One of the best and most underused features of WindowBlinds 6 is the colorizing feature.

With WindowBlinds, you can color certain parts of the skin but not others in order to create multiple new styles that you can save for later.

Here are two screenshots to show what I mean:

Above is Elegance but with a more golden hue to it. Note that the close button is still red. It's not just a brute force hue shift.

Here is Aero Executive changed to be grassy.

DeskScapes provides animated wallpaper for all users of Windows Vista.

Animated wallpaper isn't just for Windows Vista Ultimate users anymore.  With the release of beta 1 of DeskScapes 2.0 on Object Desktop, all users of Vista can use the hundreds of available .DREAM files here on WinCustomize as their animated backgrounds.

Object Desktop users also get some exclusive animated wallpaper content including four dynamic dreams (Water Dream, Earth Dream, Water Color, and Box Sample). 

If you don't have Object Desktop, you can get it here.

 
DeskScapes 2.0 beta now available for Object Desktop users.

Now all users of Windows Vista can get animated wallpaper.

So I put down the $20 for the iPod Touch updates.

Here is my 5 minute review:

New features:

• Mail. Supports Google, Yahoo, .Mac, and AOL.  Also supports POP and IMAP with impressive auto detection (better than Outlook's).  Features are fairly rudimentary but for getting mail on the road it's very good .Overall: 9 out of 10
• Maps. Somehow using various WiFi routers in the area it can get a reasonably good location.  So how good was it? OH MY GOD IT WAS GOOD. It located me within 100 feet. It's about as good as my GPS. Of course, you need to have Wifi near by so it's not a replacement for GPS but for $20, you now have a portable near-GPS device. Overall: 10/10.
• Stocks. Nothing big here. This is just a gadget.
• Weather. A very nicely done weather gadget that automatically shows a 5 day forecast.
• Notes. This is a surprisingly useful addition to the iPod Touch.  Last night, I remembered a feature I wanted to mention to be added to Sins of a Solar Empire. I knew I wouldn't remember it and it was 4am.  So I went down stairs and emailed it.  But I always keep my iPod nearby (I surf the web from bed, yes I'm a geek).  If I had had this feature last night, I would have used it.

So there you have it.

Is it worth $20?  It was to me.  But I don't based my purchasing on emotional needs or principle ("wah, it's not fair, I shouldn't have to pay"). I base it as to whether it's worth $20 to me.  And the answer is, yes.  The map feature is surprisingly good and the really well designed mail handling is worth it.

Update: Found the Advanced options in POP, email works quite well.

 Stardock has released WindowBlinds 6.02. WindowBlinds is a program that allows users to change the look and feel of Windows XP and Windows Vista by applying a new visual style. Users can download thousands of free visual styles from websites such as WinCustomize.com, deviantART, SkinBase, Customize.org, and more.

Thanks to years of optimization, WindowBlinds not only won't slow down your computer, it is faster than Windows XP or Windows Vista is by default thanks to making use of video acceleration features in ATI, nVidia, and Intel-based video adapters.  Moreover, WindowBlinds makes heavy use of resource sharing and as a result typically uses less memory than when using the default Windows XP or Windows Vista visual styles.

WindowBlinds 6.02 is a maintenance release designed fix some reported bugs, improve skin changing speed, and add support for MyColors themes.

WindowBlinds is a free download at http://www.windowblinds.net. Users can purchase an enhanced registered version which adds additional functionality for $19.95 (or get it as part of Object Desktop which adds several additional programs and costs $49.95).

Download: www.windowblinds.net

Screenshots:

Windows XP with a WindowBlinds skin applied

Windows Vista with Leo WindowBlinds skin applied

Windows XP with Aero Diamond applied

WindowBlinds 6.02 is now available for download at www.windowblinds.net.

WindowBlinds is a program that allows users of Windows XP or Windows Vista to change the visual style of the entire Windows GUI (task bar, Start menu, window frames, push buttons, scroll bars, you name it).

Since October, when WindowBlinds 6 was first released, we have seen our biggest increase in the number of WindowBlinds users ever.  WindowBlinds 6 added native Windows Vista skinning (including Internet Explorer 7 skinning) to the program as well as gave Windows XP users the ability to have blurred glass.

Here's Windows XP with WindowBlinds 6 using the Aero Diamond visual style:

Windows XP on left and Windows Vista on the right skinned by WindowBlinds

WindowBlinds 6.02 is a maintenance release that mostly improves performance, adds support for MyColors themes, and fixes some bugs.

Download: http://www.windowblinds.net

Screenshots:

Since the end of the Korean war, the two halves of the Korean peninsula have be free to pursue their own destiny. Communist North Korea pursued a centrally planned socialistic economy. South Korea pursued a capitalistic free market economy.

So next time you're asked whether you support government run health care or other centrally planned initiatives, ask yourself how dark you want it to get? A little bit of socialism is like a little bit of death.

Stardock Design has released another free WindowBlinds 6 skin. This is the first in a series of Aero-derived visual styles for Windows Vista and Windows XP.

[Get it here]

Constant CPU and hardweare usage even when just sitting there.

So often people hear about developers and publishres fighting every step of the way during the development of a game.

I want to say that working with Ironclad has just been totally awesome. We've been working together for well over a year now and in that time I don't think we've ever had a serious disagreement on..well on anything at all.  It's been a perfect team up.

Playing through these gamma builds (we just got done with a 4 on 4 multiplayer here at the office) I can honestly say that Sins of a Solar Empire is the best multiplayer strategy game I've played since Total Annihilation. 

The game mechanics are a perfect blend of Ironclad's vision and Stardock's input.  Case in point, the resource system (of mining asteroids) and the research system and such were contributed by everyone on the team -- and by team and I mean the Ironclad/Stardock team.   When we've submitted ideas that Ironclad didn't agree with, they made a good case and we all ended up happy with the end result.

Similarly, while Stardock had a lot of input into the game. Ironclad has had a lot of input into the marketing side.  In other words, the developer/publisher team up was very unusual in the sense that we literally integrated our efforts together.  This website you see here was largely designed by Ironclad.  The advertisements in the game magazines are a team up of our design teams.  The box, the story text, etc. are all the result of both teams working together.

I wish I could say that the team up could be used as a model for other developers and publishers. But I think a lot of the success is because we're both indies and we both love this specific type of game and thus already have a lot of understanding of what needs to be done.

I remember hearing an EA executive talking about "small" projects in which the development team had over 40 people on it.  To give you an idea, 40 people is bigger than the Stardock + Ironclad teams combined.  And that also means not just a game that can take chances on game play and such that others wouldn't do. 

The efficiency of indies also means lower costs. The Collector's Edition of Sins of a Solar Empire costs the same as most new AAA title standard editions. 

So in 3 weeks, when Sins of a Solar Emprie hits Best Buy, Walmart, EB, Gamestop, etc. and you see it on the shelf, you're buying a game that has gone through a very unique process.  A game that has gone through a public NON NDA beta over many months.  

We don't have the marketing juggernaut that most games have.  But given how the game has turned out, we think word of mouth may make Sins of a Solar Empire one of the top if not the top (and I'm aware of what other RTS's are coming out) RTS's of 2008. 

But what we lack of sheer logistics, we have some advantages.  For example, like with Galactic Civilizations, we'll be releasing free updates to Sins of a Solar Empire that go well beyond "patches" for bugs and what not. They'll be new features and enhancements that you ask us for after release. 

In just two weeks, the game goes gold, is put into manufacturing and should hit store shelves on February 4 (and be available for download that day as well with boxes hopefully starting to arrive on people's doorsteps that day too).