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...
After months of teasing, today I'm extremely happy to let you all know that we're ready to let everyone take a crack at the new site. It's open to anyone who wants to take the new blog community for a spin
https://www.joeuserbeta.com/
A few very important notes before you start:
- The beta site is 100% test data
Every post, comment, blog edit etc that takes place on the beta site WILL BE DELETED when the site goes live. This is a sandbox for you to play with the new site, its features etc.
- You will have to create a new blog on the test site
We only imported a handful of the top blogs for testing. Chances are that once you log in, you will need to create a blog on the beta site. Again, this is all test data that will be wiped and overwritten when we do the full import from the existing JoeUser. Your basic login information will however still work. Do not create a new account, just a new blog site. Your current JoeUser blog will be automatically imported when the site goes live.
- Not Every Feature from JU1 is in JU2
This is phase 1 of the site. We have not ported each and every feature to JU2 just yet. Things like blog "skins" are not implemented yet. We have a long list of additions for the next several months as we go through Phase 2, 3 etc.
We are specifically looking for the following feedback at this moment:
- Critical-Stop Bugs
Anything that prevents you from posting, commenting or interacting as normal on the site. Any page errors, any script errors etc.
- Incorrect/Missing Links
Did you click on a link and get taken somewhere completely wrong/unexpected? Do you get to a page that has nothing on it?
- Browser Problems
Does the editor actually work on your web browser? Does everything show up in neon pink?
Please post all feedback, questions, comments and concerns regarding the beta site on this thread.
Wow, that week flew by! According to my calendar it's Friday and that means it's time for Island Dog to do his weekly round-up. This week there's a really diverse selection to choose from. A BootSkin, Cursors, DX Widget, Dream, Icons, Wallpaper and a new Vista-only WindowBlinds skin. Check out the full list and get your weekend started early.
When: Sunday February 17th, 8pm EST - Monday February 18th 9am EST
This weekend we will be upgrading the database that powers Stardock's forums & articles system. This upgrade will impact every site across the Stardock Network. During the upgrade, you will not be able to post threads, comments, or blogs. The database will be locked during the maintenance window to prevent data loss.
You will be able to read any content posted prior to the 8pm lock. You will not be able to post anything new.
When: Sunday February 17th, 8pm EST - Monday February 18th 9am EST This weekend we will be conducting extensive maintenance on the database systems that power Stardock's forums, articles systems and blogs across all websites. During this period we will be locking the database preventing anyone from posting to the forums (new threads, replies, private messages etc). For full details on the upgrade, click the link below.
When: Sunday February 17th, 8pm EST - Monday February 18th 9am EST This weekend we will be conducting extensive maintenance on the database systems that power Stardock's forums, articles systems and blogs across all websites. During this period we will be locking the database preventing anyone from posting to the forums (new threads, replies, private messages etc). For full details on the upgrade, go here .
When: Sunday February 17th, 8pm EST - Monday February 18th 9am EST This weekend we will be upgrading the database that powers Stardock's forums & articles system. This upgrade will impact every site across the Stardock Network. During the upgrade, you will not be able to post threads, comments, or blogs. The database will be locked during the maintenance window to prevent data loss. You will be able to read any content posted prior to the 8pm lock. You will not be ...
Happy Valentines Day skinners! In honor of the holiday dedicated to love, caring and all things cute and/or cuddly, Island "Cuddlebunny" Dog has been rounding up all sorts of great skins featuring hearts, cupids and of course the color red. ID's scrounged up wallpapers, RightClick skins, widgets, IconPacks and Cursors to wraps up his week of love-inspired skins. Check them out. Since today is all about giving to loved ones... Have you ever made a skin for someone as a token of...
For an artist new to skinning, few things can be more helpful than a step-by-step tutorial walking them through how to create some element of a skin, or learn a new Photoshop trick that could save them hours of time and frustration. The people best suited to providing this knowledge are our community of skinners, the people who spend their free time actually making skins and using the tools. But, as many artists have said to me, just because you can make a skin, doesn't necessarily mea...
Today I was handed a nice 8gb Zune 2. It was a gift from Microsoft to Stardock CEO Brad Wardell and had www.wincustomize.com engraved on the back. It came in a very nice bag and I took it home with me with the intention of writing a review on it this week. So far I've been using it for about 15-20min and I just wanted to toss out my initial impressions: So tiny and light. Box is very reminiscent of iPod packaging These earpohones hurt! Woo! Radio on an mp3 p...
This March, WinCustomize turns 7. For seven years the site has grown in terms of visitors, bandwidth, quantity of skins etc. And the site itself has gone through several revisions in that period. Today, we're on the 5th iteration of WinCustomize, and on the whole it still bears a striking resemblance to that first site launched back in 2001. For good or ill, a lot of the decisions that went into that first site determine direction to this day. While there have been a ...
We talk all day here about tweaking Windows, making the UI prettier etc. But the PC isn't the only thing there is to customize. We've already seen that a number of our skinners here customize other "stuff" when not at their PC, but one thing many people think of in terms of customizing is their life. Lifehacker is one of my favorite sites and I try and hit it up at least once a day. While they do have stories on great little utilities to make your PC time more productive, a...
There are a great number of alternative desktop applications out there for people looking to drastically tweak their OS beyond just changing a few graphics around. Of the desktop replacements, one of the major remaining players in the space is WinStep Xtreme . Release in May 2006, WinStep Xtreme grew out of the old WinStep 2000 project and has been continuously updated to include support for Windows XP 32 & 64bit, and Windows Vista 32 bit. Now at version 7.11, WinStep Xtreme ...
Writing an article that attracts readers is as much about formatting as it is about actual content. Attractive images, lists, clear paragraph breaks and more can turn your blog from an intimidating wall of text into an easy-to-read post that invites the reader in.
I'm sure you've seen the blogs/articles where the author just puts everything down as a giant block of text. No breaks. No pauses. Nothing to visually divide the content. The result? A post that is incredibly hard to read, and may drive the reader off immediately, never bothering to even scan to see if there's interesting content worth reading.
You could write the most interesting article ever posted to the Internet, but unless you know how to format it, no one will read it. Formatting is the key to taking a good article and making it great.
What better way to start the week than with a brand new Master Skin? Today, it's another DesktopX Theme from gef. Orange & Blue is a full-featured theme designed to completely replace your Windows desktop. It comes in two colors; Orange and Blue (a real shocker there, right?) so you have a bit of choice in look and feel. It also comes with matching wallpapers, weather, calendar, search, mail-checker and media DX objects. All menus and items on the screen can be repo...