Greetings! Ironclad has been hard at work on an update to Sins based on player feedback. We've got lots of new features in this build that we hope you find compelling.

Version 1.03 will be released later this week. We can assure you that we are intensively play testing this new update over. And over. And over. Because we love you guys, we are going that extra mile in making sure the update is just right by playing it all day and all night sometimes. That's the kind of sacrifice we are willing to make just for you!

Here is the full list of changes:

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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 Changelist
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gameplay / Balance:
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-New Game Options Screen:
-Locked/Unlocked Teams
-Fleet Size
-Pirates or No Pirates (arrrr!)
-Income Rate Speed
-Build Speed
-Ship Speed
-Research Speed
-Culture Speed

***REMINDER***
-In singleplayer you can accelerate / deccelerate time by pressing the +/- buttons respectively. I'm mentionning it again because this request is coming up a lot even though it was implemented in the v1.02 patch.

-New Market System:
Highlights:
-Random fluctuations in addition to user influence on price.
-Can cause crash or boom by selling/buying too much.
-Known exploits removed.
-Can now buy and sell resources on the market in large increments again.

-Improved Group Phase Jumping for large groups of ships. The group will only wait for 90% of the value of the ships to be ready. The stragglers will follow shortly after. Typically, its only a couple ships that cause the whole operation to stall so this should eliminate the majority of problems.

-Research subjects queued in different fields can now upgrade in parallel.
-Overseer's Nanite Reactive Armor ability can now properly stack heals (but not the armor and max HP bonus).
-Kostura Cannon now only disables enemy units and structures at the target planet as originally intended.
-Autocast for many disabling abilities improved.
-Disciple's Transfer Antimatter no longer targets other Disciples when autocasting.
-Transfer Antimatter can no longer target entities with full antimatter.
-Can't attack unbuilt structures anymore.
-You can now change game options when loading save games.
-Defeated players can no longer give or be given resources in unlocked teams games.
-Defeated players can no longer place bounties in unlocked teams games.
-Fixed unintended halving of galaxy culture coverage in the game statistics. Pop Idol achievement is now actually achievable.
-No pirate maps removed due to new game option to remove pirates.
-Large and Huge random maps split into single and multi star system variants.

-Mission durations increased by 10 mins.
-Mission failure penalties to happiness reduced.
-Rebalanced happiness losses for killing various items (Killing enemy scouts no longer causes a loss of happiness).
-Phase Jump Inhibitors:
-cost reduced slightly.
-slot cost reduced from 3 to 2.
-jump charge rate penalty increase from -250% to -700%.
-Passive allegiance shift rates increased by 100%.
-Allegiance shift rates from culture increased 25%.
-Illuminator, Javelis, Assailant:
-Increased credit cost by approx 10%.
-Increased resource cost by approx 20%.
-Increased range by approx 30%.
-Illuminator and Assailant survivability tuned to be proportional to Javelis's on a per supply basis.
-Siege Frigates:
-Survivability reduced by ~20%.
-Build cost increased by ~25%.
-Supply cost increased from 12 to 15.
-Development Mandate research subject's max level reduced from 2 to 1.
-Tier 1 research times increased approx 40%
-Tier 2 research times increased approx 20%
-All other tiers research times increased 5%

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Graphics:
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-Fixed sometimes drastic frame rate drop when chat messages are displayed.

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Sound / Music:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Sins handles no soundcard now.
-Added sound option for varying music vol in battle.

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AI:
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-AI now knows how to surrender (based on time elapsed, relative economy, relative fleet value, resource reserves, and allied strength). Also, an AI player will not surrender if he has a human ally.
-AI is now smarter about retreating and is willing to commit local suicide or accept local Phyrric victories if the global gain is higher and will also factor in local allied forces.
-Fixed various AI researching and building stall outs for the various trees (military in particular).
-Rewrote AI siege building and attack logic.
-Improved AI use of Black Market.
-Autocast for many disabling abilities improved.
-New AI Difficulty "Unfair" that gives the AI a tax income bonus and resource income bonus from resource asteroids (there is no other AI cheating in the game even at the Unfair difficulty level).
-Wide variety of AI upgrades.
-Improve AI taunting.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Networking / Multiplayer:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-AI will now take over for dropped players.
-You no longer have to kill all a dropped player's planets to win even when the AI takes over for him.

-Unified the in-game and ico chat system. They now share the same irc/wow like commands. Full autocomplete with tab/shift-tab. Autocomplete will attempt to either complete the name field or cycle through the available names.



Commands:

: send to all
in-game: send to all human players in game.
ico: send to all players in current lobby

/w: whisper
in-game: if player is in game, uses the game chat system (will be recorded), otherwise go through ico.
ico: send directly to player (even if playing a game). tab autocomplete will cycle through all players in channel.

/a: send to all allies
in-game: send to all human allies in game
ico: n/a

/f: send to all ico-friends
in-game: send to all ico-friends, even if they are not in game
ico: send to all friends no matter where they are

/wa: whisper ally
in-game: same as whisper, but tab autocomplete will be constrained to only allies.
ico: n/a

/wf: whisper friend
in-game: same as whisper, but tab autocomplete will be constrained to only ico-friends.
ico: same as whisper, but tab autocomplete will be constrained to only ico-friends.

/r - doesn't take in a name for the second parameter, will send automatically to the last player who send a whisper
in-game same as ico

/wr - allows you to autocomplete with through all players who have recently sent a whisper.
in-game same as ico

-You can now send whispers to players with spaces in their names by using quotes. Autocomplete properly handles these names.

-Rewrite of ico friend status. all clients are now kept up to date on the current status of every friend at all times. This allows for a more friendly ui, the friend list is colored to show who is logged in/playing games. There are globbal events to notify the user of what friends are doing. This can be disabled like the channel notifications.

-Channel name list now saves the visual and selected state on any change, so it is now possible to select players on busy channels.
-There is now a setting for if the user wants to see " has left/joined channel". checkbox in ico chat screen for controlling the setting.
-Players now leave their chat channels when playing games.
-Players rejoin their old chat channel when quitting a game.
-Quitting a game now brings you back to the lobby screen chat tab instead of the join or create game tab.
-Simplified game filtering.
-Hooked up the ability to change game options for ico games.
-Changed how the lobby screens get their game options so that it will come from the save files when needed.
-ico server now ignores case when searching for games.
-Deep checksumming is now employed before joining multiplayer games (to help avoid crashes and desyncs caused by modded data).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
UserInterface / HUD:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Added culture flipping planet event.
-Made the use of 'strike craft' when refering to both fighters and bombers more consistent (often just fighters before).
-Various text color updates.
-Improved description of Development Mandate research.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Modding:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Can now mod in different textures without copying the entire texture directory.
-Fixed corrupt particle effects when loading mods up in-game.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Various crash fixes.
-Game stats infocards now sort by value.
-Game stats now track the number of active units instead of built so that the graphs are more interesting.
-Game stats no longer tracks the number of units lost in combat as this was confusing with number of units killed and the information is now apparent from the number of active units stats.
-Scenario names are now localized, no longer use the filename, but instead use a string inside the file.
-Removed no pirate maps (not needed as its a game option now).
-Other very minor additions and changes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
End
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next stop is the demo version and then it's on to v1.04.

 
Object Desktop 2008 Guided Tour

Introduction

Object Desktop is the defacto standard when it comes to changing your Windows experience. If you want to take control over how Windows looks, feels, and functions, Object Desktop is the way to do it.  Since its original release for Windows back in 1999, Object Desktop and its components have garnered millions of users worldwide.  Parts of it have been licensed to virtually every major technology company you can think of at one time or other.

Over the years, Object Desktop got bigger..and bigger...and bigger to the point where it had dozens of programs that came with it. Needless to say, it became a little unwieldy for the average user.  So for 2008, Stardock has split the product into two versions:

• Object Desktop (WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, DeskScapes, SoundPackager, MyColors)
• Object Desktop Ultimate (the above plus over a dozen other programs)

In addition, Object Desktop 2008 marks a major change in Stardock's approach to the desktop experience: It will be including content as part of the package.

When someone purchases Object Desktop, they not only get everything that's in it right now, they also get a one-year subscription to ObjectDesktop.net. This digital distribution subscription provides automatic updates plus adds new programs to the suite as they become available.  At the end of the year, users can renew their access to keep getting new updates (and if they don't, they can continue to use what they have forever).

Overview of features in Object Desktop 2008

In the past, a user who purchased Object Desktop would receive in email a serial # and a link to Stardock Central. They then installed Stardock Central and were kind of left on their own to figure out how to get Object Desktop going.  This worked fine when Object Desktop was mostly used by power users.  But by 2008, customizing ones computer had become mainstream and such a clunky first impression was no longer viable.

With Object Desktop 2008, users now install Object Desktop 2008 as a single package which automatically sets up the primary components of the program for the user.

These 6 programs now make up the core of Object Desktop.  Users who opt for Object Desktop Ultimate get those 6 programs plus ObjectBar, RightClick, SkinStudio Pro, TweakVista, IconDeveloper, WindowFX, Keyboard LaunchPad, along with some new programs that are in development that should be out within the next year.

On top of the 6 core programs, however is something new: MyColors themes.  MyColors themes are premium suites designed to use the core parts of Object Desktop seamlessly. In the past, users who purchased Object Desktop were essentially expected to fend for themselves to find cool stuff.  With Object Desktop 2008, users will receive 4 premium MyColors themes through the course of the year plus discounts on all MyColors themes (normally they're $19.95 apiece but for Object Desktop users they'll range between $8.95 to 16.95 depending on licensing requirements).

In terms of value, the individual programs of the core of Object Desktop add up to over $100 not counting the premium themes.  However, Object Desktop remains only $49.95.

WindowBlinds

WindowBlinds is a program for Windows XP or Windows Vista that changes the look and feel of the Windows GUI.  It integrates seamlessly into Windows and allows users to alter the appearance of Windows safely -- it doesn't alter any system files (in memory or on disk).  A user of WindowBlinds can make Windows look like another operating system or something completely original.

WindowBlinds enables users to change the actual Windows graphical user interface to whatever they want. There are literally thousands of different visual styles (skins) to choose from.

IconPackager

IconPackager is the industry standard way of changing all the icons on Windows in a single click. Users choose a set of icons (known as an icon package) and then hit apply and IconPackager will change them all.  For users of Windows Vista, IconPackager is the only program that supports live folder icons on Windows Vista and will automatically enhance XP icons to support Windows Vista.

IconPackager makes it a snap to apply entirely new sets of icons to Windows XP or Windows Vista.

DesktopX

DesktopX is the grand daddy of desktop enhancement programs. It was the first program on any platform to allow users to create mini-applications on their desktops (commonly called today "widgets" or gadgets"). Long before there was a Mac Dashboard or Konfabulator or Windows Gadgets, there was DesktopX.  But DesktopX is so much more than that.  It can build entire desktops from scratch. Its integrated editor makes it a snap to share your creations with others users.

For Object Desktop 2008, DesktopX gets updated to support Windows Vista more fully. Now, DesktopX creates can be exported to be placed on the Windows Sidebar.

DesktopX makes it a snap for users to add cool stuff to their desktop.

The latest version of DesktopX can even export your creations to natively integrate into the Windows sidebar!

DesktopX lets users combine their objects together to build entire desktops of their own design.

DeskScapes

DeskScapes is an animated wall program for Windows Vista. It takes advantage of the new Windows Vista compositor to do animation without impacting performance.  Object Desktop 2008 will come with DeskScapes 2.0 which is designed to run on all versions of Windows Vista.  While currently only available for Windows Vista users, Stardock is investigating some of the recent video driver advances on Windows XP...

DeskScapes runs .DREAM files as animated wallpaper. .DREAM files can contain either video content or dynamic content.

SoundPackager

SoundPackager is a pretty straight forward program. It lets users change their Windows sound scheme. What's amazing is that somewhere along the line, Windows quit allowing users to load up distributed sound schemes. You are now expected to set each sound individually (a far cry from the Windows 95 days).

SoundPackager, by contrast, makes it a snap to make your own sound schemes and distribute them out. It also comes with some really high quality sound schemes.

SoundPackager makes it a snap to create and trade sound schemes. There's already a ton of sound packages available on WinCustomize.com.

MyColors

MyColors combines the 5 preceding elements together into a symphony. A MyColors theme can dramatically alter the look and feel of Windows by changing the Windows GUI, the icons, the background, add widgets, and change the sound scheme.  MyColors themes are created exclusively by Stardock to ensure a bullet proof experience.  We may open it up to others down the line to create MyColors themes but for now, we want to focus on making sure that the user experience is exquisite.

For Object Desktop users, Stardock will be releasing at least 4 MyColors themes per year. The longer one keeps their access to ObjectDesktop.net, the more MyColors themes they'll accumulate.

MyColors brings it all together.

Impulse

While not technically part of Object Desktop 2008, Impulse will debut with it.  Impulse is Stardock's next-generation distribution platform.  Existing users can still use Stardock Central if they want, but Impulse will be available to easily manage not just software but content as well.

Impulse lets users manage, update, and get more software and content for their PC.

Object Desktop Ultimate

Anyone with an active subscription to ObjectDesktop.net on March 31, 2008 will automatically get upgraded to Object Desktop Ultimate free of charge.  Object Desktop Ultimate will be $69.95 for new users.

Object Desktop Ultimate is designed for the ultimate PC power users.  It adds a host of additional programs. While Object Desktop Ultimate is a better deal (you get a lot more for just $20 more), it is intended for users who know are looking to turbo-charge their Windows experience to the ultimate level.

Availability

Stardock is targeting March 31, 2008 as the release date for Object Desktop 2008.  If you have previously purchased Object Desktop but your subscription to ObjectDesktop.net has expired, now would be a good time to renew it so that you automatically get Object Desktop Ultimate.

Lately there have been a lot of articles that have painted the PC market as being "doomed" due to piracy. Piracy is certainly a major issue that PC game developers have to deal with. But there are other issues at hand that we think are larger.

If you're interested in our take on PC game piracy, read the article below:

>> Piracy & PC Gaming

The Stardock gang got together and gave some thought about the recent series of articles that have painted the PC market as if it is doomed from piracy and come up with our own views on the matter.

You can view it here: https://forums.galciv2.com/?aid=303512

Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion - if a high quality PC game doesn't sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy.

Now, I don't like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales.  But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don't think so. People who never buy software aren't lost sales.

Is it about business or glory?

Most people who know of Stardock in the gaming world think of it as a tiny indie shop. And we certainly are tiny in terms of game development. But in the desktop enhancement market, Stardock owns that market and it's a market with many millions of users. According to CNET, 6 of the top 10 most popular desktop enhancements are developed by Stardock.  Our most popular desktop enhancement, WindowBlinds, has almost 14 million downloads just on Download.com. We have over a million registered users.

If you want to talk about piracy, talk about desktop enhancements. The piracy on that is huge.  But the question isn't about piracy. It's about sales. 

So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base.  That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers.

PC game developers seem to focus more on the "cool" factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen.  I've never considered myself a real game developer. I'm a gamer who happens to know how to code and also happens to be reasonably good at business.

So when I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable. As a gamer, I like most games.  I love Bioshock. I think the Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals ever. I love Company of Heroes and Oblivion was captivating.  My two favorite games of all time are Civilization (I, II, III, and IV) and Total Annihilation. And I won't even get into the hours lost in WoW.  Heck, I even like The Sims. 

So when it comes time to make a game, I don't have a hard time thinking of a game I'd like to play. The hard part is coming up with a game that we can actually make that will be profitable.  And that means looking at the market as a business not about trying to be "cool".

Making games for customers versus making games for users

So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it's still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green's (Games for Windows) yard. I still can't find my hedge trimmers.

Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It's the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title.  Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.

And yet we don't get nearly the attention of other PC games. Lack of marketing on our part? We bang on the doors for coverage as next as the next shop. Lack of advertising? Open up your favorite PC game publication for the past few months and take note of all the 2 page spreads for Sins of a Solar Empire. So we certainly try. 

But we still don't get the editorial buzz that some of the big name titles do because our genre isn't considered as "cool" as other genres.  Imagine what our sales would be if our games had gotten game magazine covers and just massive editorial coverage like some of the big name games get.  I don't want to suggest we get treated poorly by game magazine and web sites (not just because I fear them -- which I do), we got good preview coverage on Sins, just not the same level as one of the "mega" titles would get. Hard core gamers have different tastes in games than the mainstream PC gaming market of game buyers. Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? Heck, how much buzz does The Sims get in terms of editorial when compared to its popularity. Those things just aren't that cool to the hard core gaming crowd that everything seems geared toward despite the fact that they're not the ones buying most of the games.

I won't even mention some of the big name PC titles that GalCiv and Sins have outsold.  There's plenty of PC games that have gotten dedicated covers that haven't sold as well.  So why is that?

Our games sell well for three reasons.  First, they're good games which is a pre-requisite. But there's lots of great games that don't sell well.

The other two reasons are:

• Our games work on a very wide variety of hardware configurations.
• Our games target genres with the largest customer bases per cost to produce for.

We also don't make games targeting the Chinese market

When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they're not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn't likely to pay for the game?

If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won't buy your game, then why support them? That's one of the things I have a hard time understanding.  It's irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you're in the business of selling games that is). It's only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.

Stardock doesn't make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think "Duh."

You need a machine how fast?

Anyone who keeps track of how many PCs the "Gamer PC" vendors sell each year could tell you that it's insane to develop a game explicitly for hard core gamers.  Insane.  I think people would be shocked to find out how few hard core gamers there really are out there. This data is available. The number of high end graphics cards sold each year isn't a trade secret (in some cases you may have to get an NDA but if you're a partner you can find out). So why are companies making games that require them to sell to 15% of a given market to be profitable? In what other market do companies do that? In other software markets, getting 1% of the target market is considered good.  If you need to sell 500,000 of your game to break even and your game requires Pixel Shader 3 to not look like crap or play like crap, do you you really think that there are 50 MILLION PC users with Pixel Shader 3 capable machines who a) play games and will actually buy your game if a pirated version is available?

In our case, we make games that target the widest possible audience as long as as we can still deliver the gaming experience we set out to.  Anyone who's looked at the graphics in Sins of a Solar Empire would, I think, agree that the graphics are pretty phenomenal (particularly space battles).  But could they be even fancier? Sure. But only if we degraded the gaming experience for the largest chunk of people who buy games.

The problem with blaming piracy

I don't want anyone to walk away from this article thinking I am poo-pooing the effect of piracy.  I'm not.  I definitely feel for game developers who want to make kick ass PC games who see their efforts diminished by a bunch of greedy pirates.  I just don't count pirates in the first place.  If you're a pirate, you don't get a vote on what gets made -- or you shouldn't if the company in question is trying to make a profit. 

The reason why we don't put CD copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry.

One of the jokes I've seen in the desktop enhancement market is how "ugly" WindowBlinds skins are (though there are plenty of awesome ones too). But the thing is, the people who buy WindowBlinds tend to like a different style of skin than the people who would never buy it in the first place.  Natural selection, so to speak, over many years has created a number of styles that seem to be unique to people who actually buy WindowBlinds.  That's the problem with piracy.  What gets made targets people who buy it, not the people who would never buy it in the first place. When someone complains about "fat borders" on some popular WindowBlinds skin my question is always "Would you buy WindowBlinds even if there was a perfect skin for you?" and the answer is inevitably "Probably not". That's how it works in every market -- the people who buy stuff call the shots.  Only in the PC game market are the people who pirate stuff still getting the overwhelming percentage of development resources and editorial support.

When you blame piracy for disappointing sales, you tend to tar the entire market with a broad brush.  Piracy isn't evenly distributed in the PC gaming market. And there are far more effective ways of getting people who might buy your product to buy it without inconveniencing them.

Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes.  When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue.

In the end, the pirates hurt themselves. PC game developers will either slowly migrate to making games that cater to the people who buy PC games or they'll move to platforms where people are more inclined to buy games.

In the meantime, if you want to make profitable PC games, I'd recommend focusing more effort on satisfying the people willing to spend money on your product and less effort on making what others perceive as hot.  But then again, I don't romanticize PC game development. I just want to play cool games and make a profit on games that I work on.

For users of desktop enhancements, the abuse of other people's copyright is a well known topic. Whether it be with rips in skins or the pirating of software.

But in the PC game market, piracy has reached a head recently as it apparently was a hot topic at this year's Game Developer's Conference. At the GDC, many developers blamed piracy for the soft sales of their PC games.

However, Stardock's own Sins of a Solar Empire topped the US retail charts despite having no copy protection whatsoever.  So what's the deal?

The article below goes over some of our thoughts on the matter. We think you'll find it an interesting read.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is the first major update to Microsoft's controversial follow-up to Windows XP. I say controversial because Windows Vista got off to a bit of a rough start mostly in the area of driver support, the new User Access Control and just a number of polish issues that gave early adopters a bit of a sour taste.

We've been given a copy of the final release of Service Pack 1 and we're pleased to say it's a big step forward for Windows Vista users.  Having previously been using the betas and most recently RC1, I had been disappointed with the general slowness and klunkiness of Windows Vista.

For most new users to Windows Vista, the first thing they would tend to notice is how much slower Windows Vista was versus Windows XP.  With Service Pack 1, Windows Vista is very snappy.  The overall experience is just much better.  Here are the big improvements based on our testing:

1. Superfetch is super. The most significant improvement we noticed in SP1 over Vista (including the RC's) is that superfetch is much better. Superfetch looks at what programs you tend to use and so when you boot up, it will tend to load pieces of these into memory.  Now, users who get really uptight about the amount of memory used by the system on bootup will still have a cow. But the reality is that now when you load up the programs you usually run, it's lightning fast.  If you've ever right-clicked on the desktop in Windows XP to create a folder and found it obnoxious how long it takes to bring up a pop up menu, you'll like SP1.
   
   
2. File Management much snappier. In Windows Vista, moving files around was obnoxious. You'd get a dialog that would start to estimate the amount of time it would take to copy the files.  If I'm moving 10 gigs around, sure, that might make sense. But even on relatively small file operations, I'd get this dialog.   Now, moving things around in Windows is as fast or faster than it was on Windows XP. It's very snappy. One other plus, the zip handling is much faster.
   
   
3. Using it with a laptop is nicer.  One thing we noticed immediately over plain Vista was coming out of sleep was much much faster. This is particularly true if you have USB devices hooked up. It was very noticeable.
   
   
4. General performance is better.  Is it better than Windows XP? Most people will say no but it depends on what matters to you.  Windows XP benchmarks better but in terms of actual responsiveness, Windows Vista is feeling faster on the same hardware for me.  That is, loading up programs I commonly use, switching between programs, etc.  I am inclined to agree with those who say that Vista will perform more slowly in benchmarking but Vista is a lot more intelligent in its memory management in SP1 than XP and vastly better than Vista plain.

There are numerous other updates to Windows Vista SP1 but in terms of what we think most users will notice, these are the big ones. 

In terms of listing new articles and latest article comments, we need to make some distinctions:

An article has a blog ID.

A forum post does not.

Therefore, newest articles and newest article comments should only be listing things that have a blog ID.

We should use that as an opportunity to display both the latest articles, latest article comments, and latest forum activity.

I think one of the frustrations (Certainly one of mine) with the new JU is being whisked away to the forums when it is not intutive that that would happen. It also causes FORUM traffic from WinCustomize to get mixed in with BLOG activity on JoeUser.

People on WinCustomize who have personal pages can write articles, but they don't have to.  We need to separate the two concepts so that people who want to read articles are reading articles as opposed to being sent over to look at forum posts.

One of the most exciting things going on in our household is what we call "Future House".  While most people who know me personally know that silliness is the core of my being (by contrast, on-line my persona is stuck as crutchety stereo type authority figure), I do take major life plans serious to the point of insanity.

When my wife and I got married, nearly 15 years ago, we had a plan. We would have 3 houses in our "effective lifetime" (only an engineer comes up with a term like that).

The first house would be our "Starter house". The second house would be our transitional house that would be nicer while we prepared for the "ultimate house".

Of course, we had no idea what scale these various houses would be. But the plan was to try to afford as much house as we could by the time my wife and I hit 40. This wasn't merely due to distracting ourselves from our various pre-planned midlife crisis's (well sure it was but anyway...) it was also because we wanted to make sure our "final" house was set up while our kids were still young enough to think of that house as their home.

2 years ago, I bought about 3.5 acres of property near work for the project and this Spring, the trucks move in to begin clearing things and start building. It will take about 2.5 years for the house to be built. If all goes well, we'll be moved in right around the time my wife hits 40 (I'll still be 39).

For both my wife and I, the whole project is surreal.  For myself, I grew up in a 2 bedroom apartment with my mom. Through her frugal management of money, we eventually moved into a house in a very nice neighborhood. Her house is about 1,000 square feet (though I'm sure she'll correct me on the exact).  It was a great house to grow up in since it was just the 2 of us.

When I got out of college and the first product I made (a PC game for OS/2) helped the company take off, I used the fame of that game (our publisher didn't pay us so I only had glory but no money yet) to launch additional products which we published ourselves (And thus got to actually see the money).  That allowed my new wife and I to buy our first home. 2,500 square feet. Very nice house. Had a little pond in back that I dug and had woods near by.

When we had two kids and thoughts of having a third, we decided on a whim (after being talked into it by my diabolical neighbor and friend and now coworker who had just moved to a new neighborhood) to get house #2 which is 4,000 square feet, not counting the finished basement.  It is a really nice house, great neighborhood.

But the house we're in, as nice as it is, isn't our dream home.  First, there's no woods around. It's completely in a sub-division so there are houses on all sides. Even as I type here in my pajamas (I am a blogger after all) I am sure the neighbor across the way can see right into my window at my ever expanding gut (I'm shirtless). 

I like neighbors, but I don't like having them on all sides. Plus, my wife wants a pool and I'd like to have some space for having various critters in the house (I love animals of all types but don't dare have them here).  The house we're in was obviously designed by a guy. Very small laundry room and tiny mud room.

So for the past couple of years, we've been deciding on the features of our dream house. I won't go into too many details as I recognize that there's plenty of people who get resentful over "conspicuous consumption" but my feeling is that life is short and having a cool house is something I've always wanted and now we have the means to do everything we've always wanted. 

Even my kook side can be placated with hidden rooms, alternative power sources, conservatory with water supply for all kinds of animals (I want to build a mini eco system), a lower floor lab for robotics, electronics, etc.  A mini shop for beekeeping stuff and building other stuff.

The idea is that this will be the house we retire in. Our last house. So we're trying to make sure that a) it has everything we can think of today and it's got space and flexibility to have what we think of in the future added.

The lot itself is beautiful. Totally wooded (Which is a bit heart breaking as trees have to be cut down to build the house -- a LOT of trees).  The wood, however, is being used on the house rather than scrapped so the wood won't be really going anywhere, it'll simply be reformed.

So over the coming 2.5 years, you'll likely see some pictures and notes.  A great adventure is about to begin.

As part of my growing flash light fetish, I picked up the Surefire Executive Defender E2D flashlight.  It's a small flash light that fits in the palm of your hand but provides serious utility.

At 60 lumens of brightness, it will light a dark area extremely well. It is also designed for self-defense with enough brightness to blind an assailant immediately. The front and back are reinforced with a very very solid steel that is slightly surrated to ensure that anyone you whack it with takes some serious damage.

While not something I would personally use for defense in all likelyhood, as a last resort, it's better than nothing. In the meantime, I'll use it as a handy way of getting around in the dark.