The WinCustomize gallery system is large and often complex with many different ways to access, sort and display skins.  At a glance you probably wouldn't even notice most of the options you have at your disposal, making it hard sometimes to find what you're looking for. While WinCustomize v6 will improve navigation & UI presentation, for the time being we're stuck with what we have.  To help folks out, Island Dog has written up a detailed guide on how to use all the Gallery bells a...

Clean, usable WindowBlinds skins seem to be few and far between these days, with a current focus on style and flash over simplicity and speed.  Now, these flashy WindowBlinds skins are still great, don't get me wrong, but sometimes you just want a simple skin that doesn't distract you from your work. Redo by Z71 is just such a skin.  Using a dark charcoal gray for the majority of the skin's borders and backgrounds and soft blues for contrasting elements such as buttons, active wi...

Impulse, the successor to Stardock Central, is nearing completion and we've been incredibly eager to get your impressions on our new storefront and digital distribution tool.  Impulse takes the lessons learned over years of developing and using Stardock Central and improves upon the tool in virtually every aspect. As you can see by the screenshot, and other previews we've given, Impulse is much more user-friendly and attractive than the current version of SDC. Now though, you do...

In the last few years, it seems like good IconPackages are becoming harder to come by.  Maybe its the increased difficulty of Vista with its larger icons and LiveFolders, it's hard to say for sure.  But there's no question that IconPackage creation is slowing down.  It wasn't that long ago though that we saw probably the single greatest surge of fantastic IconPacks ever on the site; the 2006 GUI Championships The 2006 GUIC saw 53 IconPackages submitted, almost every single one...

Lets look at your PC capabilities a bit more closely.  Last week I asked about whether you used a desktop or a laptop as your main machine.  Desktops won out easily.  This week lets talk screen resolutions.  For authors of wallpapers, DX themes, skins, icons and almost every other category in skinning, screen resolutions can be a massive pain in the rear.  What looks fantastic at 1600x1200 might look like garbage or simply be unusable at 1024x768.  At the same time...

Last week we moved on to less controversial poll topics and asked what your primary PC was; Desktop or Laptop.  This poll received the most votes of any poll in recent memory, and sparked a very active forum thread.  The results weren't entirely surprising though.  69% of you use a Desktop PC either as your primary, or as much as you use a laptop.  It looks like expandability and power won out over portability and convenience. Here are the results: Personally, at wor...

Good morning folks!  After a glorious 4-day weekend, we're back at it once again.  And since it's the first day of the work week, it's time for me to round up what I think are the best skins submitted over the weekend.  This time we have 4 full days to choose from, so lets get started... It was a great weekend for Wallpapers.  This week I'd like...

The latest skin from one of the most creative skinners in the community is here: No Load Limit by I.R. Brainiac Creativity in a skin is something of a rarity these days with so many Aero Glass clones, glass styles etc.  One skinner though whom you can always count on for the wacky and out-there designs is I.R. Brainiac.  Knot Vista and SliderXP are two of the most interesting and creative skins seen here in years.  Today we have his latest Master Skin; No Load Limit. ...

For those of you keeping track, the 3rd WC Community Contest ends today, so if you have an entry in the works, you better hurry up and put the finishing touches on it and upload it.  The competition is huge, covering CursorFX, IconPackager, ObjectDock and WindowBlinds.  As of yesterday's tally, there are 27 entries posted.  Here are just a few: ...

BootSkins don't tend to get a lot of attention around these parts, left behind in favor of the more glamorous WindowBlinds skins, or Icon Packs.  But there are some really great BootSkins out there you may want to try if you're bored with the regular Windows XP boot screen.

Dragon by Stardock Design is one of the coolest and most popular WindowBlinds skins recently released.  Its use of WB6 animation on the start menu, and an incredibly clean yet detailed look has earned it a top spot on many user's favorites lists.  With its popularity, it's no surprise that matching skins would pop up quickly.  Here are a few skins posted (with the permission of Stardock Design) to go along with Dragon. ...

With IconDeveloper 2.0 released yesterday, and a new version of IconPackager on the horizon, I bet we're in store for a lot of great, new IconPacks.  In the meantime though, there are two killer new sets from Master Skinners Z71 and JJ Ying; Cabin Fever & Arzo Icons, both entries in the 3rd WC Community Contest . XP & Vista-Ready XP-Only Outstanding work as always from two of the best skinners in the community!

This week, a less controversial poll.  This one comes from Snidely Whiplash on IRC: Do you primarily use a Desktop PC or a Laptop? This question was inspired by the Show Your Computer Setup thread and the surprising number of laptops shown off. Results will be posted on Tuesday (office is closed Monday).

Last week, as a follow-up to the poll regarding a cell phone theme gallery, I asked what everyone's feelings were on adding new galleries in general versus focusing in more on the galleries we already have.  The results of the poll were pretty clear and help explain the results of the cell phone theme poll. The results were 2:1 for focusing on our existing galleries before adding anything new. One thing I'd like to know is if you folks have ideas on how we could be focusing more on w...

Monday is here, but it's St. Patrick's Day!  It's also a short week for us here at the office with a 4-day weekend for Easter.  Yes, I do think this is possibly the best week of the year... So lets get this short week started.  Here, as always, are my picks for the best work uploaded to WC over the weekend.  A single green skin in the mix, but oddly not a single Easter one yet. ...