Frogboy

Reply to WindowBlinds 3 in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Exactly. Here's a close up on those screenshots: https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/xp/xp-noskin.jpg This is Windows XP as is. BTW, even Office XP isn't theme aware, if you use Office XP under WIndows XP, your scrollbars and buttons and such are all Windows 95 style. Now, apply WindowBlinds 3 (which can skin the XP Start bar completely): https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/xp/xp-xpskinned.jpg It makes it easy to have a "free

Reply to "Real" Windows XP Themes in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I basically reposted my response from Usenet actually. I wrote about a dozen posts on this subject today on Microsoft's news server. While you might consider it shameless marketing, there is nothing untrue in my statements. Why would anyone want to use .msstyles when they can use WindowBlinds 3? The "free" version of WB3 will do what XP does. Since .msstyles are cripped as is (they don't skin your existing apps except for the title bar and sometimes the scrollbar),

Reply to Windowblinds XP vs Windowblinds 2.2 and + in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Exactly. WindowBlinds 3 will be Windows XP. We're simply going to provide the XP visual styles stuff on Win98/ME so that we can have a single code base. Totally different architecture. WB 2 is a memory hog compared to WB 3.

Reply to "Real" Windows XP Themes in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

ess-vid, that's the beauty - WindowBlinds 3 on Windows XP will do what you can do on Windows XP for free. Windows XP's stuff already is very crippled. So the free crippled version of WindowBlinds 3 (WindowBlinds XP) will do more than what you can do on Windows XP. Windows XP's themes are very limited: 1) They don't fully skin existing programs 2) They can't change colors 3) They don't support any of the WB specific features of course. In short, Wind

Reply to Windowblinds XP vs Windowblinds 2.2 and + in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

WindowBlinds 2.x and WindowBlinds XP will be merged into WindowBlinds XP. All will use the architecture of WindowBlinds XP. So in WIn98/ME/2000 we basically will be providing the WIndows XP theming engine. So there will be only one WindowBlinds: WindowBlinds 3

Reply to "Real" Windows XP Themes in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

It was discussed heavily in the internal beta groups and it came down to 2 reasons: 1) Support. MS doesn't want to have people downloading skins that could hose their machines. A WindowBlinds skin CAN hose your GUI pretty thoroughly if it's not properly done. Even on Win2K. And most people who complain about WindowBlinds being "bloated and slow" are actually talking about the skin. WB skins tend not to be terribly well optimized for performance for various reasons. Imagine how MS wou

Reply to WinCustomize - August 2001 in WinCustomize News JoeUser Forums

Almost forgot to mention, we added 39,000 new accounts to WinCustomize in August. Welcome aboard!

WinCustomize - August 2001 in WinCustomize News JoeUser Forums

This month we saw our traffic sky rocket as Stardock merged their skin library with ours as a way to cut costs and make things easier for users. This has had quite an impact on the application sections here. For instance, Th etop 3 Litestep themes got over 100 downloads yesterday. This iro

Reply to "Real" Windows XP Themes in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

You can't create your own. They're digitally signed by Microsoft. If you want additional skins on Windows XP, the only option is WindowBlinds XP.

Reply to The NEW new economy in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Webmasters who want to generate revenue with their sites will have to start looking at their websites just as software developers look at software. That is, they will have to find something to put in them that is compelling enough to make users pay to have it. People don't generally donate or contribute their hard earned money freely. They have to be compelled to do it. Any shareware developer already knows that. Nag screens don't work. You have to take away something from the user tha

Reply to The NEW new economy in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I don't think WinCustomize can be used as a model for any new economy because WinCustomize is corporate charity. There's no business justification for a software company to have a skin site such as this. But smaller companies can do things because "they want to help" just like individuals do all the time. It's only when companies get really big that they become amoral. Just to a few numbers. Let's say this site costs 10/month. Stardock currently puts forth 5 of it. That means the si

Tell us about your first time... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

..that you were in an on-line community. I started with this whole "virtual community" stuff back in 1987 when I ran a Commodore 64 BBS. We had about 200 to 300 members on the BBS. You used your phone modem to call the number of the BBS and connected to it. It was run on C-net 12.0 and later Image 1.0 That was how I met Pat (T-man). He ran a BBS called King Arthur's Court. I ran the BBS "Stardock". All these BBSes had multiple access groups (0 through 9) and when we

Reply to The NEW new economy in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

AJ, sure. If you want to email me the article when you're done (or attach it as a word doc) i'll turn it into a web page and put it up.

Reply to "Real" Windows XP Themes in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

XP themes here are just as "real" as what's on Windows XP. Why would you care whether it uses the .theme/.msstyles "format" or the .uis "format"? They're both INI based with the difference being that..well, the .UIS one is much much better. The .XML stuff was just a rumor, there is no XML in a .mssystles file.

Reply to So much for the bar being raised...... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Let's not be too brutal. When I look at a wallpaper I make 2 judgements: 1) Does it make a GOOD wallpaper -- i.e. is it usable? if the answer is yes, then it can be something relatively simple and bland. 2) If it's not a super great wallpaper, then the artwork quality has to be much greater. Scenery, for instance, had better be pretty freakin good scenery to survive when I do my occasional moderation.

Reply to Wincustomize.exe! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

It's definitely not the same. Trust me on that, 2 years of enhanced versions of WindowBlinds experience tells me that.

Reply to Wincustomize.exe! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Problem with that is that you can get cracks on it. Will have to think about that though.

Reply to Wincustomize.exe! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Yea. In fact, Paxx, I think you might be the guy who would have some good ideas on what would be in the shareware one. I was thinking maybe only having the newest editions available from the shareware one.

Reply to The NEW new economy in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Great post AJ! WOuld you mind if I turned it into a regular article and published it on the main website in the articles section?

Reply to Wincustomize.exe! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

It probably won't reduce bandwidth because it makes getting to skins easier. Afterall, it's downloading of stuff that uses up the bandwidth. If this site is to continue with the bandwidth currently reserved for it, then it's going to have to pay. Stardock will meet it half way ($5k of the $10k this site costs per month) but the other $5k needs to be made up by the site. The skin browser is one such way of giving users a way to help the site while getting something cool in return.

AltDesk updated in WinCustomize News JoeUser Forums

AltDesk is a virtual desktops' manager for Windows with skins' support. AltDesk lets you to add more functionality to your computer's desktop. It can create many virtual desktops which can be placed as you want. It has neat skinnable interface. So you can build your skins. Features included: - Neat skinnable user interface. - Fully customizable hotkeys (Win key included). - "Boss" key. - Program can be easily moved from one desktop to another. - All its elemen

Reply to Mandatory logins are bullshit. in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

We're not a true skin site because we don't yet have any melodramatic 17 year olds making posts about "Why I'm leaving" that lambasts the usrs of the site for a gruop of minor atrocities. Only then will we know we've "made it". We're also missing other key posts: 1) What song are you listening to? 2) What is your favorite color? 3) What is your favorite tagline? I'm going to go lay down. I feel so empty now. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/images

Reply to Windowblinds.net realtime statistics? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Do you have a photo ID to prove that?

Reply to Liquid2 for WindowBlinds in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Okay, I reuploaded it, and just downloaded it, it is definitely the latest version. All parts of the GUI should be skinned with this.

Reply to Liquid2 for WindowBlinds in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Just for the record, I did do a new Liquid 2 skin and it was a pretty radical update to it. Menus, combo boxes, everything and fixed some graphical glitches. I am not sure why it didn't work. My inclination is that the update feature here barfed or something.