From technology to politics to video games; these are the random thoughts of a geek with too much time on his hands
Zoomba's Articles In OS Customization
December 2, 2008 by Zoomba
The 2008 GUI Championships is reaching its busiest point as the deadline for icons and skins is Friday, and the final phases of user voting taking place over the next two weeks.  What started as a trickle of submissions has now turned into a torrent, with over two dozen skins coming in over the last few days alone.  Just yesterday we crossed the 100 Entry milestone.  To mark that, here is a truly epic post: The First 100 Skins of the 2008 GUIC… ...
July 8, 2008 by Zoomba

The 2008 GUI Championships, the latest iteration of the world’s largest GUI customization competition, is quickly approaching.  This fall skinners from all over the globe will compete in one of three main events for their shot at hardware, software and cash prizes totaling near $10,000!

For the last few months we’ve been letting out little teasers here and there about what we’re going to be doing with this year’s event.  Today, I’m happy to reveal some of the contest details to everyone, so skinners can begin to prepare their masterpieces early.  In 2006, there were complaints that there wasn’t enough warning on the contest, so this year we’re giving you all months to prepare!

February 15, 2008 by Zoomba
Today I present the final part of our Ask a Moderator series.  For the last four weeks, I've been putting questions, submitted by the community, to the folks who help keep this site humming along day-in and day-out so you could get a better picture of who these people actually are, and why they put so much time and effort into WinCustomize. With this being the final set, I'd like to thank all of the moderators who participated, and all the users who submitted questions.  I hope eve...
February 8, 2008 by Zoomba
Another Friday, another series of questions from the community answered by our moderation staff! This week, we hear from WOM, Koasati, Starone, Zubaz, Quentin94, Fuzzy Logic, Hankers, Jafo, Erk and Snowman. Question 1 - Is there anything you miss about not being a moderator (i.e. a regular user) (HG_Eliminator) Wizop WOM   Yes, not having to watch what you say when people piss you off. Super Wizop Koasati   No, not really. Wizop starone ...
January 25, 2008 by Zoomba
Three weeks back I made a post asking the community to come up with a series of questions they always wanted to ask the Moderator Team.  Well, after over 70 replies, I was able to extract 20 excellent questions.  Over the next month, I will be asking the mods 5 questions a week and posting the results each Friday for you to read, enjoy and pick apart.  This week, we heard from WOM, Koasati, starone, Zubaz, Quentin94, Fuzzy Logic, elvee, Jafo, Hankers, Erk, Snowman and even Ka...
January 21, 2008 by Zoomba
After weeks of voting, at last we present to you the full list of winners.  These skins and skinners were nominated and voted on by the community. 2007 Skinner of the Year: It was a tight race, with the lead swapping between several skinners throughout the week, but after all was said and done, one skinner came out ahead and can be crowed the WinCustomize Skinner of 2007: Night Train 2nd Place: Quentin94 3rd Place: I.R. B...
January 3, 2008 by Zoomba
You've seen Brad's article on what Stardock needs to do in 2008 , and a few of the items touched on WinCustomize and the community specifically.  Now that we're into 2008, I wanted to add my own thoughts on what we accomplished on WinCustomize in 2007, what some of my goals are for '08 and what that means for the community in terms of content, events and opportunities. Looking Back at 2007: Vista, Dreams & New Opportunities 2007 was a year of change for Windows customization, there's...
December 18, 2007 by Zoomba
Dreams are one of the newest galleries on WinCustomize, having launched at the end of January along side the announcement of DreamScene by Microsoft at CES 2007.  They are the prime example of the possibilities Vista presents in terms of customization and skinning.  Since the launch, it has been one of our most popular galleries, attracting countless new skinners and users looking to get the most out of their Vista Ultimate purchase. What's impressive is that the success wasn't hind...
December 14, 2007 by Zoomba
Ok, after just a day and a half of nominations, we have 115 total unique skins, and 13 skinners.  The requirement for a gallery to be voted on was that it have at least 5 skins nominated.  Before we get into the master list, here are the nominated skins that won't make it to a vote: IconPackages*   DX Objects   Right Click   Spil's Stuff   Skarn's DX Bits 1   Blue Glass   Carbon-ite   Skarn's DX Bits 2 &nb...
November 2, 2007 by Zoomba
To go along with The Month in Dreams, Island Dog also wraps up this week with This Week in Skinning.  October ends and November starts with a bang!  Two great new skins, a killer cursor pack, a cool wallpaper, a Dream, an IconPackage and a Logon screen round out some of the week's best offerings. Be sure to stop by the thread and give us your picks for the best work submitted to the site this week.
November 2, 2007 by Zoomba
With the start of November comes another installment of Island Dog's "This Month in Dreams".  This time around we have some excellent and relaxing Dreams from folks such as Muckyman, xstudio and brenopoubel.  If you're a Windows Vista Ultimate user, you should definitely be giving these a look.
October 16, 2007 by Zoomba
Over time, the list of applications supported here on WinCustomize grows and grows.  Gone are the days where you only had a small handful of applications that met all of your skinning needs.  While choice is great, the consequence can be that some tools don't get quite the attention that others do.  There's no question that WindowBlinds is successful, we have thousands of skins from the last 8 or 9 years, and the gallery expands nearly every day. One of those apps that peopl...
October 15, 2007 by Zoomba
WindowBlinds 6 has been a big deal for us the last few months with all the new capabilities it brings to skinning Windows Vista and Windows XP.  Combined with the new version of SkinStudio, we're expecting a renewed interest in skinning and a jump in great content to pick from on the site.  Though, for a lot of people, they look at screenshots and recent skins and go "Meh, so what?  What's so new about this?"  Sometimes I guess it's hard to see what's changed when you've...
October 9, 2007 by Zoomba
SoundPackager is one of those applications that people have seemingly been talking about for ages, always wondering when it would finally materialize.  Well, last month we finally pushed a beta of SoundPackager out the door and testing/tweaking began in earnest.  To go along with this, we launched a new gallery at WinCustomize just for SoundPackager files (.soundpackage).   The entire idea behind SoundPackager is that if you wanted to customize your Windows sounds previo...
September 28, 2007 by Zoomba
We wrap up our WinCustomize Wiki Week with a page that everyone who wants to help out should check: The Work In Progress page.  When you create an article, you can flag it as an incomplete page that needs more attention and assistance (a work-in-progress).  These articles will be listed on the WiP page for everyone to see.  This makes it much easier to quickly find out what needs some tender, loving care.  You know any page on that list has people waiting eagerly for.&...