This week it's just Spencer and myself talking about the upcoming GUI Championships event scheduled for later in the year.  Clocking in at about 22 minutes this week we talk about the 2006 event, some of the things we learned from it and what we hope to accomplish with the 2008 event.  Also of note in this episode is the changes to our sound setup.  We've added in a soundboard and higher grade microphones to try and improve the recording quality.  So my end of things should ...

Last week I asked who your favorite guest on the WinCustomize SkinCast has been so far.  In 6 episodes we've had four guests.  Zubaz (Ep 3) being our first and Kittymalone (Ep 6) being the most recent.  The idea was to get a feel for what sort of shows are the most popular, and what kinds of guests you all enjoy the most.  Since the four guests so far have all been very very different, we felt it was a good group to use.  You have Zubaz who's a moderator and big communi...

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend.  It seems like summer is finally here in Michigan and we had some nice weather for a few days.  Here's hoping it sticks around for a bit!  Anyway, while I was out enjoying the weather, some of you were here uploading great skins to share with the community.  As always, here are my picks for my favorite skins from the weekend that was.  Enjoy! ...

DesktopX is one of those applications that just doesn't get enough attention.  When people talk about gadgets these days it's all about Apple or the Vista Sidebar.  Everyone forgets that DesktopX came way before the others.  And when it does get mentioned, people forget that it does oh so much more than just desktop gadgets.  You can use it to completely redesign your Windows user interface. One skinner in the community hasn't forgotten this: PuterDudeJim.  He keeps t...

Wow, Friday already?  Well, since the week is pretty much over, that means it's time for Island Dog's weekly skinning feature.  Even though it was a short week, folks still managed to put out some terrific skins for everyone to enjoy.  This week ID features a bootskin, cursor set, dx theme, logon screen, a dock, two wallpapers and a new WindowBlinds skin.  Check out the full article for all the skinning goodness!

Another quickie review comes from Tyson Kopczynski of NetworkWorld.com.  He takes a belated look at WindowBlinds 6.0 and shares some brief thoughts on the latest and greatest edition of the top Windows skinning tool on the market. Tyson gives it an overall seal of approval, saying that it's a definite improvement to an already good piece of software, and definitely worth the $19.95 purchase price.  Read the full review here .

Download.com recently posted their Editors review for TweakVista 1.1, giving it a glowing 5 out of 5 star review.  They specifically praised the UI and the ease with which you can tune and customize your Windows Vista installation to get the most out your hardware and available resources.  They consider it a utility that every Windows Vista user should have on their system. Check out the full review and download the trial version of TweakVista 1.1 here .

It's been hinted at, we've made a few references to it here and there, but for the most part things have been pretty quiet regarding the 2008 GUI Champs.  We said we'd be back in 2008, and we've begun work in the background to prepare for the latest edition of the biggest skinning competition on the Internet. Today, a bit on what we're thinking of for the new GUI Champs website .  It's all up in the air still, but I wanted to share some of the design ideas with the community fir...

That's right, the 2008 GUI Champs are approaching!  The last event, which wrapped up at the end of 2006, was a big success and we're aiming to top things with this year's edition.  One of the first things we're looking at revamping is the GUIC Website.  If you look back, you'll see that we used the 2004 site again in 2006, and it didn't age well.  For a competition focused on GUI greatness, the site was pretty embarrassing.  It was also very buggy and hard to update with contest results etc.

So this year it's back to the drawing board!

One thing people probably don't realize is how much planning has to go into even a relatively simple site like the GUIC one.  It's not as simple as throwing together an upload page, news page, gallery page and skin page and call it done.  For the 2008 GUIC Site, we have to design and implement over a dozen completely unique pages, each with very different tech requirements.

Here are a few of the big improvements that are currently being talked about.  Keep in mind we're still in the design phase of this, so it's all subject to change.  But I wanted to tease everyone a bit with this to get some interest going in the competition, and to get some feedback on what you'd like to see in the site.

Earlier we put up Episode 6 of the WinCustomize Skincast, and this week Kittymalone joined in on the fun.  Since we've now had several guests on the show, we'd like to know who your favorite is, so far. Zubaz ( Episode 3 ) Jafo ( Episode 4 ) RomanDA ( Episode 5 ) Kittymalone ( Episode 6 ) After you cast your vote, go ahead and post a comment below sharing why they were your favorite guest.  Hopefully we can craft future episodes based on what everyone has enjoyed the most. ...

This week kittymalone joins us from the Land of Oz to chat with Spencer and myself about her life as a skinner.  Coming in at about 16minutes, we finally manage to hit our 15-20min window!  We had a lot of fun with this show, and despite some interesting time delays (kitty is on dial-up, on the other side of the globe it turns out) we think it turned out fairly well.  Yes, my volume is a bit off (I'm loud this week versus quiet last week).  We're working on a new sound solut...

Last week, I asked how often you change skins on your PC.  Based on the responses, about 64% of you change skins once a week or more (though once a week seems to be the sweet spot overall).  What makes you change a skin when you do?  Is it boredom, or does something new and shiny catch your eye?  What is the most recent skin you switched to on your PC?

If you're in the US, you're just getting back from a glorious 3-day weekend and now have to dig through a mountain of emails and phone messages that piled up while you were away.  So to kick off the short week, here's something to help you put off work just a little bit longer.  Here are my picks for some of the best skins on the site submitted over the long holiday weekend... ...

This week has been a pretty good one as far as WindowBlinds skins go.  Since last Friday, we've seen an amazing 12 skins either uploaded new, or updated with fixes.  This is probably one of the best weeks we've seen in WB skinning in months.  In case you haven't checked the gallery out lately, you definitely need to take a look at these skins and take them for a spin... ...

It's Thursday afternoon, the mid-afternoon sugar rush is wearing off and we start to get a bit fidgety.  Looking around for something to entertain us for a few minutes we spy an empty desk.  It turns out that T-Man took the day off.  Now, we don't know where he went or why, but we did know that his desertion needed to be punished in some way. Of course, we can't just hide his chair or PC monitors.  We've done that before (*glares at andrew_*).  We needed something ...