With the launch this week of DeskScapes 2.0 , a lot of people who didn't previously have access to animated wallpapers (i.e. non Ultimate Vista users) might be wondering what the big deal is, and probably want to take the app for a spin themselves before deciding whether or not to spend the $20 on the stand-alone product (hey, it's bundled in with Object Desktop ). To help you out, Island Dog has put together a very detailed breakdown of the free preview version of DeskScapes 2.0, lettin...
For years now, the Help section at WinCustomize has been pretty lacking. For the last two site revisions it's just been a bulleted list of links to product pages or long outdated tutorials and documentation. With the number of new users seeking support and assistance growing at an increasing pace, the time has come for a complete redesign of the page. To that end, I've spend the last few days working on a new Help page that is hopefully a bit more "helpful" than what we current...
TGIF everyone! Since the end of the week is upon us, it's time once again for Island Dog to round up some of the week's most notable skins. This week, there's a cursor theme, icon pack, logon, dock background, two wallpapers and a WindowBlinds skin! Check them out, download a few and let the artists know how much you love their work!
We don't often talk about MyColors skins here, or the artists behind them. We especially don't do a very good job showing off their work and recognizing the outstanding degree of artistry of the skins, icons, wallpapers etc. This is a real shame considering they're all members of the community. So today, I'd like to show off some absolutely fantastic icons by none other than PixelPirate himself! These go to five of our upcoming MyColors Inspired Themes. I think they st...
Every month, I ask the moderators here at WinCustomize to pick out their favorite skins from the previous month. Here are the picks for April 2008. Trader Harbour AlexMorgan "Clean. Watch the little men walking on the right side of the house. Great dream." - WOM Organic Xiandi "The cursor (and iconpack it's based on) have such wonderful aesthetics. It captures exactly what I thought it should when I read the titl...
Stardock is excited to announce the release of WindowBlinds 6.1 today. WindowBlinds is the easiest, and safest way to change the complete look and feel of both Windows Vista and XP by applying one of thousands of visual styles that are available. These visual styles can change just about every element of the Windows user interface from the Start menu, task bar, title bar, push buttons, scrollbars, and nearly everything else in Windows. The WindowBlinds 6.1 update is available to curr...
Island Dog is back again with another video walkthrough to help you get the most out of your skinning tools. This time it's a more in-depth video showing you how to change cursor sets, apply effects, trails and recolor cursors. If you haven't delved too far into the innards of CursorFX yet, give this video a look.
Yes, I know it's Wednesday and I'm just now posting the poll thread for the week. And I'm also aware that the poll has in fact been up for a full day already. There are very good reasons for all of this, I assure you. With all the announcements and major news going on the last two days, I didn't want the big "VOTE NOW" button to be lost in the chaos. I also wanted to give people a day or so for the news to sink in. So by now you've no doubt read about the fantabulous...
Today we announced that the subscription price for WinCustomize was going to go up $10/year from $20 to $30. Now, of course we had to come up with a good justification for this, something that would fool the sheep of the forums into believing we did this for their own good and that they're getting the better end of the deal. But, just between you and me? Complete BS. As some of you may know, today's Angie's birthday, so as a gift the company bought her a new car...
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After months of testing, today Stardock is proud to release DeskScapes 2.0 ! Now, all Windows Vista users can enjoy animated wallpapers on their PC without having to shell out hundreds of dollars for Windows Vista Ultimate. DeskScapes 2.0 brings video and dynamic Dreams to all Vista Users. If you're new to DeskScapes today with 2.0, then you have over 600 Dreams to choose from ! These range from fantastic 3D rendered scenes by community members such as TheMasterBaron, to ...
For years now, a WinCustomize subscription primarily allowed you to browse the site completely ad-free, gave you fully access to the Skin Browser, and every now and then a free skin from Stardock. In recent months, we've been talking about how to change the site subscription model to make it a better value to users, with the goal obviously to encourage more people to subscribe and support the site. So today I'm happy to announce a transformation in the WinCustomize Subscriptio...
This week we get dangerously close to the 30 minute mark as we take on topics such as the latest Master Skin, the demise of the GUI Champs wallpaper event and upcoming changes to the WinCustomize Subscription plan. Joining us this week on the show is Zubaz, site moderator and long-time community member. This is without a doubt our best show so far as we get a feel for how to record the show and what's needed to prepare . Remember, you can subscribe to us via iTunes and receive u...
While I know just about everyone who visits this web site primarily uses Windows for one reason or another, I was wondering if folks had any alternative OS preferences. Just to see what else the community might be running on their PCs. The results weren't all that surprising (to me at least). The single largest block of votes was for Windows-Only, with Linux coming in a very close second. A few of you use MacOS, and an almost non-existent group are still on old-fashio...
Wow the weekend flew by fast! Feels like I spent most of it doing spring cleaning and running errands though. Can I have another day off please? Well, despite hoping earnestly for another day on the weekend, it's Monday and here we all are, at work or school (or skipping). Over the weekend, while we were all out cleaning/playing/not working many folks were still here uploading their skinning masterpieces. Here are some of my favorites from the weekend: ...
Last night we recorded the third episode of the WinCustomize SkinCast. From what Spencer is telling me as he edits this one, it's the best so far and I think we're finally starting to get a hang for recording these. Technical issues aside, it took about 45min of recording to get the 20min of quality content. Most of the 20min cut out is just us laughing anyway.
So with three episodes in the can, here are some random thoughts on creating a podcast for a community site:
- When nothing is going on of note, it's really hard to come up with a topic
The idea behind the SkinCast is to react to what's happening in the community. Sometimes though there isn't much happening. For episode 2, as an example, there were very few new skins that week. It was a lot of logons and bootskins, but no much that we could get a discussion going about. The forums were also particularly quiet that week so there wasn't even a topic of controversy to go over.