If you mosey on over to the GUI Champs website, you'll see a pretty exciting announcement at the top of the page; our first premier sponsor! So far we've announced prizes being offered up by Stardock (software, a pile of cash and some XBox 360s), as well as what some of our friends in the community are pitching in ( Microangelo Toolset 6 , DeviantArt 1yr subscriptions). We made a fair number of veiled references to some mysterious "premium" sponsors but have been pretty quiet ab...
Today, Google Labs released a beta for a new search service targeted at computer programmers; Google Code Search . This new service will crawl the vast stores of publicly available code (mostly open source) to provide programmers with an easily searchable index of code to help find solutions to various programming tasks. Google expects this new search tool to be mostly used by students trying to learn complex programming languages, while being an occasional resource to more season and ...
The GUI Champs '06 marches on! Since Monday, you've been voting on Most Usable Wallpaper. Today, we're shifting gears a bit and begin voting on Most Original wallpaper. Most Original Wallpaper Usable was all about, well, usability. The Most Original Wallpaper event doesn't have anything to do with easy of use, icon readability or any of that other fuzzy feel-good sort of stuff. This event is all about pure "cool". What is the most outlandish, a...
Another week, another poll! Last week, you were asked to give your impressions of ObjectBar 2.0. Some formatting changes to the poll have moved it off the front page for the time being, and that may have impacted our vote numbers, but for those of you who did respond, the results were pretty positive, with only 8 or so of you claiming that the software was responsible for killing your inner child. 126 votes were count this time. For those interested, as always, here are t...
Back in August, I kicked off what was supposed to be a monthly segment highlighting a great skinner in the community I think everyone should take a closer look at. Well, we missed September obviously, which was entirely my own fault. So here we are trying to get things back on track with the October Skinner of the Month: 47songs Known best for her icon work, 47songs has released hundreds of icons in the form of IconPacks, ObjectDock icon sets and misc. icons since sh...
This month, we sit down and chat with icon artist, 47songs, about what exactly is involved in how she creates her icon sets, how she got started skinning, and a look at some of the interesting icons she's currently working on. How did you get your start in skinning? I honestly don’t remember what brought me here, or how or why I navigated online to Wincustomize.com. But I do remember that once I found it, I couldn’t leave. Like most, I started customizing my desktop with the different c...
Think that RC1 wasn't even close to ready for release? Well, turns out that contrary to previous Microsoft statements, there will be a second full Release Candidate made available for testing. Vista RC2 will be made available to testers this coming Friday. This will be numbered build 5743, staying within the 5700 range, reserved for the eventual RTM copy. Reports from Microsoft say that the current bug count in RC1 is down to 1400 bugs, but they have to hit 500 or lower befo...
Yes, that's right skinning fans, more premium content! Today Stardock Design is proud to present the Liquidox Premium Suite , by PixelPirate . Here's the 411 on this stylish suite that's just packed full with an insane amount of content. Liquidox Premium Suite - A suite as cool as liquid oxygen. This suite is loaded with everything you need to breathe new life into your desktop This suite includes: A WindowBlinds Visual Style More icons than you can shake a stick ...
Hundreds of wallpapers have been submitted to the 2006 GUI Championships . Many hours have been spent by artists crafting their masterpieces in an attempt to get their hands on a chunk of our $12,000 prize, and now we are ready to kick off the first event of this years competition! Most Usable Wallpaper Wallpapers provide the visual backdrop to our day-to-day computer user. For some, they're family photos, interesting artwork, screenshots from favorite video games or movies...
So you're not submitting any wallpapers, WindowBlinds or icon packs to the 2006 GUI Champs . So you've decided you don't want to compete for some of the $12,000 in prizes. But, you might be thinking to yourself "I wish there was some other way I could participate!" Well, since you're letting me project my own assumptions onto you, let me tell you that you indeed CAN participate in the competition without drawing a pixel, without putting together a single bad Bryce render!...
Internet search engines such as Google have been all the craze the past few years, with students flocking to them as an easy source of research material for school assignments. With the right search terms, you can find anything! Well, maybe not. Most of us don't know how to form the most effective search terms or phrases for search engines. We try and treat it as regular language and ask Google things like "When did the Berlin Wall fall?" and for major events or his...
Here are some news items of note that while I didn't think they deserved individual posts, were interesting and worth sharing nonetheless. Lenovo Recalls 500,000 Laptop Batteries More Sony Lithium Ion batteries recalled for safety reasons Microsoft Prices Zune Directly Against the iPod The 30GB Zune will retail for $249, the same price as the 30GB iPod The Chicago Manual of Style Goes Digital The gold-standard of grammar and style, the Chicago Manual of Style, is now available on...
Rumshot is an application for Windows similar to SnapShooter (Mac OS X) . Rumshot is designed to create a beautifully framed preview in a few seconds, as well as taking screenshots of your desktop. Rumshot supports themes for its previews. While Rumshot ships with only one default theme, you can download the extra Theme Packs, or easily create one. Rumshot makes it a snap to generate a stylish preview image for posting your screenshot on the web with no need to have or use Photoshop or a...
As it has recently come out that Symantec is one of the companies central in encouraging the European Commission in causing trouble for Microsoft and its Vista launch next year, it's no surprise that the security software and services company would start leveling accusations aimed directly at the software giant in Redmond. Symantec, a company best known to consumers for its anti-virus and anti-spyware tools, is now accusing Microsoft of withholding key APIs needed to build effective securi...
From everyone's favorite electronics company comes the newest entry into the eBook reader market; The Sony Reader. The new device, instead of using a standard LCD screen like previous devices, uses a new "E Ink" technology that is much easier to read over extended periods of time. The screen on the device is roughly 6" diagonally, giving it close to the viewing size of a regular paperback novel. Sony says the device will read documents in a variety of formats, including DRM protec...