New Development Tool Allows Programmers To Make Their Windows Applications Skinnable In Minutes

Stardock® DirectSkin™ 5 released, adds Windows Vista support

Plymouth, MI- (May 2, 2007) – Stardock, the worldwide leader Windows customization software, has announced the release of DirectSkin 5. DirectSkin is a software library used by developers to make their applications completely skinnable.  DirectSkin 5 supports Windows Vista™ in addition to Windows XP and Windows 2000.

Skinning technology allows users and developers to change the look and feel of their applications quickly and easily. DirectSkin allows developers to utilize Stardock’s award-winning WindowBlinds™ technology to customize the look and feel of their applications without requiring the use of any special controls and with a minimum of development effort.

A developer can set the look of their application using one WindowBlinds skin, or use a variety of skins to brand an application as is the case with software that is resold to partners or even allow end-users to select their own skins, creating a highly-customized program interface.

"We created DirectSkin as a tool for developers looking to get their applications to market quickly, without sacrificing a great looking user interface. DirectSkin supports all the major programming languages, including Visual Basic, C# and.NET and integrates into most applications with as little as four lines of code. Applications created using DirectSkin will run on all current forms of Windows" said Phil Madis, Director of Business Development at Stardock. "Developers who face the challenge of giving their applications an attractive and modern look and feel across multiple operating systems can really benefit from DirectSkin." 

DirectSkin is used by companies around the world to enhance their products appearance. PowerArchiver, for example, is a file archiver developed by ConeXware, Inc. used by millions of PC users. Using the DirectSkin engine, PowerArchiver added skinning with great success.

"By utilizing Stardock's DirectSkin technology, ConeXware is able to offer our users top-notch customization features not found in similar utilities. Customers have the freedom to choose whether to use our new task-oriented interface or create their own thanks to DirectSkin for Windows Vista," said Nathan Mook, President and CEO, ConeXware.  "Throughout the development process, Stardock's support has also been quick and effective at solving any issues we've come across as we prepared to release the next-generation version of PowerArchiver for Vista and beyond."

For additional information about DirectSkin, including a downloadable demo that can be used for evaluation, please visit www.directskin.com

Here is a very simple test which will help you figure out where you stand between the two dominant political philosophies of our time: American conservative or American liberal. After each answer is a value, write that value down.

1) Do you believe that the best way to have a safe society is...

A] Reduce the number of fire arms floating around in our population [ 1]
B] To encourage lawful citizens to possess fire arms [-1]

2) Do you believe the best way to promote a racially fair society is...

A] Reward and encourage companies and universities to have a racially diverse environment. [1]
B] To pass laws that forbid employers or universities from using race as a selection criteria. [-1]

3) Do you think that rich people got rich because..

A] They got lucky or cheated the system or inherited it. [1]
B] They worked hard and made good decisions. [-1]

4) Do you think the federal government should be..

A] There to make sure that society is as just and fair as possible [1]
B] As small as possible -- the government the governs best governs least [-1]

5) The policies that should be pursued should be based on

A] Compassion and good intentions [1]
B] Measurable results of effectiveness [-1]

SCORING:

5 to 2: You are a liberal.

-1 to 1 You are in the mushy middle.

-2 to -5 You are a conservative.

What's your score?

Tonight my son and I attended the SEMBA bee keeping user group.  We had a good time and met a lot of interesting and very friendly people.

I was really impressed and energized by just how helpful and kind the folks at the meeting were to us.  In a single meeting, we got more help and more tips on how to get things going than I'd managed to pick up on the web in the past couple of weeks.

The next step is to take some bee keeping classes while the equipment comes in and to start looking at getting some Nucs to start raising some hives.

Alex and I went out to our property over the weekend to scout for a good place for our apriary.  I definitely want to be certain we know what we're doing before we start raising the bees since we don't want to do any harm (especially since there's been a real free fall in the bee population in the past couple of years).

On our new property, we found a clearing in the woods that I think will work well. I think there's enough flowering plants in the area for at least a couple of hives which should be enough to get us started.

Since honey production isn't really our main focus (we just want to take care of bees mainly at first) it's not too important if we are able to get honey at the end of the day (though it would be nice). Not to mention, taking care of the honey is where a lot of the grunt work comes in so we'll have to see what the level of patience we have for that part is.

Jeff Pinard has written an outstanding guide to Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar that you absolutely should check out:

Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Complete Guide

In a recent article, I talked about how Ethanol is not a solution to our energy needs. It's not "green" by any rational sense of the word and it's not practical and it's expensive.

I get a lot of email and this article produced more than its fair share as proponents of bio-diesel, solar, wind, and so forth got into the act.  A lot of the emails had a central theme "So what's YOUR solution then???"

There is no easy solution.  A lot of solutions involve replacing one environmental problem with another. Nova had an interesting show this week called "Saved by the Sun".  It is a pretty one-sided but informative piece on how solar power might be part of our solution.

I think that 50 years from now, solar power will be a major source of our energy. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that within 50 years that a third of our energy comes from solar power.  But it's not ready for prime time, not even close.

Germany is working hard to get a significant chunk of their energy needs from solar power. I wish them well. But I don't think their approach would work in the United States (nor would I want it).  Let me be clear: I do not support wiping out huge swaths of natural habitats casually.  And many of the "renewable energy" solutions propose just that. 

The largest solar-based power plant in the United States does a piddly 80MW of power output and is larger than central park.  That's a lot of space used up.  To put that number in perspective, the crummy old Fermi nuclear power plant in Michigan has a NET capacity of 1,110MW and uses a lot less space.  Newer ones could do much more in less space (Fermi is over 40 years old). 

According to their stats, the solar plant uses over 1,000 acres of land to provide 0.45% of California's electrical needs.  To produce enough for California's electrical needs, a field that is 350 square miles would be needed. By contract, the area needed for ANWR drilling is 3 square miles. 1/100th as much and that area isn't even contiguous (which amazingly environmentalists argue is a "bad" thing).

In other words, environmentalists will happily let 350 square miles of wilderness be wiped out for solar power but freak out about 3 square miles for drilling in the wilderness in the middle of nowhere. 

Someone who says that solar power will get much better is correct -- it will get better.  But even at 100% efficiency (which isn't ever going to happen) you're still talking maybe 400MW for that same space. 

In short, solar power plants aren't the solution either.   But they may not need to be for solar to take off.

Instead, what I see happening is that building materials will be made of solar powering properties.  The paint for your house or a spray for your roof might quickly turn your house into a self-sufficient structure.  Not enough sun? No problem. There's solutions for that too.

So while I don't see solar power becoming a major solution through putting tacky, maintenance intensive, habitat destroying, expensive solar panels on the side of highways like they're doing in Germany, I do see a bright future for solar power.  It's just a matter of how long it will take to become practical.

And when that comes, you will see a drastic reduction in power requirements. Combine a largely energy-independent home with a plug-in hybrid and you've reduced nearly 80% of the CO2 (if you're one of those people sweating that) and reduced our "impact" on the planet drastically.

In the meantime, I hope to eventually install some solar panels of some kind onto the roof of our office if I can keep the geese away from them and design my next home to make use of solar power.  I think solar power has made it over the big curve and is starting to become increasingly practical at an accelerated rate.  We'll see.

The Object Desktop 2008 preview is now publicly available.  Get a sneak peek of what Stardock has in mind to take Windows XP and Windows Vista to the next level on the link below.

In the past year or so we've seen more and more people jump onto the Ethanol bandwagon.  After learning more about it (and it doesn't take very long to do some basic research) I've concluded that Ethanol advocates are idiots.  Let me be very clear: If you think Ethanol is a serious alternative fuel you either haven't researched it at all or you are too dumb to be expressing opinions.

It's actually difficult to find a "plus" to Ethanol.  I guess, in theory, it would reduce dependence on foreign oil. Which seems ironic that anyone would tolerate the negatives to deal a minor blow to middle east oil producers even as they shop at Walmart (which imports vast amounts of its "stuff" from China) on their way to a "Get our troops out of there" protest rally.

So what's wrong with Ethanol? Let's count the ways:

1) It's not carbon-neutral. Not by a long shot.  Burning a bio fuel in itself is "carbon-neutral" but producing the bio fuel in the first place (whether it be corn or switch grass) and then harvesting it and then turning it into fuel is hardly carbon-neutral.

2) It takes more than 1 gallon of fresh water to produce 1 gallon of Ethanol. Think about that for a moment.  Environmentalists talk a great deal about conserving water. But producing Ethanol is one of the worst things you can do in that area.  When someone runs their shower for a long time, at least that water is (ahem) recycled if you're living in a city.  But the fresh water used for farming and producing ethanol is not coming back to the water table or the lake or stream it came from any time soon.

3) It pollutes the air. In our rush to worry about CO2 (better known as the stuff that plants breath) people seem to forget about good old fashioned real pollution. 

But let's put away the extra pollution in Ethanol itself, let's consider the production of it which involves using massive amounts of nitrogen for fertizing it and the effect of that.  Or how about all the other things involved in raising crops.  I'm no farmer but one doesn't need to look hard to find out that the "agribusiness" is a pretty environmentally intrusive thing.  It's one thing if it's being done for food, but as an alternative to gasoline?

4) It wouldn't even come close to solving our problems. Even if we turned nearly all the ariable farm in the United States to switch grass or corn production and we switched to using corn stalks or other more efficient methods of getting bio-fuels, we still wouldn't have enough for even today's gasoline needs. 

5) Ethanol actually requires more energy to produce than it provides.  Let me be clear on this because Ethanol advocates try to side-step this by saying that all energy sources are like this.  But the difference is that Ethanol already uses more energy in the sense that it takes more gas, coal, ethanol, whatever fuels you want to use to produce ethanol than the produced ethanol will provide back.

It's a fraud.  Really wanting something to be true really badly doesn't make it true. One study showed that a gallon of Ethanol has 76k BTUs but requires 116k BTUs to produce -- before you even start transporting the stuff! In other words, it's not a close call on that point.

It's like the Simpsons episode where Homer goes into the Grease business and Bart says "That bacon you just used to produce that grease that made 50 cents cost $5." and Homer says "That's your mother's money" and Bart says "But her money comes from you." and Homer says "And my money comes from grease."

THAT's the kind of reasoning an Ethanol advocate has to use. Homer Simpson logic.

6) Ethanol has less energy in the final fuel. That means you get fewer miles per gallon on your car which means more trips to the gas station and more overall overhead.

7) Ethanol production would (obviously) raise food prices.  The government subsidizes Ethanol production. So farmers produce it instead of other grops (you know, food). Food prices go up. There have already been food riots on this.  To dumb this down so that ethanol advocates can understand: We are paying taxes so that we can pay more money for our food.

8) How do you transport Ethanol? Do advocates realize that Ethanol is a type of alcohol? (the name implies it, no?).  That means you can't use pipelines like we do for gasoline. What happens to alcohol when you mix it with water? What happens to piping if you run alcohol through it for awhile? The wikipedia page for Ethanol talks about this. But it's easy to forget that its advocates apparently don't like reading..or math.   So even if we were willing to lay waste to the land necessary to produce this stuff, how do you transport it around? By truck or train. And what powers those? Grease?

None of these facts are hard to find out. They're not part of some conspiracy by the evil oil companies.  Half of it is common sense.  Fossil Fuels, whether we like them or not, are about the closest thing we have to Energon cubes we got.

We need to get away from fossil fuels but we need to do it intelligently. Ethanol is just such a patently stupid idea on so many levels that I can't believe no one has bothered to expose it yet and discredit it once and for all.

Personally, I think plug-in hybrids are a good start. Sure, our power comes from fossil fuels but it's lot easier (and cheaper) to control what power plants emit than cars. Moreover, the US is the OPEC of coal which is what most of our power plants produce.  Better yet, use nuclear power and send the waste over to Iraq (just kidding) (not kidding, secret evil plan in progress) .

Most of our fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions come from vehicles. Give me a car that could even go 20 miles per day on electric and I'd be off of gasoline.  The answer isn't to find some new magical carbon fuel, the answer is to reduce how much our cars use IMO.

Maybe I'm starting to get old or something but I'm ready for a vacation. 

Since last Summer, I've only had a scattering of days off (all pre-determined holidays).  This Winter we finished up GalCiv II: Dark Avatar which involved a couple of all-nighters and massive hours. 

So I definitely have the time. I have 13 personal days (I used 2 to go up North a couple weeks ago) plus around 10 make up days from weekends and extra hours put in.  I'll never end up using them all.

My hope is to be able to make it until early June when our cottage is done and I can go somewhere and really relax.  Things have been so busy that it's hard to take off. 

It's not that the company would die or something if I took time off but rather we'd miss opportunities I think I'd regret later.  And so here I am, feeling spent.  June is almost here though and I will use up a good chunk of those 23 days this Summer...I hope.

Stardock has released ObjectDock 1.9.  ObjectDock is a free program that adds a configurable, skinnable dock to Windows.  Once installed, users can add short-cuts, display running tasks, and add mini-applets called docklets to their docks that can display weather information, time, system info, or much anything else.

ObjectDock 1.9 adds a host of new features including a Start menu docklet (for bringing up the real Start menu in the system tray), live thumbnail previews on Windows Vista, a new weather docklet, minimize and restore effects on Windows Vista, free-form screen positioning, a new graphics engine for massively better performance, reduce memory requirements, new tileable dock backgrounds, and much more.

ObjectDock is a free download at http://www.objectdock.com.  Stardock also has ObjectDock Plus which adds support for multiple docks, tabbed docks, system tray support, additional mouse-over effects and more.

Article: ObjectDock gets a facelift
 Screenshot: Tileable dock backgrounds
 Screenshot: Start Menu docklet
 Screenshot: ObjectDock explained
Download: ObjectDock 1.9