Application Development Trends, an on-line magazine with 30,000 plus subscribers, has just completed their review of DirectSkin 4.2. Highlights of the review follow: "DirectSkin gives you a custom control (OCX) to handle the grunt work of skinning your application. You can use the control in any environment that supports COM controls (including .NET; it work
CarpeThis, DirectSkin provides support for .Net applications. The DirectSkin OCX is integrated into your application and requires no special software on the user's desktop,beyond your application. If the user does have WindowBlinds installed you can choose whether to have your skin override the system skin or to use it for a consistent look. If you are interested in using DirectSkin in your development, please feel free to email me at
Last week, Stardock released Version 4.2 of its DirectSkin solution for developers. Simultaneously, several corporate clients announced that they have joined the growing number of companies that have adopted DirectSkin as their standard for creating new and more attractive user interfaces for their products. DirectSkin is an ActiveX Control or OCX that allo
The GUI Olympics has been covered by a number of news sources. What makes the GUI Olympics so extraordinary? A quote from Michael Smith, Group Manager, Worldwide ISV Relations at ATI Technologies, explains, "ATI is proud to be a sponsor of the 2004 GUI Olympics. We have worked with Stardock
The contest at FileFront offers a number of great prizes, including subscriptions to Drengin games (includes Galactic Civilizations and the Altarian Prophecy Expansion Pack plus much more) or Object Desktop! The perfect prize in time for the GUI Olympics! Visit now to enter!
Greetings go out to one of my best friends and one of the warmest people I have ever had the joy to know. Happy, happy birthday! (PS- I'm still older than you, so show some respect, youngster!) <img src="http://
Happy, happy birthday. I was going to look for a cool animation, but what could compare to Stumpy's?
I have it on good authority that an authorized suite of premium skins for Spiderman, Hulk and the X-Men is being developed. I would tell you more, but then I would have to....well, you know the rest. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/images/smiles/sb.gif" border=0 ALIGN="absmiddle" ALT="Powered by SkinBrowser!
FileFront is featuring an exclusive preview of The Political Machine. The preview includes a number of exclusive screenshots. Check it out! "The Political Machine looks to be a very promising title."
My thoughts are with you and your family.
"One thread per subject please..." Doesn't sound rude to me. As an Admin of the site, one of Koasati's duties is to make sure that the Message Boards are readable for all of us. Duplicate posts add clutter and should be avoided. Just a note. (PS- Thanks Koasati!)
Any organization needing help for fund raising or other seasonal activities can download a free walking desktop Santa, complete with ringing bell, for use in their fundraising campaigns. By offering its software to organizations that help others, Stardock hopes to accomplish the most good this
Do you own a business or have a website? Do you publish a magazine or newsletter? If you do and you are looking for ways to generate revenue, you can become a member of Stardock's Affilate. It is easy to get started. Just go to https://www.stardock.net/company/affiliates.html and follow the links to sign up. You set a User ID and Password. Then you will be able to select the product or products that you want to offer and you will get the appropriate URLs. You copy and paste to your webs
A PhD. student at prestigous Princeton University published an article on why CD copy protection is a bad idea and how flawed a particular solution was. Now he is being sued for pointing out that you could disable this copy protection by just pressing the "Shift" key. I have a brief article including links on my blog: http://kupe.joeuser.com
Well, thank you all very much! Far from letting the birthday blues get me down, I posted my thoughts on my blog site at http://kupe.joeuser.com/ (See? You can teach an old dog new tricks! Blogging at my age!) One of the coolest things in my life these days is getting birthday greetings from my friends all around the world. Australia, England, Scotland, Canada and all. Thank you very much!
The Rosh Hashanah holiday begins at sunset tonight. Rosh Hashanah, meaning "Head of the year", is one of the Jewish High Holidays. Often referred to as the Jewish New Year, it is traditionlly a time for reflection, asking for forgiveness and for doing charitable deeds (or Tzedakah.) For all those who observe the holiday, let me say "L'Shana Tova." <A HREF="https://www.wincustom
Paul, a very happy birthday to you. You are truly one of the pillars of the skinning community and I wish you all the best.
Without go too far into a discussion of copyright and trademark, Apple Computer agreed in contract not to do something and then went ahead and did it. To me, the case is open and shut.
According to Fox News, Apple Corps., the company that was founded by the Beatles, is suing Apple Computer over the iPod and iTunes. Apple Corps. contends that, under a long standing agreement, the Apple logo and name would may only be used for computers and never for a music company. When Steve Jobs founded Apple Computers, the Beatles already had a famous corporation named Apple. Jobs admitted using a similiar name for his company as a "tribute." Apple Corps. sued and won a se
Just a quick update. Please see http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/09/09/music.swap.settlement/index.html The 12-year old in question agreed to pay $2,000 in settlement. This amount was agreed to based on $2 for each of the 1,000 songs she allegedly shared.
I would estimate that hundreds of users asked questions, received answers or got help that they needed during that same time. All in a civil manner. Kona, our chat rooms are great. No one is forcing you to use them, but they are pretty cool. For me it is a thrill to hang out with skinners and developers and just listen to them trade secrets. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/images/smiles/
Both Stardock Central and the WinCustomize Browser include integrated chat clients. By using these clients you are literally one-click away from being connected to a chat room. Set up is pretty much done for you. There is also a wonderful tutorial included, so no one needs to feel like a "newbie." IMHO, this is a great feature that is under-utilized. You can not only get help if you need it, but it is a great way to feel a pert of the community. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/ima
Oklahoma filed criminal charges against the former head of MCI today. MCI filed for bankruptcy after an $11 billion accounting scandal. Please see http://money.cnn.com/2003/08/27/technology/mci_charges/index.htm Whether these charges are upheld in criminal court or not remains to be seen. Hearings to determine whether MCI will be allowed to emerge from bankruptcy are scheduled to begin nex month. Very simply put, MCI owed more money than they actually had, about $30 billion in debt. If
DAP is skinned using DirectSkin from Stardock. Which means that it uses skins in the standard WindowBlinds format. However, if I recall correctly you need to have the Pro version of DAP to apply skins.
Software developers interested in creating a skinnable application should visit https://www.stardock.com/products/directskin/ DirectSkin is an OCX that allows developers to apply WindowBlinds technology to their applications. A typical application can quickly be turned into a skinnable one by integrating the DirectSkin OCX into the project. The developer can choose to use a single WindowBlinds skin to give their application a distictive look and feel or allow users to select their own
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