Yesterday was the last day of my trip to Stardock HQ.  It was a very productive day with a few meetings, and I’m happy to say that Zoomba and myself have nailed down the final plans for the GUI Champs ‘08, and a more “official” announcement will be posted in just a few days.  While I missed my family, I was a bit sad to leave because I was having a great time and it was just awesome to get to know people better than I have in the last couple of years.  I also have a lot of a cool stuff to talk about, so watch the front page of WinCustomize today for a big “teaser”.

I flew back to Florida late last night, which happened to be a very rough flight back, and now I’m just catching up on the last few days.  Here are a few more pics from my trip.

Brad (Frogboy) and myself.

Hanging with Zoomba.

Stardock HQ.

Well Day 2 was my first full day at Stardock, and let me first start off by saying the weather is just fantastic.  I think it was around 60 degrees when I left the hotel this morning, and it felt really good.  I got my own little cubicle to work out of, which is weird to me to be in an office with other people, but I enjoyed having people around.

Here’s me at my space catching up on some WinCustomize moderation.

Just about right next to me we have Zoomba peeking over to say hello.

The rest of the day was meetings, and more meetings.  But I can’t wait to tell you what’s going on!

Lets start off with fdlafkdfj fadf adlfafdkfa d afkdjf adkfaldkfja ldkf adl akfjalkd fa d d dkfjdlfka dlkfa dlkfaj dlka dflkadfl kadf adlkfadlkfa dlka dfdflkadjl ldkjaf ldk fadlkfa dlkafdfadfkjd dflaadfkdfj lafk . Yeah, unbelievable right?

The most exciting thing is aldfkadjlf akd;fkd fa dflkad;lfakdj; faldkfj ;aldkfj; aldkf aldkfj;ldkfaj; ldkf a;dlkfjdlkfldkfja lkf a;ldfkdlfkd;l fka dflakdfjla dkfal;dkfaj; dlfak d;lfakd;lfakd flasd fsldfklkdf dlskfjldskfj dlfkjdslkf which is probably the greatest application ever!

There was some other stuff like dlfakdlfk dlfakdjf aldkfa dlkfjd lfkadfjlakd flakdfjlakd, but I won’t bore you with anymore details. 

So tonight is my last night in Michigan, but there is still a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow.  GUI Champs ‘08 is just about a month away, and hopefully we will have the formal announcement soon, but there is not reason to wait, get those skins started!

I have a vision for Object Desktop. I have always had an idealized vision for it.  What stops it from becoming a reality is that my vision involves a lot of work that is not economically feasible.

Part of the problem is that what I think is super cool isn't necessarily what other people think are super cool. 

Let me outline things in Object Desktop that bug me today:

1. I want to see Theme Manager massively updated. I'm not talking about MyColors. I don't want to see MyColors replace Theme Manager. I want people to be able to take a snapshot of their desktop and I want to see MyColors themes that don't use licensed IP include a .suite file option.
2. I want a consistent user experience between all the programs.
3. I want to see TweakVista get a LOT more features so that I can do a lot more surgery on my computer.
4. I want to see more productive features integrated into Object Desktop that extend the OS.
5. I'd like to see DriveScan re-introduced,
6. I'd like to features that extend the windows shell to be more useful but without having to get rid of explorer,
7. I'd like to see Object Package (from the OS/2 version) brought back so that I could press a button, get a big giant .package file and take it to a new machine and press unpackage where it reinstalls all my stuff.
8. I'd like to see features that speed up my system. Why isn't anyone doing anything that can speed up perceived performance of Windows anymore? If I have 2 gigs of RAM, why can't Object Desktop have some feature that better manages the swap file or something like make sure all shell related stuff stays in memory or whatever?
9. I'd like to see a feature that better handles my Windows start up. It's crap right now. I'm not talking about something that lets me kill off stuff that loads up, I mean something that lets me get to my desktop quicker and has an explicit loader for all the other crap that can load later in a low priority state?
10. For that matter, why doesn't Object Desktop have features that make Windows use the priority settings for processes better?
11. I want to see DesktopX re-imagined completely so that I can build fantastic shells and user experiences using .NET, WPF, etc.
12. I want to see cloud computing features integrated into the Windows shell.  If I have multiple computers, on a high speed connection, why should I give a crap where a folder physically resides? Let it invisibly sync everything together. I don't even want to know it's doing it (other than at a technical level). Just make sure I have my stuff wherever.

So why don't we do this? This is where the vision and reality collide.  A lot of the coolest features rarely get used and sell terribly.  Keyboard LaunchPad, for instance, is insanely useful but it's not very popular.  Same with RightClick.

A lot of cool features are hard to market and get people to understand or not be afraid of. 

And a lot of cool feature are simply very difficult to develop and there just aren't a lot of developers capable of making this kind of stuff well at any price.

But the above are some of the things I'd love to see make their way into Object Desktop.

When you purchase an application or game from one of Stardock’s various websites, you should get an e-mail with registration information and some links.  Not everyone might know what to do from there, so I wanted to give you a quick tour on how to get your registrations into Impulse so you can download and manage your products.

Impulse is Stardock’s state of the art digital distribution platform.  You can find more info about it here.

First you need to download Impulse.

- Impulse Client - Web Installer

- Impulse Client - Full

Once installed, make sure you are using the same e-mail address as you used to make your purchase. You can edit your account information by click the Orb button and editing your Stardock.net account.

Impulse should associate items in your account and have them ready for download, but for whatever reason you need to enter registration manually, here is what you need to do.

Click the Edit Registrations button.

That will bring up the Registrations window.

Here you can view, and manage any current registrations  you have.  Just click an individual registration and right-clicking will bring up a menu where you can update the registrations.  If you have a new registration to enter, just click the button as shown in the screenshot above.  A new window will popup and this is where you can enter your registration info.

Just enter your serial number, e-mail address, and the type of product you purchased.  After that just click Add Registration and you should be all set.  Now just navigate to the appropriate tab (My Games, My Desktop, etc), and your product should be there for download.

I have used Paint Shop Pro since about version 8, and I have upgraded to almost every other version update since then.  I was always recommended PSP from many members of the skinning community, and even today I know many popular skinners who use this.  Paint Shop Pro has come a long way since I first started using it, and even though it has moved more towards use with photography, I found it’s still a great graphics tool that is perfect for making skins and themes.  Best of all, it’s a great alternative to other higher-end imaging software which costs much, much more. 

The first thing I notice when opening Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is it’s sporty a sleek new graphite theme, which can be disabled if you rather have the previous style.  The graphite theme works well and gives a darker look to the whole application, which at least to me, makes working on graphics easier on the eyes.  If you are new to Paint Shop Pro, or just need some help in some areas, there is a Learning Center docked to the left side which guides you through the process of several techniques like making photo collages, adding effects, adjusting images, etc.  Of course you can configure the interface to your liking, but I found the default quite suitable for my needs.  There is also an image browsing window where you can easier organize, find, and edit images stored on your computer.

All the tools you would ever need to either create graphics for skinning, or for adjusting photographs, are right here.  I was happy to see one of my favorite tools, the picture tubes, are still there.  There is such a wide variety of settings and tools available that I could write all day about, but take my word for it, it has what you need.  On the photography side, there are several “one-step” fixes for various common corrections in photos.  There is also a new Express Lab which can batch edit several files or folders at once with actions like crop, resize, etc.

Some other new features are the HDR Photo Merge which combines two or more images and corrects the contrast automatically.  Also new is the addition of layer styles and watermark support, both of which should be welcomed to both beginner and seasoned professionals.  The Black & White conversion tool has also been enhanced along with the Makeover tools which are essential for fixing any impurities in images.

While I was once concerned that Paint Shop Pro would only be useful to photographers, I have now realize that it’s only added to the graphics experience.  Whether you are a photographer, graphic designer, or skinner, Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 has all the features necessary to bring your creativity to life. 

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is now available from the Impulse Store for just $79.99. 

With Dell taking the Windows experience to the next level with the introduction of the Dell Dock, I've seen a lot of online buzz about it.  Most agree that the Dell Dock is really good but intermixed are a lot of Mac fans who use terms like "Mac rip off" or how it's a copy of the Mac dock.

Mac zealots have a long and glorious history of retroactively claiming pre-existing concepts as being invented by Apple.  For example, the modern "widget" (end user created applets that use Javascript) was not invented by Apple.  They also didn't first appear in Konfabulator either. They appeared in Stardock DesktopX years earlier. Apple zealots usually counter by arguing that things like desktop accessories from 1981 "invented" the concept (as if the average user was going to whip out small assembly language programs).

I think most rational people agree that the modern widget is a mini application that can be created by end users that are tied together with a high level scripting language (i.e. Yahoo Widgets, Dashboard, Sidebar Gadgets, DesktopX).  And DesktopX borrowed the concept from IBM's worksplace shell which in turn was inspired by prior art as well.

But the controversy over widgets is nothing compared to the claim that Apple somehow invented the concept of docks.  Even allowing for the history of NeXT with its side dock, the dock concept is ancient.

 Stardock, for example, has been doing "docks" since 1994.  Object Desktop for OS/2 included things like Tab LaunchPad and Control Center. You don't see Stardock fans complaining that every sidebar is a "rip off" of Control Center. And Control Center certainly didn't invent the concept of a side-based bar or dock either.

You would be hard pressed to find many companies that have been continuously producing a dock and a sidebar as long as Stardock has -- 14 consecutive years of development. I think it's fair to say that we weren't "inspired" by an Apple OS that wouldn't exist for 7 more years from the time we started doing this sort of thing.

Tab LaunchPad on OS/2 circa 1994

Stardock makes no claims of having invented the dock.  We called our first dock Tab LaunchPad because IBM itself had created a dock for OS/2 2.0:

IBM OS/2 LaunchPad circa 1992

But let's say you're a true die-hard Steve Jobs zealot and want to argue that NeXT "invented" the dock. You'd still be wrong as docks were part of Acorn computers from the early 80s.  The point, of course, isn't who invented the dock, the argument of course is whether companies like Stardock (who wrote the Dell Dock) were somehow ripping off or stealing or what have you from the MacOS dock and I think you can see why this is such an obnoxious and offensive argument - we've been making docks since before Apple had figured out how to do preemptive multitasking.

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words.  Here is a picture of what the Macintosh looked like in 1996 (System 7.5) along with a picture of Stardock Object Desktop in 1996:

vs.
Mac 1996 vs. Stardock Object Desktop 1996: Which desktop do you think more closely resembles today's modern desktop? Note that Object Desktop was written during the Windows 3.1 era.

Stardock doesn't run around claiming that it invented the modern desktop experience. We don't imply or assert that everyone else is "ripping us off". Some ideas are just obvious.

The Dell Dock represents the continuing evolution of the desktop experience. Like all improvements to the user experience, inspiration can be found everywhere. But when advocates of a company or an operating system try to lay exclusive claim to all such improvements, they diminish the hard work, innovation, and inventiveness by thousands of other people from around the world who often have worked in obscurity with little glory. It is bad enough that these innovators don't get credit they deserve, it's even worse when they are so often smeared as copying those who came after.

Other Pictures:

Dell Dock

Stardock ObjectDock

Stardock ObjectDock Plus (4 different docks)

Stardock Impulse Dock

Stardock’s Impulse is here, and whether you are purchasing a game, software application, or MyColors theme, the checkout process is basically the same.  I wanted to write a guide showing just how simple purchasing through the Impulse Store is, and what to expect when your sale is completed.

This is the Impulse Store.  You can get here by selecting the Store tab in Impulse.

As you can see in the notes in the screenshot, you can select different tabs to view different product categories.  From there you can also filter and sort by using the drop-down menus.  Once you find something you are interested in, just click it and a more detailed product view will appear.  I’m going to select the Rockstar MyColors Desktop.

You can view more detailed info here, and when ready to buy, just click Add to Cart. From there you can either continue to shop and add more to the cart or just start the checkout process.  We will move on to checkout.

The screenshot above shows your cart, where you can review the products in it and make any adjustments if needed.  If you have a coupon you have the option to enter it here, and then select Checkout or select to pay with Paypal. 

This is where you need to start entering  your billing information such as your name, address, e-mail, etc.  One of the great features about Impulse is that you can purchase an item for someone else and have it sent to them.  Just select the check box and in the next step you will just need to enter their recipient information.  Otherwise, you will now need to enter your payment information as seen below.

After your payment information is entered, it’s time to confirm it all.

If everything looks good, go ahead and click Place Your Order.

Your order is complete.  Since we ordered a MyColors theme, this is a digital download so at the bottom of the page you will see the information about download links and registration numbers.  This information will also be e-mailed to you.  As you can see in the screenshot, you might also be prompted to download and install your item now. 

That should pretty much cover the purchasing process through Impulse.  When using Impulse it’s important that you make sure the e-mail you enter for registration is the same e-mail you used to purchase with.  You can view all your registrations and even add or modify them through the registration section in Impulse.

For more information and download for Impulse, visit the ImpulseDriven website at www.impulsedriven.com.

With Impulse finally here, it's time to start a new set of guides and walkthrough to make sure you are getting the most out of Impulse.  I thought I would start it off with going over the Community features, specifically the Friends feature.  I really like this as I can keep tabs with what my friends are doing and other activity.

When you hit the Community tab, you will see a list in the upper right hand corner which shows which of your current friends are online, and also shows you any pending friend requests.

Clicking 'manage' will take you the friends request screen where you can review the pending requests you have.  As you see in the screenshot below, I have three pending requests.  From here you can choose to accept the friend request or just ignore it. 

That's the basics of managing your friend requests, so now lets move on to how to actually request someone to be a friend.  I noticed one person wasn't on my list, so I headed over to Bebi Bulma's profile and blog.  In the upper right hand section you should see a link to add a friend, so just click that and a friend request will be sent. 

You also have the opportunity to send a note with that request as well.

One you have all your friends organized, you can click the 'Friends' tab at the bottom of the Community section.  This will give you an overview of your friends activity.  It will show you who your friends are making friends with, and also show you comments and blog posts they have made.  It's a fantastic way to keep up to date on what your friends are doing.

You can also see a more detailed list about your friends, including links to their blog and profile by selecting the 'Friends list' or 'Dashboard'.  You will also have the ability to remove friends from here also if you wish. 

After reading this guide you should have a good understand of how to request and manage your friends with Impulse.  If you don't have Impulse yet, head over to www.impulsedriven.com and get your copy.

Stardock’s new Impulse digital distribution platform has been recognized by Microsoft as having met the stringent testing criteria and been awarded the right to display the Certified for Windows Vista logo.

Impulse, which was formally released by Stardock on June 17th, 2008, is a cohesive, integrated virtual platform for consumers and developers that has been designed to simplify buying, supporting, and developing PC games and software applications. Through Impulse, consumers can purchase, download and install games, utilities and even video drivers, enhancing the Windows experience.

“Microsoft is pleased that Stardock has earned the Certified for Windows Vista software logo for their Impulse application,” said Jeff Price, senior director in Windows Client Product Management at Microsoft Corp. “This highlights Stardock’s commitment to providing its customers with higher quality applications that deliver a more secure, reliable and compatible experience with Windows Vista.”

Applications that receive this recognition have been independently tested to assure the highest levels of compatibility, functionality and reliability and must meet both Microsoft's own security guidelines and the privacy standards set for by the Anti-Spyware coalition.

Phil Madis, Director of Business Development at Stardock, added, “We are pleased to have been awarded the highest level of Vista compatibility certification by Microsoft. By undergoing and passing the rigorous testing process, we are able to assure our customers that Impulse has been optimized for ease of use, optimal performance and to take advantage of the enhanced security features of Windows Vista.”

It should be noted that Impulse supports both Windows Vista and Windows XP. Impulse was developed using Microsoft’s .NET technology.

Impulse is the greatest thing since sliced bread...yada yada yada.

But how good is it really? Ultimately, only you will be able to decide.  What I'm going to do here is give my personal opinion on how Impulse stands on the eve of its launch.

The Comparisons

Let's just get this out of the way, Impulse is not Steam or Direct2Drive or Xfire or whatever.  It's has a very different design philosophy.  So let me just say this: You would have to pry Steam out of my cold dead hands.  You should judge Impulse as how well it addresses your problems.

First Impressions

So I double click on the Impulse icon.  How fast does it load?  On my ThinkPad T60 it's about 5 seconds but YMMV.  In its phase 2 edition (August) I think we need to make it more multithreaded so that when you launch it, it comes up like a window. I.e. instantly.  But it is pretty snappy (a lot faster for me than the betas were).

My next question would be, how much RAM is this thing using?

On load up, about 15 megabytes which is pretty good given that Internet Explorer uses 84 megabytes! 

The Store

From a digital e-commerce point of view, the million dollar question is, how good is the selection in the Impulse store?  With Steam or Direct2Drive, I can get a gazillion different games.  So what about Impulse? The answer depends on what you're looking for. 

The first week of the Impulse launch will be spent handling the logistics of getting hundreds of gigabytes of games, utilities, and applications up on the servers. So what is available at say 1pm on the day of the launch will be different from what is available at 5pm of the same day with each day adding more and more stuff.

But by Christmas, I suspect it won't be selection that makes one choose one digital store over another but rather the features and services that these things provide.  Impulse, for instance, supports refunds for users having technical issues. That's a pretty big deal IMO. As far as I know, that will be unique to Impulse.

Community Features

So that we're all on the same page, Impulse isn't just a download manager ala Stardock Central.  It is a full blown digital distribution platform.  The platform comes in the form of Impulse Reactor which is a server-side virtual API set for developers.

A developer could, for instance, using the free Impulse Reactor SDK (which will be launched in mid August) type into their game: CVP.SaveGame() and save their game to the player's virtual drive.  Or CVP.LoadPreferences() to get a game's preferences.

The first game to make use of the Common Virtual Platform will be The Political Machine.  Unfortunately, The Political Machine v1.1 wasn't ready by the Impulse launch so we had to hide the "Games" button from the community area for multiplayer match making.  As soon as it's ready, the button will come back and players will be able to find games either there or within The Political Machine itself.  Other games that will be using it include Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations II v2.0, and Demigod.  We are also working with a number of third party developers to begin using this.

Blogging

I am very biased in favor of non-website whenever possible. I just find website stuff slow. 

The blogging and forum behavior on Impulse is pretty fast but I'd like to see it much faster.  As in, instantaneous.

I think in the coming weeks you'll see a lot of improvements to performance across the whole thing as the initial launch was largely about just getting stuff in there.

My Friends

The friends stuff is a pretty big deal for me as both a user and as a gamer.  It's only in its beginning stages really.  Eventually, you'll be able to easily get games going and filter by friends or friends of friends to help improve the multiplayer experience.

When I play on-line, my biggest gripe is the griefing and such I run into.  I'm 36 years old, I just don't have time to waste in a multiplayer game with some 15 year old whose out to "max their ranking".

Features that didn't make to the launch that make me sad

There are 3 big features that had to be put into phase 2 (August) that make me sad. The Impulse side was done but we just didn't have enough time on the game side to make use of them yet.

Those are:

1. Multiplayer Matchmaking.  People could start and join games right from Impulse.
2. Achievements.
3. Game Rankings.

They'll get in there, we just have to update The Political Machine and other games to make use of them so that we can show off what's possible to game developers.

The same is true for NAT negotiation and such.  One of the biggest pains in the butt on the PC is getting ports and firewalls set up right for a game. In Impulse phase 3, the Impulse back end will be set up to act as a kind of back-up for games that use our platform.  So a user could connect to another user without knowing anything about routers and what not.  We're hoping Demigod will be the first game to make use of this.

Getting Updates

So right now, there's a tab called "Updates" that shows up if there are updates to ones programs.  I'd like to see an option put in asap that simply has Impulse download these updates automatically.

My other request is that when downloading updates, I want to see my actual bandwidth speed. I realize this is cosmetic but somewhere, techies should be able to get some idea of how fast their connections are.

Getting to my stuff

Impulse lets users add new categories to  their applications and move things around via the dock (we'll talk about that more soon).

If there's an update, an exclamation point shows up next to it.

What's not in the launch version are forums for every application or a chat channel. Eventually everything will get its own forum and chat channel.

Registering your stuff

Users can associate various programs with their account.  Right now, the only commercial programs that you can associate with your account are Stardock ones and programs you bought from Impulse. But the next step is to let you be able to associate any program with your account regardless of where you purchased it.

This way, when are setting up a new machine, you can just let Impulse download and install all your stuff (freeware, shareware, games, whatever).

Preferences

Clicking on the orb in the top left opens up additional options.  You can set up where things install on a per category basis:

The Dock

Impulse is designed to customizeable.  The initial launch doesn't have the skinning selection features in. That's coming "real soon now(TM)". But you can add and edit your own categories:

 
Extending Impulse

When you press the minimize to dock, Impulse launches the dock:

Impulse Dock

The dock displays the same content as the Impulse client. By default, it is set to auto-hide so it will hide to the taskbar edge with the user able to bring it up by moving their mouse to the bottom edge of the screen.

The dock is pretty powerful and yet light weight.

We plan to release later on an Impulse Tray applet that users can optionally use to stay in touch with friends, posts, updates, etc.  It will not be part of Impulse itself as it will be designed to be as tiny as possible. 

So what's next?

I think most people will find Impulse pretty compelling. Initially, its game content is not on par with Steam or Direct2Drive but that should change over time.  Obviously on the non-game software side, it enjoys a tremendous advantage. 

Impulse itself is pretty snappy but I found the forums and blog services be a bit on the slow side. This will be something Stardock will need to improve.

Download speeds of new programs, by contrast are fast. Faster than anything I've ever used anywhere.

The customization features, while decent, could be a lot better. I.e. I'd like to be able to select from a list of skins.  Stardock's the leader in this area so it's something that it will be adding and supporting through its skinning site, WinCustomize.com.

It will be important that Impulse show off the features of Impulse Reactor as quickly as possible.  Getting the Multiplayer matchmaking in should be up by the end of the month.  Achievements, rankings, etc. are all going to be crucial as well.

I'd like to be able to filter out programs that are available but not installed. I'm an extreme case since I have a ton of things linked to my account but still.

I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how fast and memory efficient the overall program is.  Given how pretty it is, on might expect it to be slow and a memory hog but even in its first release, it's really snappy.