It's Friday, and if you're in the US, it's the last work day before the long Memorial Day weekend.  This means most of you are either already on vacation, or will be leaving a bit early this afternoon to beat the travel rush.  So, before you pack up the car and head off for the weekend, Island Dog has a round-up of some great skins uploaded to the site in the last week.  This week's selection includes a cursor set, a cursor testing DX object, a countdown gadget, dream, dock backgr...

Maybe you noticed the other day that Liquidox was updated and added to the MyColors Inspired Themes set. Another theme by PixelPirate, Liquidox has been one of our most popular Premium Suites, and a lot of people have been asking us for a while when we would have a Windows Vista compatible version.  Well, after many moons, the updates are done and QA has signed-off on the theme.  So if you've been holding off on getting a copy until the Vista update came out, wait no longer! W...

The gear-heads over at ExtremeTech have taken a look at Object Desktop 2008, the most recent snapshot of Stardock's suite of windows customization tools.  Jason Cross runs down the full set of tools in Object Desktop; WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, IconPackager, SoundPackager, DesktopX and MyColors.  Of particular note is MyColors, the newest addition to the Object Desktop family. Each of the applications gets its own full-page description & review.  Positive points in the review i...

We're going to be recording SkinCast Episode 6 tomorrow night and we're looking for a skinner to join us for this week's shennanigans.  Since we don't have anyone lined up ahead of time, I thought I'd do an open call for skinners willing to jump in. So far we've had ZubaZ, Jafo and RomanDA on the show, and those have all turned out great. Here's what we're looking for: You must be a skinner.  You need to be available between 7:30pm and 9:30pm Eastern tomorrow, May 22nd Yo...

In case you missed it yesterday, Brad broke the big news that Stardock has teamed up with Dell to provide a custom dock application for its consumer desktops.  In fact, starting Monday of this week, Dell PCs started rolling out the door with the new dock.  The Dell Dock, built by the team that brought you Object Dock, is focused on cleaning up the desktop and improving the user experience for Windows Vista users. For all the details on this new deal, read Brad's full article .&nbs...

To go along with his earlier guided tour article taking you through the paces with IconPackager 4, yesterday Island Dog posted a new screencast to visually step you through all the great new features of IconPackager 4 and it's redesigned interface. The full video is about 6min long and covers all the topics from the original article.

Take your desktop to the final frontier with Red Giant by TheMasterBaron Red Giant is one of the best video dreams I've seen on the site in ages.  It's a high-resolution video that runs for a full 3 minutes with a seamless loop.  The motion is smooth, and the colors bright enough to look cool but not distract the user. Red Giant is available for just $3.99 (but WinCustomize Subscribers get a 20% discount!)  Snag a copy today.  If you're a Windows Vista user, this...

Time for another weekly poll.  This week it's a pretty simple question: How often do you change skins?  Is it frequently, or only a few times a year?  Can you even remember the last time you changed skins on your PC? Vote in the poll, leave your comments here.  Results next week.

This week I'm back with a new microphone.  For Episode 5, Spencer and I are joined by DX Guru, David Roman (RomanDA).  The three of us ramble on and on this week about all things DX, including Roman's upcoming DX community site.  The three of us were having such a good time recording the show the other night that we went a bit beyond our 20min goal.  In fact, we almost hit 40 this week.  We hope you'll forgive us and enjoy the show despite our rambling and joking  ...

James Allen of Out of Eight PC Game Reviews took a crack at Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor and posted his review of it last Friday, giving it a perfect 8/8 score, placing it on a short list of 18 games that he feels are must-buy titles.  Two of the other titles on the list you might recognize: Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords. While spending time on improvements such as the custom tech trees and ascension victory condition, James talks...

This week ZubaZ has another in his ongoing Ask a Master series.  Today he talks with DesktopX guru RomanDA about his background as a skinner, his many DX gadgets as well as numerous thoughts on skinning and the community in general. It's a great interview that everyone should take the time to read. Expect more RomanDA-related goodness later this morning too 

About a week and a half ago I put up a poll asking for people's opinion on the changes to the WinCustomize Subscription .  We changed the pricing and added in 12 Stardock Design skins per year.  On the whole, we felt it was a good deal and worked out especially well for our long-time subscribers who have their subs renewed out to 2020 already.  But while we thought it was good, I wanted to get a feel for how the community received the idea. On the whole, 69% of you either ...

I hope everyone had a terrific weekend, I know I certainly did!  But now it's Monday once again, so we're back at it.  Thankfully it's light out earlier so it's a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning.  I've definitely been enjoying the nicer weather and longer days.  Since it's Monday, that means it's time for another weekend round-up of my favorite skins.  A pretty good selection this time around. ...

With the earthquake in central China this week and the number of our community members who have been affected by the disaster, plus the recent cyclone in Myanmar, we've been asked by several folks about doing something in the way of donations or aid, as a community, to help out the victims of the recent disasters.  While we've done our own charity drives in the past, such as the Childs Play drive last year, because of the immediacy of the need for relief in these regions, we wanted to ...

Well, it looks like Island "No New Taxes" Dog tore himself away from The Political Machine 2008 long enough to actually do his weekly skins roundup for us.  And despite him putting the preview together between turns in the game, it turned out pretty well  and is just packed with great skins this week. On display this week are two Impulse related skins, a dream by CarGuy1, a dock, some dock icons, a wallpaper and an updated JJ Ying WindowBlinds skin.  This is probably one of ...