The weekend is approaching and this weeks Impulse Weekend Buys are now up!  If you don’t have Impulse installed, no worries, just head over to www.impulsedriven.com and get your free download.

There are some great games on sale this week, starting at $4.95.  You can grab them early and have all weekend to play!

Safecracker	$9.99	$19.99
Dungeon Lords: CE	$9.99	$19.99
Genesis Rising	$9.99	$19.99
MotoGP 08	$29.99	$39.99
Cellblock Squadrons	$4.95	$9.95

Don’t forget that Object Desktop is also on sale for just $39.95!

If you have been waiting anxiously for the next Weekend Impulse Buy, then wait no further as it’s time!  We once again have a great roundup of games starting at $3.99.  Check below for the full list!

This is the latest weekend sale, but there is much more content available on Impulse.  Head over to www.impulsedriven.com for more, and while you are there be sure to grab your download of the Impulse client.

A new WinCustomize is coming and it’s a reunion of much of the original 2001 WinCustomize team with Johanne (Alexandrie) leading the UI design and Pat (T-Man) re-architecting the backend.  This time, we have a crack team led by Matt (Orcnbeans) helping create a new way for the site to function that should make it lighting fast.

Much of the site will be XML based which also means that the site will be able to be displayed in lots of different ways (which obviously makes it skinnable).

One of the areas we’re going to increase WinCustomize’s focus on is that it we’re going to expand beyond just talking about how to customize the aesthetics of Windows but also the functionality of it.  As Windows has evolved since 2001, so has customization. 

Moreover, web technology has evolved substantially since 2001. In the age of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, we want to begin to let users make use of those technologies in interesting ways. We’ll talk more about that as we get further alone.

The new site design is a lot cleaner with an emphasis on fewer page loads.

The galleries are much more straight forward and focused on that gallery. This way, we can add features that are specific to a given gallery. A wallpaper gallery, for instance, will eventually support specific wallpaper sizes, color searches, etc.

The rating system, as previously mentioned, is gone, replaced by the Love/Like system to let people know which skins people love/like the most and letting us filter skins based on that metric.

Navigating galleries will be done through a drop down menu with each section being explained to users.

The Community features will get a  major bump and more software will be made available to make it ever easier to interact with other users, find what you’re looking for, and more.

Stay tuned. We hope to launch the new WinCustomize.com later this month (fingers crossed).

If you’ve been following Impulse (or Stardock for that matter) for any length of time, you know one of the things that sets us apart and makes us unique is how accessible we are, and how easy it is to get in contact with us, be it via the forums, IRC, e-mail or instant messenger.  We know that a lot of our success comes from our outstanding community of gamers, and we are always looking for new ways to get news out there, and talk talk directly to gamers.

Now, some of you may already know this, but over the last few months we’ve started posting to Twitter.

Twitter, for those of you who haven’t heard of it, is a micro-blogging service….

Here’s the official description:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.  People write short updates, often called "tweets"  of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

It’s free, and doesn’t require any special software (though there are some excellent twitter apps out there.  I use TweetDeck myself).  It’s also incredibly easy to use.

We use our various Twitter accounts to announce releases, interesting news bits, and even a few giveaways.  Not to mention we just like chatting with other users on the service.

If you’re on Twitter, you can follow us and keep up on what’s happening with Impulse:

• @Stardock – The Official Stardock Twitter Feed
• @ImpulseDriven – The Official Impulse Twitter Feed
• @IslandDog – Spencer Scott, Stardock’s Technology Evangelist
• @mittense – Trent Polack , Game Developer
• @Zoomba – My Feed!  Mike Crassweller, the guy who brings you weekly updates and more

Follow us and keep up to date on what’s happening.

If you’re on Twitter already, post your Twitter name in the comments below.  I’ll check on this thread every now and then and update this post with a directory of all of the Impulse community members and their Twitter links.

Impulse Twitter Directory…

DeskScapes 2.5 has been released today by Stardock.  DeskScapes is an application which lets you run animated wallpapers, also called .dreams, on your Windows desktop.  It used to be that only Windows Vista Ultimate users could take advantage of a feature like this, but DeskScapes opens this up to users of all versions of Windows Vista, and Windows XP!

DeskScapes also goes beyond just playing videos as wallpapers, as it can also display dynamically generated content, .dreams activated by triggers such as time of day,  and more. 

The DeskScapes 2.5 update brings:

• Improved XP compatibility
• Stand-alone installation

DeskScapes is part of the Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancements.  A free version is available which is limited to the bundled .dreams and will also play any Dynamic Master Dream purchased from WinCustomize.com .  The full version will play any .dream file and is available here .

For more information, visit https://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/

Neowin has an article up detailing some of the changes going into the RC of Windows 7 that have been made since the beta was released.  This is just a small sampling, but Microsoft emphasized this was a result of user feedback during the beta process.

Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx

In the first few weeks of the Windows 7 beta we had over one million people install and use Windows 7.  That's an astounding number for any beta test and while we know it has been fun for many folks, it has been a lot of work for us--but work that helps to raise the quality of Windows 7.  When you use the beta you are automatically enrolled in our Customer Experience Improvement Program (anonymous feedback and telemetry, which is voluntary and opt-in in the RTM release).  Just by using Windows 7 as a beta tester you are helping to improve the product--you are providing feedback that we are acting on in a systematic manner. 

Head over to Neowin to see more details of some of the changes in Windows 7.

Link:  Windows 7: Changes since beta for the RC

Stardock is excited to announce the release of IconPackager 4.2 today.  IconPackager is an application that lets Windows users change the default icons to the thousands available for download.  IconPackager does this by applying “sets” of icon packs that can contain up to hundreds of icons.  IP also integrates into the Windows shell letting a user change specific icons by selecting the option through the right-click menu.

IconPackager on Windows Vista also takes advantage of the Live Folders feature, and can even apply a specific Live Folder icon set from the chosen icon pack.  Other features include the ability to recolor icon sets on the fly, and automatically upscale to larger size icons (Vista).

This update brings several updates and fixes, including:

• Fix for x64 shell extension icon issue.
• Live folder icons will prompt to restart explorer so they apply correctly.
• Apply time should be quicker.
• Language fixes for x64.

IconPackager is part of the Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancement, or available as a stand-alone application for Windows XP and Vista. 

For more information, visit https://www.stardock.com/products/iconpackager/

Since 2001, when Windows XP shipped, most users have hovered between 1 and 2 gigabytes of memory.  That’s because 32-bit Windows really can’t use more than 2 gigs (technically 3 gigs).

With 64-bit Windows, however, there’s no real limit any time soon.  I predict that within the next couple of years you’ll see 16GB machines become pretty common and when that happens, lots of interesting things will start to happen again for PCs.

One interesting thing will be virtual machines. 

Running Windows XP within Windows 7 has a lot of utility to it as a developer but for most users, it’s largely meaningless. That will change as applications themselves start to be able to specify the conditions in which they run under. 

One of the things that has held Windows back has been backwards compatibility. But virtualization largely eliminates that issue because you could simply have programs run in their own VM.

It’s a real shame that Microsoft is even making Windows 7 in a 32-bit form because it just delays the migration to 64-bit computing.  The reason this is important is almost totally based on RAM.  This sort of virtualization isn’t cheap when it comes to RAM usage. But virtualization will free Windows to go in many different directions at once.  It’s the next big thing.

Related:

• Part 1: Intro
• Part 2: Fences

If you were thinking about purchasing Object Desktop 2009, but wanted to see some of it in action, well this video demo is for you.  This video shows some of the core components of Object Desktop, but not everything included is shown.

For a complete list of Object Desktop features, visit www.objectdesktop.com.
 

You can also view the video here.

http://www.screencast.com/t/26yQpieH9

Object Desktop, the desktop enhancement suite that you all know and love so much, that includes applications such as WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, SkinStudio, and more, is having a limited time sale.  You get all the includes applications, plus all the updates and any new additions throughout the year for just $39.95!

But remember, this is a limited time offer, so don’t delay and get it now!  This is also a great opportunity to get your friends and family hooked up, so be sure to pass the word along to them.

Get more info about Object Desktop at www.objectdesktop.com.