mrbiotech

Reply to Apple sucks iBalls! in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

Update: It's May 16th, and 10.4.1 update appears to be out. I cannot verify any of the problems spoken of by mormegil... In fact, according to personal experience, some of the issues he raises have NOT been experience in my lab or personal Powerbook. 1) Upgrade from Panther to Tiger did NOT result in any loss of software... Because of his scathing indictment of Tiger I had prepared myself for total loss of iLife function, which did not hap

Reply to Apple sucks iBalls! in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

Back on the original topic- I thought there is an option NOT to to a clean install? I've seen a number of "upgrade" installs at our university that worked quite well, although not on mine, so I can't give specifics on how it's done. Just to further feed the frenzy: Apple will be releasing 10.4.1 update in approximately a month: seems they already saw some problems (the forgetful widgets, for example) from their testers while 10.4 was being bo

Reply to Does Apple get away with things Microsoft could not? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Just wondering if market-share has anything to do with the fact that Apple gets away with more- it's still outright tiny compared to the MicroSoft giant. People will always attack the big-dog, it's a bigger target.

Reply to Apple sucks iBalls! in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

Ah... but native Unix commands- 'tis a thing of beauty.

Reply to Can Object Desktop 2005 cure Tiger envy? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

VMWare, SAVE US!

Reply to Can Object Desktop 2005 cure Tiger envy? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Something I'd love to see implemented in Windows widget software are the "flip" and "ripple" effects used by the Dashboard widgets. By "Flip", I'm talking about how many dashboard widgets have a settings button of some type that literally flips the widget over like a card to change parameters on the other side. It's a seamlessly implemented effect that has me wondering if they coded it specifically for every widget, or if it's part of the Da

Reply to See Longhorn, don't show Longhorn in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Not entirely surprising- Apple jealously guards its secrets with lawsuits. At least MS has simply made a request. Another surprise, MS permitted screenshots of the non-revolution that is the "revolutionary" Longhorn. Would have benefited them to wait to release peaks until they actually had something.

Reply to The move to Linux-Things you need to know in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

I've had a similar problem with SuSE- it works great for everything but the networking. Never was able to get it to recognize my WiFi & eventually gave up on it. On a positive note: SuSE was the only distro I've found that came with WINE working immediately right after install. Was able to have Photoshop running under Linux in under 10 minutes. Still haven't gotten it to work under my beloved Fedora Core 3. (BTW: Big THANKS! to who

Creating seamless metallic textures in Tutorials WinCustomize Forums

This tutorial is created by mrbiotech for www.skinyourscreen.com - Come check out the other tutorials... <PARAM NAME=loop

Reply to MacOS X Tiger Review in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Very good article- considers first Tiger article I've seen to consider something beyond the Spotlight and Dashboard features (like the "hype"). All-in-all, Tiger does appear to be a great product, and the imminent release certainly gives the impression that Longhorn will simply be a pile of imitation features (at least, those that might actually make it to the final Longhorn release <img src="http://images3.stardock.com/wc/smiles/Wink.gif" border=0 AL

Reply to The move to Linux-Things you need to know in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

With minimal previous experience with Linux I found Fedora to be very easy to set up and use. There are a few "linux-centric" things to think about (like "Do I use KDE or Gnome GUI?"). Linspire and SuSE were probably a tad easier to set-up because most of the setup was performed automatically, but they essentially end up the same. For an outright noob (neither a Windows power-user nor a previous linux-user) I'd certainly recommend getting on

Reply to ObjectBar 2 Road Map.. in Customization Software WinCustomize Forums

I'll go ahead an say it: ObjectBar has always been my favorite Stardock app. It's able to dynamically create bars of varying widths and contents that can adapt size based on those contents. It's flexible, easy to skin, and doesn't slow down my computers. It's very encouraging to see this renewed focus on ObjectBar When it comes to achieving that Mac finder

Reply to DX3 Crashes in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

I've had the same problem for years on a Win2K and XPhome platforms, has made development impossible for me This has been without virus software, or with McAffee's.

Reply to The Mac of Today - Is it Time to Switch (Part 2) in Personal Computing WinCustomize Forums

Expose is SO NICE! The lack of efficient access to tasks (like Window's task-bar) in earlier versions of Mac's OS really hampered my ability to quickly move between different open windows or programs. Expose now gives Mac's a distinctive advantage over Window's task-switching: you can set it to corner hot-spots, the second most efficient activation areas. Previously such activity was limited to LiteStep, although DesktopX began to make inroads to th

Reply to Windows: The Rebuttal in Windows XP WinCustomize Forums

Good coverage! I'm finding that the boot-up time of Linux (SLOW!!!) can be sped up dramatically by creating a custom kernel and knowing when to select a module install versus inclusion in the kernel. It's a time-intensive setup, but it makes a significant difference. With regards to .NET and Java, so many applications require these in recent years that I'm amazed you do without them. XP really has turned out to be a nice operating s

Reply to The Mac of Today – Is it Time to Switch? (Part 1) in Personal Computing WinCustomize Forums

Meowy- You've obviously never heard of Unsanity.com and ShapeShifter Apple has been looking more and more tempting, and the desire to switch has been itching in me for the better part of a year. The rumors that they might adopt "The Cell" 9-core processor coupled to the crappiness incarnate that is Longhorn forged my commitment to Apple. Microsoft isn't inn

Ultimate Astonshell tutorial in Tutorials WinCustomize Forums

The comprehensive authority of theming Astonshell has been released by SacRat and Nerio on SkinWiki, and is available at http://www.skinyourscreen.com/skinwiki/index.php/Astonshell_tutorial

Reply to Linux: Why you should care - Part 1 in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

For widgets there's Karamba (if you're running KDE). As far as creating a complete desktop environment from scratch (is this what you mean by "applications?"), like you could with DesktopX, I'm not entirely certain. There are plenty of what would be termed "shell environments" in Windows-speak, but I haven't used one that's completely free-form, as DesktopX.

Reply to Linux: Why you should care - Part 1 in OS Wars WinCustomize Forums

I'd like to second the recommendation for Fedora Core 3- It really is bleeding-edge software with a great interface. There have been complaints circulated about the graphical installer, but in my hands it performed exceptionally well (and I'm a newb). It's also one of the fullest featured distros I've tried. Instead of the APT system, they use a derivative of YUM which is FANTASTIC!! Imagine using one command-line paramter to update ALL the softwa

Reply to Do you think of Fitt's Law when you design? in Software Development WinCustomize Forums

Fitt's also got some interesting studies on multi-monitor setups- I guess he was contracted by Apple for a bit, although you wouldn't guess by the way he rips on their OS (the Dock, especially). Still, his laws are applicable, despite the fact they can be a challenge to employ. Jafo, ALL your LiteStep themes are employing the most important of Fitt's law's <img src="http://images3.stardock.com/wc/smiles/BigSmile.gif" border=0 ALIGN="a

Reply to Do you think of Fitt's Law when you design? in Software Development WinCustomize Forums

In all honesty I've seen few few DesktopX themes that seem to fit Fitt's design parameters. Here are a few of the major blunders seen over the years (this also applies to LiteStep and Talisman themes): Common theme oversights... 1) Taskbar or other buttons are separated from the screen edge: By removing clickable features even one pixel from the screen edge it decreases its accessibility because that last pixel on the edge is wher

Reply to Rainlendar Advice in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

There have been at least two updates to Rainlendar recently which have changed the way certain elements are skinned. Older skins will not function correctly with the latest versions, and certain elements of these skins will be noticeably missing. I bet this is the source of the problem.

Reply to Is it time for Stardock to hire a PR firm? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

Please don't misunderstand: I never meant to infer that the comments made were deserving of "hate" or the misplaced wrath of a swarm of ignorantly dedicated AveDesk fans. I'm not seeking to justify their behavior nor place value on the erratic emotions they embelished. Brad, in many evident ways you're a leader in the skinning community. Jafo, you're absolutely right that having a strong and involved community advocate is a plus. There's a unique d

Reply to Is it time for Stardock to hire a PR firm? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

Jafo- point duly taken: if this was indeed the case, then Stardock has every right to pursue legal recourse. Andy's notable lack of response seems to corroborate this. Frogboy- Although your initial response was innocuous enough, it was the persistence of the argument that did the damage. If your initial response had been the only response, non-AveDesk zealots would clearly seen what a crusade the AveDesk editors/developers were on. The con

Reply to Is it time for Stardock to hire a PR firm? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

As much as the locals want to trash Andy Hutchinson, he did make a valid point. Remember the AveDesk thread on AquaXP where Brad got more than a little heated over widgets? It used to be at http://aquaxp.com/index.php?p=11 although I can't seem to pull the site up anymore. He obviously feels a great deal of pride in Stardock's products, which I would hope any developer would feel for their work, but in certain cases the expression of this pride has