible, or is it?  With Impulse you can send a game or application as a gift digitally and they will receive it nearly instantly. 

In the checkout page, just click “purchase as a gift”.

Fill in some basic info, and after you make the purchase they will be sent an e-mail with instructions to download.  It’s very easy and is a great way to send a friend a favorite game.