The cliche "beauty in the eye of the beholder" is so overused but is so universal. A better phrase would be that value is in the eye of the beholder.

This past week, Apple updated the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Apple is charging existing users $19.95 to get some of the new features. Thus ensued a lot of bitching and moaning about the price. 

Maybe it's because I'm a sick, scummy, evil capitalist who eats babies when I'm not on here flaming web hippies but what is it with non-producers constantly asserting that other people are greedy for not working for them for free.  When I bought my iPod Touch (best purchase of 2007) I knew it didn't have email or map features. The Apple is letting me have these cool and extremely useful features for 20 bucks is great.   (here's my quick review of it)

So what if new users don't have to pay the $20. They had to wait longer. If the iPod Touch were a video game, it would be priced at half the price it launched at by now. You don't hear people screaming that they had to pay $50 for their favorite game a year ago and now it's available for $30 at Best Buy do you? 

That's one of my biggest peeves with the Internet. We now have an entire generation of web hippies that not only expect other people to work for them to be free but have the audacity to accuse those producing stuff of greed if they refuse to behave like proper slaves. 

In an age where there are fewer and fewer people making stuff (skins, software, you name it) it strikes me as extremely ironic that anyone who doesn't make stuff thinks they're in any position to be demanding others work for free for them. 

I can't make an email applet for my iPod. I'm glad Apple did. And I will happily trade $20 that I earned through my labor to those who produced it.  When I can't produce something for myself, I don't mind paying those who can produce a thing I want if it's of value to me. If it's not worth it, I don't purchase it.

Aero Executive

I see the same thing with skins too. Someone makes a cool skin and you inevitably have some people come out and crap on it. Last week on our tech partner site, Neowin, a user posted about Aero Executive (a new theme).  Within minutes, users came on and started crapping on it. Now, a wood-textured version of Aero may not be for you but it's a good skin from a design perspective.  But in the age of entitlement, the people who don't actually produce anything not only expect an unlimited right to insult those who do make stuff but become incredulous if called out for their criticism (i.e. they recognize their right to free speech but become amazingly intolerant of the right of others to defend themselves). It got so bad I had to close the thread.

So here's the deal: If you produce stuff then good for you.  If you don't produce stuff, then you are either reliant on the good will of others to produce things for you or you will have to pay evil capitalists to labor on your behalf to produce the product, good, or service you want.  And while you are free to criticize what others produce, so too are other people free to criticize you in return since, after all, criticism is a form of product too.

I like the look of Aero on Windows Vista but I can imagine skins that look better.  And even if my taste differs from yours, the important thing here is choice. That's what WindowBlinds delivers.

Just playing around with photos.

I tell ya, there's nothing better than spending an evening chit chatting with ones wife about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

Even after all these years, I still enjoy her company just for the sake of talking about interesting topics.

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: