Recently vStyler released the third in his Vienna skin series; Vienna 3 Rapture.  As with many previous MaxStyles/vStyler skins, Vienna 3 has spawned a number of great accessory skins, making it possible to completely theme out your Windows PC in Vienna 3 goodness. Here are the skins released so far:     And of course, there's the sk...

We've hit the two month mark with the show and this week I'm again absent from the show (I was locked away in our datacenter racking some new servers) but Spencer picks up the slack and talks with Jorge, the developer behind WinStep Technologies and their flagship Winstep Xtreme software, a complete desktop replacement for Windows.  Jorge tells Spencer all about the history of Winstep from all the way back in the NeXT days up through programming under Vista.  He also answers a...

Welcome back fellow skinners, forum trolls, and all the various random folks who wander by this site every day.  It's Monday, and that means it's back to the work week, and I'm here to start things off on the right foot with some great skins that were released to WinCustomize over the weekend.  While many of us were out BBQing with friends or enjoying some nice weather, a lot of folks were slaving away on new skins for all of us to enjoy.  Here are some of my favorites from the w...

Have you ever downloaded a skinning product, a Stardock Game, or any MyColors theme?  Then you have benefited from the work of probably one of our least well-known but most important people here at Stardock: Kris Kwilas, VP of Technology.  You might know him as Nakor on the forums or IRC and have probably seen him dolling out support help here and there.  Virtually every product we've released, every site we've launched, every server we've deployed has been worked on in the last ...

Oh thank The Flying Spaghetti Monster , it's Friday at last!  And since it's Friday, that means we have Island Dog's weekly installment of This Week in Skinning.  This week's list is a great one with some killer cursors, a nature dream, some new Corinthia styled icons, two fantastic wallpapers and two new WindowBlinds skins; Cylon by SKoriginals and Vienna 3 - Rapture by vStyler.  Check out the full article for all the skinning goodness.

Go incognito with the new Camouflage suite from Stardock Design's own Treetog! Yes, this new theme is 100% Treetog goodness.  Skin, wallpaper and icons all made by the master.  It's a terrific theme for people looking for something different from the regular old glass imitations.  Dark colors and a great style make this a must-try theme. Plus, like with Cosmos and Liquidox, we have a freebie skin to toss your way, to give you a taste of what the whole theme is like. ...

We're constantly featuring articles written by members of both Stardock and the larger WinCustomize community.  We look for interesting pieces about skinning, the community or technology in general.  This week in particular there have been some great articles I want to feature more prominently. ID's May Roundup Blog A great synopsis of what ID's been up to across the skinning community in the last month.  This month he talks about the WinCustomize Podcast, the status of ...

Last week, our friends over at WinStep Software released the latest version of Winstep Xtreme, 8.5.  This version is packed with great new features and a ton of cool eye candy.  Winstep Xtreme 8.5 brings Apple Dock style icon reflection to Windows, an absolutely awesome visual effect that looks good with pretty much any icon. Here are a few highlights from the 8.5 version: New optional and user configurable icon reflection effect on docks and shelves. Restored the weathe...

This week's poll is about a potential feature that's being debated internally for the next major update to WinCustomize.  Since we're gearing up for the GUI Champs, and a major feature of the competition has always been forming skinning teams, we wanted to know if something like that would be a good addition to WinCustomize proper. Should WinCustomize add a "Group" feature to allow skinners to affiliate themselves with one another, and to work together and post skins under a team label?...

With the start of a new month, we have a new Desktop Screenshots thread on the forums.  This is where you can show off what awesome skin you're mainly running on your desktop this month.  So far, there are already over a dozen great screenshots showing off people's systems at the moment.  Head on over and post your own! At the end of the month, I'm going to go through the thread and pick my favorite screenshot of the bunch.  Whoever is picked will get a 1 year WinCustomiz...

This week it's just Spencer and myself talking about the upcoming GUI Championships event scheduled for later in the year.  Clocking in at about 22 minutes this week we talk about the 2006 event, some of the things we learned from it and what we hope to accomplish with the 2008 event.  Also of note in this episode is the changes to our sound setup.  We've added in a soundboard and higher grade microphones to try and improve the recording quality.  So my end of things should ...

Last week I asked who your favorite guest on the WinCustomize SkinCast has been so far.  In 6 episodes we've had four guests.  Zubaz (Ep 3) being our first and Kittymalone (Ep 6) being the most recent.  The idea was to get a feel for what sort of shows are the most popular, and what kinds of guests you all enjoy the most.  Since the four guests so far have all been very very different, we felt it was a good group to use.  You have Zubaz who's a moderator and big communi...

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend.  It seems like summer is finally here in Michigan and we had some nice weather for a few days.  Here's hoping it sticks around for a bit!  Anyway, while I was out enjoying the weather, some of you were here uploading great skins to share with the community.  As always, here are my picks for my favorite skins from the weekend that was.  Enjoy! ...

DesktopX is one of those applications that just doesn't get enough attention.  When people talk about gadgets these days it's all about Apple or the Vista Sidebar.  Everyone forgets that DesktopX came way before the others.  And when it does get mentioned, people forget that it does oh so much more than just desktop gadgets.  You can use it to completely redesign your Windows user interface. One skinner in the community hasn't forgotten this: PuterDudeJim.  He keeps t...

Wow, Friday already?  Well, since the week is pretty much over, that means it's time for Island Dog's weekly skinning feature.  Even though it was a short week, folks still managed to put out some terrific skins for everyone to enjoy.  This week ID features a bootskin, cursor set, dx theme, logon screen, a dock, two wallpapers and a new WindowBlinds skin.  Check out the full article for all the skinning goodness!