Attention recruits!  For the next "Desktop Tour" I wanted to show off another MyColors theme that was recently released, and that would be the Camouflage theme.  As the name implies, this is a military inspired theme that can turn your desktop into the barracks you have always wanted.  Before we start, you can find more info about MyColors from Stardock, you can read through a walkthrough or view a screencast with more information. 

Visual Style and Wallpaper

Camouflage is obviously what this visual style is based upon, but it doesn't get hidden in the desktop.  The skin is sleek and the camouflage design is not overbearing at all.  I was concerned it might be "too much", but the design was well implemented and I had no problems using this theme throughout the workday.  The wallpaper compliments the theme well, and stays true to the overall design as well.

Icons

These have to be one of the coolest icon packs I have seen in a while.  A tank for the Control Panel icon, binoculars for Search icons, and many other military icons makes for an awesome pack.

Gadgets

The Camouflage theme is not short on gadgets either.  First we have the media player.  This was designed to look like a military-era radio, but has all the bells and whistles you would need in a desktop media player.

There is also an expandable weather gadget which will show your designated forecast, and give you the option to link to your local radar and other weather information. 

You always need to make sure you are on time for the all important mission, so it's essential to have a calendar and clock right there on your desktop. 

The Camouflage MyColors desktop is available for both Windows Vista and XP.  If you are a subscriber to Object Desktop then you are eligible for a discount for MyColors themes.  For more information visit the Camouflage MyColors theme page.

Hello again all!

Above everything , I must thank those who chose to promote me, I am honored and will strive to live up to the new rank, THANK YOU!!

now,...

It's another week and another artist to be highlighted, but first to finish my last week's article:

I ran late last week and have now learned to be more organized in my information gathering. Hopefully this will help for future reviews. I never got to show off KittyMalone's  Igloo wb.

so here it is, hope you like it as much as I do!

I love the little polarbear in this skin, he just reminds me of the bears my husband collects (yes I have a whole room devoted to teddybears, especially white bears). I had some problems with it initially but once I reallized that I had the wb config set to "vista-ize me " and it was causing problems, all was resolved and the skin looks great!

I chose a wall that brought a slight bit of darkness to the skin, because I just love that look, and it was a bit too bright and shiny for my moods. Edge of Insanity by HOTRODLED fit the mood perfectly.  I was lucky that there was a skin out there that fit so well with the start menu as you will see, it looks like the little bear is sleeping under the branches of that tree there.

I have been messing with DesktopX lately and added some widgets and objects  to give some depth to my desktop. Corner Clock by MountainDragon fits nicely up in the left hand corner of my screen. the coloring matches the blind very well and there's a little button in the corner that if clicked will hide the clock if it gets in your way.

Hard drive meter by Xira is also colored perfectly for this skin. Though I am still trying to figure out how to make it work right , I like how it looks there on the screen. given time I'll have it working right I'm sure.

Circle Glass by Bilbo1930 is a great tool it includes a weather feature as well as a drive meter. You can use any background you want  with this skin because it is totally transparent.I'm looking forward to using this in the future so I expect you'll see it again sometime.

I wanted to get the best look for this skin, and so I chose Igloo V1 by Snowman . While I usually go out of my way to find skins that aren't considered part of the  whole package, in this case as well as one or two others, staying with the theme works best.

When I was installing Igloo, I imediately thought of Voidcore and since there are two great skins to use here , I did. First is Whitebear IP and second is my absolute favorite cursorfx theme Whitebear CursorFX I don't think I could add any more to that skin and make it look better. In this case , less is more, and clutter doesn't work with snow.

ok, now that I've shown you what I did with Igloo, on to this week's artist:

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This week I chose to highlight Jazzymjr , simply because I noticed how many of Jazzy's skins I already had! Though sometimes her designs are a bit frilly for me, for the most part they really are versatile.

First to be mentioned will be Sea Jasper . Green is my favorite color , hands down. So when this skin came out , it was an "automatic download" for me(I some times go into auto click mode when confronted with a goodly amount of skins to dl! )

I recolored the greenish blue cursor from  M-drop color pack  by Artur Berk ,just slightly . It didn't need much , just a little shift.

After that I went on the hunt for some DesktopX items. I found Killer Weather by Tiggz and fell in love. Ok so now I have two weather objects to fight for supremacy on my screen! This weather object is really sweet, and will go with any pearlized wb you can find( I know I checked all the ones I have.) it also looks nice with the minimalist white blinds.

For my calendar, I chose HV LinearCalendar by XX . The calendar is slim, doesn't obscure my wall and very easy to view at a glance from across the table .

I found a neat little meter object that looked really sharp with this set up, Cpu & Ram Meter by vukovicnikola .

I chose to combine an Object Dock with this skin, as it just worked that the wall and skin could handle a busy desktop. The dock I used was Seginus by Messiah1 . The tile-p version dragged to the right hand side of my screen  balanced this look out nicely.

The right click menu I chose looked like it should be part of the skin, though it was created for another of Jazzymjr's blinds. Amphitrite by Fairyy~  is a perfect double for a SeaJasper blind.You would never know it wasn't meant to be used with this skin. I really like Fairyy~'s work, very versatile.

OHMY!Nitro Xtreme (lite) by D. Arnez is the Icon Package I used here. The coloring and style is on the nose and while not exact, they compliment the coloring of SeaJasper very well.

Lastly, I will mention the beautiful wall, which , though it's a fractal, has depth, color and style. The author of this wall, makes some of the prettiest fractal papers I've seen on the site. I read recently that the only reason the artist started making walls, was there wasn't one on the WC site that a neighbor thought would work with his setup. I am very grateful to that neighbor!!

Radiating by Frankeif  is a gorgeous blend of greens,blues grey's and purples. I know many think fractal papers are not stylish, but if you look at the depth each paper has, the different lines and swirls and convolutions they take, they really are a treat for the eye.

Now , for my next treat, I give you Bronze Daize  this is not one of Jazzymjr's  more recent works, but it's one I like when I am looking for some earthy tones.

I dragged out one of my water pictures ,( I live near the shore and adore the ocean and beach views .) Antares by Nefil .

This one, isn't your usual greenish blue with sunrise or sunset. The view is one of a sunset before a storm, where everything has that eerie reddish tone to it and you know the upper atmosphere is going to let loose in the next day or so. I think these moments are out of this world beautiful. Though now that I think about it I bet the scene was meant to look like something from a different solar system.

The Icon Package was more difficult to find this time. I looked at several before settling on a recolored version of Element by Skinhit. There really aren't many IPs that work with  water scenes that aren't decidedly nautical in design. So I found one that worked with the skin instead of the scene and blended the color in to match the hues of the scene.

I also recolored the CursorFX theme Lava by Cavan1 . The mottled look of the cursor worked well over the darker colors of the skin and wall.

You'll notice I went a little crazy with DesktopX objects and widgets on this theme. It needed something to give it the depth the wall couldn't so I added Tropik Weather by Lovely62 very pretty and the perfect color match for the wall.

The clock is Bubble Clock red v3 by Himangshu , and the news reader is Newsfeed Sample (joeuser) by _Martin_. I wanted an audio object and found this one Dark Glass Audio by MountainDragon.

Well I couldn't have all that and not have a meter , now could I? So I found Meter graph small(updated_revised) by Gnaw. It's a nice small transparent meter that monitors your cpu, memory, and the dataflow  over your web connection.

I couldn't forget the right click, I've been adding one to almost all the themes , couldn't forget this one. Dark Two Right Click by Messiah1 is the one I had on hand that matched the best with this look.

My last look at works by Jazzymjr is Hearts Afire. Now I know it's kind of frilly for me, but I know there are people out there who really like that look. I'm not big into space themes either but find that I should include those styles in my work too so, here's frilly for ya Wulfie style!

I just couldn't get too flowery , so I hunted long and hard (and I mean long and hard!!) for a wall that would make this skin pop, but wouldn't make me feel like I was visiting my sister's bathroom. Finally I hit upon Neon Poison by Teddybearcholla. I had to "mirror" the wall to make the design show up to it's best advantage (for those of you who are skinning impaired, I opened the wall in PaintshopPro, clicked on "image" then clicked on the word "mirror" that reversed the wallpaper so it could be viewed properly here)

To get the icons I wanted, I had to recolor Bright Icons Suite version 1  by Alperium. I was going to use one of the sets starone created but none of them would allow me to recolor and they just didn't match with the colors she's created.

I used Core Weather by Mormegil (another of my favorite artists) it was simple, had a slight band of that rose color, and promised me a beautiful moon in the evening.

One really cool widget I found was Ultima`notes by HAPTORK. This thing is SO customizable you might as well call it skinnable!!! I had fun with different looks but settled on a rose on the corners and a copy of the wall for the background(not mirrored) and chose a script font for elegance.

The CursorFX theme I chose here was Flame by Artur Berk (ya I really love his cursors! ) I recolored it to a nice rose shade and haven't changed it yet!

I stuck with the theme for my right click and used Hearts Afire RC by Fairyy~.  there weren't any right click menus that would work with the theme I had going as well as this one.

I tossed in a calendar , just because I could, and found one that was slim, and see thru! perfect for my very cluttered screen.

Linear Calendar  by _Martin_  fit the bill perfectly, it's a vertical calendar that is very neat and tidy.

For my "Grande Finale" I plucked a rose to compliment this rosy theme. Pink Rose Clock by Buzzh58 is a quirky lil thing with a faerie tossing around in the middle of the waterbubble clock. It was amusing to my granddaughter to watch that little girl twirl!

Well, I know this was a long one, and I appreciate your looking. I promise next week won't be so long . And I also promise I won't highlight an author every week . I think I'll do it every other week or maybe once monthly.. we'll see .

Have a great week folks!!

Wulfie

It's a short week for me, so This Week in Skinning is coming just a tad earlier than usual.  Saw some really awesome stuff this week, especially in the CursorFX and Wallpaper galleries.  If you have Windows Vista and DeskScapes, don't miss the latest edition of This Month in Dreams.

Now for this weeks picks!

There were so many items this week that I just didn't have the room for, but equally deserved being featured.  Take a browse through the galleries and tell us what skins you liked from the past week.  See you next week!

Every month or so Frogboy does his “FrogBlog” where he gives an insight of things going on in and around Stardock from his perspective.  I have always enjoyed reading them so I that kind of inspired me to do something similar.  I wanted to write a blog showing the stuff going on not only in Stardock/WinCustomize related areas, but the other various skinning/tech communities like WinMatrix and Skinning.net that I visit regularly.  I also thought it might be fun to show off the the things I am working on, because I always appreciate the community feedback because much of what I do is for the communityy.

I first wanted to start off saying how pleased I am with the response to the WinCustomize SkinCast.  When we first started it  both Zoomba and myself were a bit unsure how it would be received and how well it would do.  Well after our 7th episode the number of listeners is at what I would consider to be a great number, and it seems to be steadily rising.  So thanks to everyone who listens and supports the show.  With that being said, one thing we are still lacking is more community input.  We have had a great set of guests on including moderators and skinners, and we should be having our first developer guest soon too. 

I have been getting a lot of questions recently about the status of the SkinStudio 6 tutorial, especially  since we have started to talk about the ‘08 GUI Champs.  The SKS6 tutorial is finished, but with all the cool features that Neil has been adding lately, I am taking a good part of this week and updating the tutorial and the associated screenshots.  Once that is done it will go for some more formatting and then should finally be released to the public.  I know it’s been long awaited, but I think this tutorial series will greatly benefit people interested in creating WindowBlinds skins, but might not be too sure where to start.  I wrote the guide from a beginners perspective, and I’m excited to see the response to it.

On the game side of things the Political Machine has been my main focus.  I love this game, seriously.  Maybe it’s because I’m a political junkie, but regardless it’s just fun to play, and who doesn’t want to create your own bobble-head anyway's?  This game has consumed many late nights, and helping find any last minute issues has been fun to say the least.  I can’t say too much else, but be on the lookup for more news.

Well I won’t keep it too long for the first one.  As always feel free to let me know of any feedback or suggestions you might have for future articles and features.  See ya next time!

Hi All!

Got lazy this week and ended up doing all my reviews today, so apologies in advance for the date showing the same for each review.(oh and I think I goofed on one with the icons,...not going back to make it right cause it still looks ok.)

I am taking one of the community suggestions and highlighting one artist today.Because of the dark themes and superb artistry, I chose KittyMalone. Its been stormy alot here lately and her themes just fit the bizzare mood a good thunderstorm can give a person.

First up, is Vampothika , a distinctly haunted house looking skin that  brings a sense of victoriana to the whole look. Though I don't usually comment on the fonts used for blinds, I feel I should mention the great fonts used for this one. I really love the look the author chose to balance this theme.

I decided to add a slight twist today , instead of highlighting an object bar, I chose to try out my desktopX program on all of you.

Because of the victorian theme, I chose Medival clock by ChaosMachine. While it is considered medieval by it's author, it maintains a distinctly victorian look  that suited the whole theme.

I wanted to show the moon within this view as well and so chose LunaVista by Will Rose . This object shows the moon in each phase(though because I also had another object that showed the phases this one was disabled and showed only full view) with a full rotational view as you might see it in the night sky. Way cool feature for a creature such as myself!

Just for giggles, and because it looked good, I also placed The Raven by loracnamwen on my desktop. While this bird doesn't really resemble a raven to me, it really looks cool on my desktop and blends well with the vision as  a whole. Added bonus, it opens my documents!

As I mentioned before I am using another object that shows moon phases. I like having the weather on desktop and while weatherbug is always my favorite, this desktopx object is really cool to have around especially with all the cool features it includes.

LookinGlass Weather Suite-Lite Edition by Will Rose was the perfect weather object for me. I can see a whole week at a glance, after a few minutes, I can see the whole week's evening weather and moon phases, and I can see live radar as well. Very sleek but powerful. (ya I know it's old , but it's still really great!)

Temple Oblivion is the cursorfx theme I chose for this setup. I know it belongs with a different skin but I liked it best with this one.

To tie up the whole theme here I chose a wallpaper that had some detail but wasn't very crisp, something that made the sharpness of Kitty's work stand out. I dug thru the libraries and found dream by RNA in the ol' wayback machine!

This wall didn't have a famous name nor was it particularly popular, judging by the rating. It just really fit the look I  wanted and so I downloaded and put it up for view with the rest of the theme. Glad I chose it. Works nicely.

I also tried out Kitty's  Temple Oblivion theme ,though I am not a big red fan,I have to admit the styling and darkness of this blind really works with the coloring.

The cursor I chose for this one was Blade 50 by Rycher. The curling blades accentuate the pointed blades of the start menu this blind uses.

MB-MetalReligion By ModBlackmoon is a very dark, ominous looking DesktopX theme that totally sets KittyMalone's Temple Oblivion blind off. There are quite a few features in this theme, most of which I haven't really tried out yet, but I had to use it because it was just perfect for the look I was going for here.

Blacklight rc by buzzh58 is the right click menu I used here.

The wall is one that came with one of my blinds. wish I knew which one , but I imagine it's one with a nice dark theme!

well I really wanted to add one more to the list but I see this is getting long and the time is going very fast. If I  want to get it out before tomorrow I am going to have to leave it here.. so you'll have to wait till next time to see what other theme I made up to highlight this author!

be safe all and thanks for reading!!!

Long Zheng (istartedsomething.com) has created a Windows Vista UI "taskforce" which will gather and record all known UI quirks in Windows Vista.  Obviously, nothing can be guaranteed to be fixed, but Long will send the list to someone at Microsoft and hopefully get some results. He is asking for help in finding these quirks and there is already quite a big list of some interesting glitches in the Vista UI.  These are also fixes that could lead themselves into "Windows 7" as well.

Head over to his site and check out the current list, and if you know of something that should be there, go ahead and submit it.  You can also help out by spreading the word about the UI "taskforce" on your blog or social network.

Link: Window UI Taskforce

Update: Long Zheng has created a special website dedicated to the submission of any UI suggestions.

Short cuts are always nice, but it seems like more work is always packed in to them.  Well at least it's Friday so that means this weeks edition of This Week in Skinning is here.

Now for this weeks picks!

	Star Trek 11 Enterprise 2 in Bootskins by I.R. Brainiac This is an awesome image of the Enterprise, and now you can see it when you boot up Windows.
	Gold Scarab for CursorFX by Libardo This is one of my new favorite CursorFX themes.  The details are amazing and it's just a really cool design.  Great work.
	Plasmatron A.I. in DesktopX Themes by knofsky I'm sure you will recognize the basis of this DX theme, and that is the popular Plasmatron WB skin.  Knofsky has done a great job at turning that style into a DX theme.
	Koi Pond Waterfall for LogonStudio Vista by OutdoorPictures A beautiful waterfall scene is the perfect addition for the Vista logon screen.
	Marbled Dock for ObjectDock Backgrounds by messiah1 The texture on these docks is just perfect, and the smooth look of marble makes this a very clean design.
	Full sails & a wind of fantasy in Wallpapers by ahabkaba This wallpaper pretty much speaks for itself.  The design is incredible, so be sure to check this one out.
	Corrosion in Wallpapers by Cavan1 Another one that is hard to describe, but this render is beautifully done and the colors are a nice fit on the desktop.
	Dockside II for WindowBlinds by jazzymjr  Here is the second edition of Dockside, and although it stays true to the original design, this one has a style of it's own.  Great job.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to submit their creations.  If you like the skins featured here, then be sure to stop by their pages and leave a comment for the authors.  See you next week!

The Los Angeles Lakers MyColors theme is probably one of the most popular screenshots that are viewed on my Flickr page.  I also get asked a lot of questions about it, so I thought I would start a new series of articles showing off MyColors themes.  If you have never heard of MyColors from Stardock, then you can read through a walkthrough or view a screencast with more information. 

Just as a quick introduction, MyColors allows you to easily change the appearance of your Windows desktop without having to worry about various software applications to download.  With MyColors, you choose the content and it's applied to your desktop with just a few steps.

Lets take a look at what is included with the L.A. Lakers MyColors desktop.

Gadgets

The MyColors themes are much more than just a visual style and wallpaper, they also have gadgets!  Gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display a variety of information or functionality.  One of the gadgets included with the Laker desktop is a weather gadget. 

The weather gadget will display your current weather condition at your selected location, along with the forecast for the next couple of days.  It also has an option to go into "mini-mode" for an even smaller size, which can be expanded at any time.

Next gadget in the Lakers suite is the media player.  The really cool thing about this player, aside from the fact it can play your media files, is the animations that this player has.  It can also be minimized down to a small basketball for when you don't need the full player open on the desktop.

Icons

MyColors themes also include a complete set of icons.  The set included with the Lakers theme matches perfectly with the skin colors, and includes many elements any basketball fan will love. 

Visual Style and Wallpaper

The basketball themed visual styles are some of my favorites.  They have the hard-wood details along with the other elements that match the team colors.  Just looking at the start menu you can see the fine details that went into creating this theme.

The visual style is also clean enough so that it can be used everyday.  It's not distracting and is certainly an improvement over the default Windows visual styles.

The Lakers MyColors desktop is available for both Windows XP and Vista.  If you are a subscriber to Object Desktop you also get a discount on MyColors themes.  For more information, visit the Los Angeles Lakers MyColors page.

Only a week or so left until we go gold with our new PC strategy game, The Political Machine. It's scheduled to hit stores in North America on June 17th so we're up against the gun! I haven't been to bed in over 2 days! The AI and the pacing has to be just...right. But we're in the home stretch and very pleased with how it's turning out - especially compared to the version we did in 2004.

The last days of Bush...

The Political Machine 2008 includes more than just the US election. It has other scenarios as well. Some are educational (Election of 1860) some are fantastical (Drengi) and one is offensively funny (Europe as seen through the eyes of an American high school student).

Players of Galactic Civilizations can picture the coolness of the included candidate editor. Both candidates were made with the included, easy to use editor.

Only an indie could make a game with a map like this.

The AI in The Political Machine is very good (if I say so myself). But it also comes with multiplayer built in and will be the first PC game to make use of the Common Multiplayer Platform (CMP) that is being launched with Impulse. CMP is the answer to any gamer who has bought a game and struggled to find people to play multiplayer (especially strategy games). 

 
You can design your own candidates from scratch, give them positions on issues, and all.  I have taken the liberty to make my lovely wife and my dear aunt for tonight's test game.

They're all bobble heads which means they're bobbing at you and trying their best to look at you.

He looks..familiar...

Getting endorsements is very important. Depending on which political party you play as, some of these are harder to get than others.  They change depending on the scenario of course (Europe, Drengi, and the election of 1860 have their own sets).

There's a ton of different ways to view the maps depending on what sorts of information you want to get.

as you can see, late in the game, you can hire a lot of operatives, consultants, and less than savory chartacters to help you out.

Plaeyrs can make speeches, take out advertisements, raise money, etc.  When players make a speech, they pick what issue they want to speak on. This is not window dressing as your speech will persaude others of your point of view - in that state anyway.

If you can make it in New York...

Different states have different issues. The start of the game has pretty realistic issues. But players can manipulate through the course of the game what issues care about through clever advertising, speeches, TV appearances, etc.   In one game, I had "Alien Abductions" as a top issue in some states.   In a game against experts, you won't be able to get away with that kind of thing as much though.

Hooray! I need to improve the AI more...yay...yay...sigh.    More sleepless nights it seems. The AI didn't get enough endorsements and focused too much on fixers.

Yes, we include a tutorial too! A little mention of our local school.