Click on this thumbnail and take a very close look at the title bar and borders.
See how they alpha blend into the desktop so nicely? And the snow doesn't seem like it repeats. Did I mention I love this skin?
Plus, look at the IE controls.
It's almost time to start talking about what's happening with Object Desktop in 2008. 2008 will be the single biggest change to the product since its release.
Here are some highlights:
In 2008 there will be two editions of Object Desktop:
Object Desktop normal which will remain $49.95 and it will include:
And there will then be:
Object Desktop Ultimate Edition which will be $69.95 and add:
ALL current users of Object Desktop at the time that 2008 edition is launched will be upgraded to Ultimate Edition.
Another big change is that the user experience of Object Desktop is going to dramatically improve. Gone will be the days of a new user simply getting a serial # and being expected to download Stardock Central to get started. Instead, a user will download a complete Object Desktop package which will allow them to easily upgrade to updates versions.
The inclusion of MyColors is a pretty big deal as well in that now users will be able to much more easily add new premium themes. What we'll be doing is that every so often we'll add an additional premium MyColors theme to every active Object Desktop account. So the longer someone is an Object Desktop user, the more stuff they get.
Stay tuned.
I'm out of touch. I didn't get my hands on Winter Wonderland until very recently and I'm in love.
What a fantastic theme that is so complete.
My desktop
Look closely at how the toolbar is skinned. See how it's irregularly shaped and blends in?
Internet Explorer 7 skinning.
This snow man is animated and so are the snow flakes and the lights shine. It's really a cool yet surprisingly subtle effect.
The icons are exquisite.
And it comes free for anyone who purchase a MyColors theme this month.
If you don't have the Winter Wonderland premium suite, now is the time to get it! You get it FREE with the purchase of any MyColors theme.
Visit http://mycolors.stardock.com. You can also get it by buying a premium suite as well which you can look for here at http://themes.stardock.com.
Seriously, this is one of the best suites I've ever seen period. It's very fast, light, looks great, great icons, great skin and you get it free with any premium MyColors theme or premium suite purchase.
Screenshots:
My desktop
Look closely at how the toolbar is skinned. See how it's irregularly shaped and blends in?
Internet Explorer 7 skinning.
This snow man is animated and so are the snow flakes and the lights shine. It's really a cool yet surprisingly subtle effect.
The icons are exquisite.
If you don't have the Winter Wonderland premium suite, now is the time to get it! You get it FREE with the purchase of any MyColors theme.
Visit http://mycolors.stardock.com. You can also get it by buying a premium suite as well which you can look for here at http://themes.stardock.com.
Remember on Windows XP when there's be arguments over who was faster? Msstyles or WindowBlinds?
In the Windows Vista era, such arguments seem almost quaint as the massive performance advantage of WindowBlinds over Aero is undeniable.
Where it really shows up is in resizing windows.
Winter Wonderland MyColors theme
Try it for yourself. If you have Windows Vista, load up Aero, open up any program (the more complex, the better) and resize it with the default Aero. Then load up the most obnoxious, most complicated WindowBlinds skin and try it. The difference is pretty significant.
I have a new favorite blog tool and it's free. It lets me easily post articles to JoeUser that also include images in it.
Step #1: Get Windows Live.
Step #2: Set up Windows Live Writer with JoeUser:
This is very straight forward. The API is Metaweblog API and the posting URL is https://www.joeuser.com/api/MetaWeblog.axd
Step #3: Set up your image server
In my case, I got an FTP site (I pay $5 per month for this but there are many free FTP sites).
You only need to do this if you want to have images in your blog:
Step #4: Start blogging
You can set the JoeUser category, the title, everything from the writer. My only complaint is that you cannot set a sub-header which I think is kind of important. But it still works quite nicely.
The only reason I am not using Blog Navigator (despite it being superior in most ways) is that Blog Navigator doesn't support auto-thumbnailing of images which is a big deal to me and it doesn't underline typos.
The biggest reason the left and the right of American politics fight on issues of social policy has to do with the diverging views of what the role of the federal government is.
To the right, the federal government is analogous to a neighborhood association (NA). In a NA, the residents get together and vote on common rules for everyone to follow as well as an association fee that each neighbor has to pay in to the general fund to pay for things such as trash pickup, snow removal, lawn car and common area maintenance.
One could not imagine anyone in a NA begin to suggest that the NA start also paying for individual health insurance or that how much we pay in should be based on how much we make. But there is nothing actually preventing that from happening. It's only that such an idea is preposterous and would result in the wealthiest residents moving.
The book Atlas Shrugged works on a similar premise. What if the people who make all the money simply went on strike? What if they simply stopped producing and went away? The book shows how society, as we know it, would soon collapse.
That's because, in the real world, in any random group of people, a tiny handful produce most of the results for the rest. This is true whether you're talking about a small project or even in a given neighborhood where most of the work is done by the same few people over and over again.
When the far-left clamors for the government (the ultimate neighborhood association) to provide more and more benefits to individuals, they are hijacking the original intent of the founding fathers. Someone who argues that a politician who votes against expanded benefits for individuals is somehow a "Scrooge" has a fundamental misunderstanding of what the purpose of government is.
Which brings us back to our neighborhood association. If your neighborhood association began to try to force the most productive members of the neighborhood to provide disproportionately more to the neighborhood than what they receive in return what do you think would be the result?
How the federal government of the United States spends tax payer money has changed dramatically since 1960. The priorities of the federal government have shifted from national defense and interstate development to providing a social safety net.
At the dawn of the 60s, national defense was 52% of our expenses. Social security and Medicare and Health were relatively small. A relatively new category of spending called "income security" which is in which the federal government provides a "social safety net" to the poor and jobless, had grown to 8% by 1960.
By 2007 how things had changed:
Net interest payments had dropped to only 2% of the budget (they were 7% in 1960). But now Medicare and social security have taken over. Health has grown to being 11% on its own. Income security had grown to 14%.
In 2007, the United States spent $392 billion on Medicare, $586 billion on Social Security, $367 billion on "income security". That is a total of $1.35 trillion on those programs (national defense was, by contrast, $527 billion in 2007).
Social Insurance taxes (Medicare and Social Security) were only $884 billion in 2007 meaning that even before taking "income security" spending into account that the US federal government was spending more on these programs than was bringing in. The remainder is coming out of individual and corporate taxes.
Below are the specifics including sources of income.
Source: MSN Encarta.
Other trends that have changed is that corporations no longer pay as much income tax as they once did. Part of the reason for that is the recognition that when you tax a company, you are simply taxing individuals since companies pass on those taxes in the form of higher prices which, in turn, make US companies less competitive in a global market.
When my company was smaller and struggling, I drove a very modest car. Nothing is a bigger obstacle to success than consumerism. People who squander precious resources on consumables are their own worst enemy. But in the past few years, as the company has become increasingly successful, I have increased the budget on what consumables I purchase. My attitude hasn't changed, I actually spend a smaller percentage of my income on consumables than I used to. It's simply an increase in consumption capacity.
A friend sent me an interesting article on CEOs and their auto choices. People like Warren Buffet drive modest cars. Others drive expensive cars. I am in the faction that drives expensive cars.
Why drive an expensive car to work? Won't that just create resentment and jealousy in my coworkers? My answer is: If it does, then they suck and should quit right now.
In my experience, when people are confronted with the success of another, they are either inspired to do better or they are angered. People who become angry and resentful of other people's success are typically (in my opinion) losers. To be charitable, people who are angered by the success of others typically are just envious of the ability of others or believe that the successful person doesn't deserve that success. In either case, those people have no business working with me. I prefer to work around people who recognize the clear connection between their accomplishments and their material gain.
I think one of the reasons why our company has been so successful is precisely because we tend to attract highly motivated people who know they are the masters of their own destiny. Those who think that success is a matter of dice rolling and become angry or resentful when they see material success are better off elsewhere.