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. ...

Every month I ask the WinCustomize moderators to go through the skins submitted over the the previous 30 days and pick out their favorites and provide a little bit of explanation on why they like it.  Here are the Moderator Picks from all skins submitted in the month of February...       Artifice by mkorashy "An excellent skin, clean, clear and very usable.  What's so remarkable about this skin though, is it's mkor...

I have to say, 2008 has been a great year so far for skins.  Dreams have been steadily improving, and Island Dog's weekly roundup has highlighted some of the best work I've seen in ages.  This week is absolutely no exception either! This week we have Unity by Tiggz, one of the best icon packages I've seen on the site in ages, two outstanding wallpapers, two top-notch WindowBlinds skins and more.  Any kind of drought we were going through for good skins in months past seems to h...

Since we've been around for seven years, we've seen a lot of people come and go from the userlists.  As I've said, in that time we've seen several million folks stop by long enough to create an account with us.  In those years, the composition of the community has changed greatly.  A lot of the prominent faces around today weren't here back in 2001, and a lot of the folks from 2001 have since moved on to other things. So while everyone knows the general story and history of Wi...