JeffBDVS

Reply to Blog: Drama on Aqua-Soft in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

This episode may have a more to do with the "Aquifying" of one's computer than anything else. If you've ever had a desire to make your Windows GUI look like a Mac GUI, then on some level you can understand the growth of this obsession. I myself have been guilty of tweaking a stable, great-looking Aqua desktop - I couldn't leave well enough alone when I stumbled across a component that would bring it just that much closer to 1:1 with the Mac GUI. At some point, I had to tell myself to knock it

Reply to Gamma, Color Saturation, Lightness, Darkness, Thoughts? Opinions? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I found a great site for walking you through this process and giving you some good-to-know tech facts along the way. I actually discovered a performance problem in one of my two ViewSonic LCDs because of the terrific tools there. It's Norman Koren's site, and my 2 favorite pages there are: http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html Scroll down to the middle of the page and check out the "Gamma and Black Level Chart". http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1B.ht

Reply to Registry cleanup program? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I like TuneUp Utilities 2004. Fast, safe and effective. I disabled the winstyles service that it installs (and wasn't part of TU2003). I don't have proof, but I suspect the TuneUp WinStyler is a hacked uxtheme file just like StyleXP. Jeff

Reply to SDTV: ObjectDock Plus! in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Well done, Brad. Camtasia? Jeff

Reply to Complaints about free ice cream in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

It's all about good manners. You know, those things your mom used to tell you to use when you went to a friend's birthday party or sat down with the family at a restaurant. I think Robert Fulghum's "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" should be required reading as part of every high school senior's core curriculum. One thing I've learned is that you "catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". I rarely get what I want from a merchant by being angry, rude, dema

Reply to Where can I find an OLD versio of Logon Studio? in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

Like cursor xp plus, object dock plus and the wincustomize browser (skin viewer plus? ), I would be happy to pay for logonstudio plus. Any takers in Livonia? -Jeff PS - I sure do miss the Tremors nightclub at the Holiday Inn. Is the new Irish pub any good? I haven't been there since it opened...

Reply to Somewhat aggravated in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I create and edit videos as a side business. I also read a lot of books about the programs that are my tools, and time after time, the screenshots are of these applications running on Mac OSX. Seminars I attended used Power PCs with OSX. (Sidebar: except for one Adobe dog-and-pony show they ran Windows XP on dual Xeon 2.8s. Pretty impressive demo.) Book after book, show after show: OSX. In one of the forums I frequent, someone posted a screenshot of an XP-only app dressed in OSX colors. N

Reply to Toolbar Border Image Size vs. Sizing Margins in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

Thanks for the info. I am looking for a way to minimize the side effects of any "AE specific" fix on the rest of my apps. Your post is a good start. What I am seeing are "normal" appearing toolbar captions in AE, they're just skinnier than PS or Premiere. The skinny captions apparently don't leave enough room for toolbar close and minimize buttons to be drawn. So I end up with a normal-lookin

Toolbar Border Image Size vs. Sizing Margins in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

I'd like to mod a couple of my favorite skins to handle Adobe After Effects' painting of toolbar windows like the tool palette or the info palette. Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere both paint the toolbar top border on the palettes at a decent size so that the toolbar buttons (mdi buttons??) show up as they do in the SKS preview. After Effects does not. The top toolbar border on the palettes is thinner, which results in the toolbar buttons (mdi buttons??) not being drawn in some skins. <

Reply to Microsoft Releases list of program conflicts with SP2 in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

@Randy, Preaching? Then all I have to say is, "Amen!" SP2 is not on any of my machines and likely won't be for the forseeable future. I find it very interesting that MS reports StyleXP as being incompatible (as expected), yet they put a note in the table that announces the updated (freshly hacked?) version. If MS was at all concerned about TGTSoft hacking their system files, they have a

Reply to PowerDesk 6 Released, Skinned with Direct Skin in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

And I just paid for a license for ExplorerPlus 6.2 yesterday! The good news for me is that having looked over the new stuff in PD6, I still think the EX+ interface is more user-friendly. If you "Standard Colors" from the skin menu in EX+, then it skins every bit as well as the screenshots of PD6. I think that EX+ has just a bit more functionality than PD6. But that difference is minimal and I have to remind anyone reading this that I have used EX+ but have not used PD6. My opinion is based

Reply to ODPlus: Tabbed Docks at Screen Edge in Stardock Software WinCustomize Forums

But you had to resize that dock, didn't you? The default behavior is to have a horizontal dock at the top of the screen. All I'd like to see is that a tabbed dock placed on the screen edge default to vertical orientation with the tabs arranged on the right or left side. Then if you wanted to do a long skinny dock effect, you could resize as desired. So I guess all I'm asking is for the default b

Reply to Problem with loading some sites both IE and Maxthon. in Stardock Software WinCustomize Forums

Lasse, All those sites use some form of Flash animation when the home page loads. I'd check your Flash plugin installation. FWIW, they all load fine for me, and I've got ZA Security Suite set to all medium or higher settings. Jeff EDIT: Using IE 6 [Message Edited]

ODPlus: Tabbed Docks at Screen Edge in Stardock Software WinCustomize Forums

(Note: post is duplicated in the NG) I haven't seen this issue reported, so I hope it's just me being stupid. (Did I really just say that I hoped I was stupid???) When I attach a tabbed dock to the left or right edge of my screen, it does not automatically shift from a horizontal to vertical orientation. It acquires the "drawer" behavior, but it does so from the short side of a horizont

Reply to Windows Explorer replacement? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

There is a Beta of PowerDesk Pro 6....has it's own skinning capability too....works a treat but suffers from the odd bug.....[it's in beta]. Very interesting - thanks for the tip. Just for fun, I tried Antares and it did a nice job of skinning the PD toolbars, too. Am I right in thinking that if WB and IP still don't handle PD very w

Reply to Windows Explorer replacement? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Longtime PowerDesk Pro (full version) user here, and thinking of switching to EP6, if only for the promise of future development. I'm pretty sure PD5 at V-com is dead. But paxx said that EP6 is prettier and faster, so I'm off ot d/l and install the demo. As for the animation issue, the only time I've seen skinned animations in PD is when opening a folder that spawns an Explorer window, and the animation is accessed from there. I still haven't taken the time to figure out which folder

Reply to What's the point? Why have the site at all? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Brad, I appreciate your hard work and I agree with Ross (way back on page 1) that the providing of a central location for skinning "artists" to post their work should more than make up for any perceived injustice re: royalties. "Illegitimi non carborundum". For every one bit of hate mail, there's at least 10 of the rest of us that think you're doing a great job, blogs included. C

Reply to LogonStudio: Help w/Preview and Shutdown Button position in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

Maybe we could start an "Unofficial LogonStudio Documentation Project" ???

Reply to LogonStudio: Help w/Preview and Shutdown Button position in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

Just curious. Does anyone know if older versions of LogonStudio/LogonXP had the ability to position the shutdown button? If so, why was the feature dropped in the latest version? If not, then never mind. Jeff

Reply to LogonStudio: Help w/Preview and Shutdown Button position in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

Thanks for the pointers. I did muck around in the theme.ini and the uifile.txt files, but the coding was cryptic enough that 3 attempts to add/change the shutdown button position in a "new" logon resulted in fatal parsing error messages. Absent any "how to" tips on what code to change and how to format it, I have reached a point of diminishing returns. Bummer.

LogonStudio: Help w/Preview and Shutdown Button position in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

I can mod the upper/lower and center panel images to match my monitor resolution (whew!), but I can't get odd aspect ratio logon images to preview correctly. For example, 1280 x 1024 or 1680 x 1050 (widescreen). I plug in the correct numbers for the panels and the actual logon appears perfectly, but the preview in LS is messed up. Is there any way to fix the preview for odd aspect ratios? I would also like to know how to re-position the shutdown button. I can re-position the usernam

Future Versions of Window Blinds and MDI Windows in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

Is it true that future versions of WB will not support MDI Window skinning? I'm doing OK with 420017. Thanks, Jeff

Reply to The Rating System is going to be changing.. in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Ratings...Schmatings. Outside of a 10 or a 1, I figure everything's subjective. Eye of the beholder stuff. And when you consider tools like me, well, I may not know skinning, but I know what I like. I imagine that among talented skinners, peer ratings would be very important. They could probably give a flip about what I think of their work. I've uploaded a grand total of 2 screenshots and nothing els

Reply to Uploads: (Do)n'ts and Don'ts. in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Thanks, Jafo.

Reply to Uploads: (Do)n'ts and Don'ts. in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

What about links to your skin or the original skin in its unaltered state? For example, I've got bits and pieces of several skins assembled into my current desktop (Xero's base theme, substitute Eclipse's buttons and Liquidus' toolbar button states, etc.). If someone asked, would it infringe on anyone's copyright to send them the complete, unchanged Xero, Eclipse and Liquidus themes, exactly as I downloaded them? Or is a link to the themes the most I could do? The problem with just pointing