Coming close behind the announcement of a two-year low in share prices, Time Warner is expected to launch yet another plan to save the ailing service provider, America On-Line .  The new plan, the fourth in five years, is to give away the email and web services components of AOL for free. This plan hopes to recapture some of the market share taken by rival free mail and web services such as Google and MySpace .  While AOL will be giving away a large portion of its service for fr...

The word on the street is that consumers may not have a choice on upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 when Microsoft decides to release it.  CNet is reporting thatMicrosoft will push the browser update as a "high priority" update via the automatic update system much in the same way it pushed the WGA anti-piracy tool earlier this year. "The justification, of course is the significant security enhancements in IE 7" says Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of IE product man...

Sometimes you wonder if people actually think about what they're doing before they click send on an email.  NetworkWorld is reporting on one PR firm that doesn't appear to have any clue about the companies it represents.  Rocket Science , a PR company serving Singlefin , a provider of email, IM and web filtering for places like Juno and NetZero, decided to drum up some publicity and sent emails to eleven different staffers at NetworkWorld, instead of sending it to their spam or s...

The big news on the Internet today is the attack on Netscape.com .  As friction between AOL's new social bookmarking effort, the retooled Netscape.com, and Digg.com increases, it appears that today a rather major line has  been crossed.  Hackers, exploiting an XSS vulnerability, modified the Netscape site to throw pop-up alerts at visitors with pro-Digg comments, and in some cases even auto-forwarded users to Digg.com Netscape announced earlier this afternoon that the vul...

Ever wish that when you were going to open or save a file that you had a few more options to choose from?  Do you find the standard open/save dialogs difficult to read when there are a dozen or more files listed?  Coming to the rescue of frustrated users everywhere, Stardock presents the Enhanced File Dialog utility, a product included with ObjectDesktop.net that brings power and user customization to yet another aspect of the Windows Operating System. Enhanced File Dialog is an a...

Tired of getting countless messages in your inbox telling you you've won the Nigerian lotto, or that certain parts of your anatomy could be made to wow your friends and family?  Many of us spend hours a week managing junk email, deleting it, updating filters and just generally grumbling about all the stupid stuff that makes it to our inboxes.  Well, there's one computer artist out there who managed to make a purse out of a sow's ear. Alex Dragulescu, a Romanian-born computer artist, no...

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. What I think is trash, you might think treasure. The cliches go on and on, but that doesn't make them any less true. And at a site like WinCustomize, that subjective taste really comes to the forefront when people rate and comment on submitted skins, icons and other items. Of course, there are some things that almost everyone recognizes as high quality. Skins like eminence and Jaluran seem to be enjoying pretty wide-spread acceptance by t...

As Microsoft prepares for the juggernaut marketing effort that will accompany the launch of Windows Vista, Windows Live and Office 2007, they've popped up a preview of the new redesigned Microsoft.com.  Unfortunately, if you use Firefox, you shouldn't bother clicking on that link since all you'll see is the old Microsoft site.  But, if you're visiting us through IE 6 or 7, then go for it and check it out.  The new site features a look more in-line with the Live sites.  ...

Earlier this month, the annual Shareware Industry Conference announced the top shareware titles of 2006.  Stardock walked away with the People's Choice Award for "Best Vertical Market Program or Utility" and was nominated for "Best Desktop Enhancement" in the closed-voting Shareware Industry Award. The Peoples Choice Award is voted on by the users of shareware titles on sites such as CNET, Simtel and Tucows.  WindowBlinds was also nominated for Best Desktop Enhancement in 2004. ...

From the creators of the Kazaa file sharing utility and Skype , Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, comes a new video distribution system.  Still in the early stages, the "Venice Project" was announced on Sunday in a BusinessWeek.com article .  What sets this effort apart from previous ones is that Zenstrom and Friis are reportedly courting major television networks to use the service as their primary online distribution method.  This would put them in indirect competition...

Another week, another poll.  Last week's poll asked what new content you would most like to see come to WinCustomize.com.  Due to technical difficulties, many of you were unable to vote, and we only saw 105 total votes in the 7 days the poll was up.  For those of you who were able to cast your ballot, here's how it all turned out: What new content would you like to see on WinCustomize.com?   Tutorials 46 43.8%   Co...

Microsoft today announced the beta launch of the new Windows Live Gallery site.  Windows Live Gallery will be the central site for users to find gadgets, MSN messenger utilities and extensions to personalize the various Windows Live services that are to launch along side of Windows Vista early next year. To see a video preview, go here .

Are you a gadget junkie and love building little utilities to sit on your desktop?  Do you have an unabashed love for all things Google ?  Do you want $5,000?  Well, if you said yes to any of those questions then man does Google have the contest for you! Late last month, the Google Desktop team released the Google Desktop SDK for people interested in building applications that hook into their desktop search utility, and part of that kit was a Gadget Designer.  In honor ...

After a week of rumors, AMD today announced that it has plans to purchase graphics card maker ATI and merge the two companies.  The value of the transaction is reported to be in the neighborhood of $5.4 billion (USD).  This marks a significant departure for AMD from its past business practices of focusing exclusively on building processors.  In addition to the merger deal, AMD announced that it would be cutting prices on its current processor line by nearly 50% in reaction t...

The forum refresh, that first came to the main Stardock and Galactic Civilizations 2 forums has made its way to WinCustomize.com today.  After a great deal of feedback from users, the forums now more closely resemble other web forums in style and function.  We also hope that these new forums will alleviate some of the technical issues users had been experiencing in the past.  If you have any comments/feedback on the new forums, please leave them in a comment here.