Dark Avatar animated wallpaper in .DREAM format now available.

You're going to get a lot of repetition on this so bear with us:

Windows DreamScene is Microsoft's animated wallpaper program distributed as an additional download for users of Windows Vista Ultimate.  Stardock DeskScapes is a program that extends DreamScene to support the new .DREAM format for animated wallpapers which supports additional functionality.

And the Dream gallery here on WinCustomize is where you can get more animated wallpapers (if you don't see it over on the side, click edit to get it). This is where Microsoft is sending people to get more animated wallpapers.  All our creations and I imagine the creations of any serious animated wallpaper creator will be in the .dream format for reasons that are discussed here.

Anyway, for those of you who don't have Windows Vista, stay tuned, there's still plenty of cool stuff for Windows XP in development as well (though not animated wallpaper).

Cheers!

This topic is touched on in this article. But it's an inevitable question -- why did Stardock develop the .dream format?

A little history here -- Microsoft has created a cool new feature in Windows Vista Ultimate called Windows DreamScene.  Concurrently, Stardock was developing its own animated wallpaper program called DeskScapes.  Early in development, it was decided it made a lot more sense to team up.

Windows DreamScene allows users of Windows Vista Ultimate to play video as animated wallpapers. The concept is very straight forward -- .MPEG or .WMV as animated wallpaper.

Stardock's view was that we wanted to take it one step further and address potential problems that might come up.

Giving artists credit...

For instance, look at your wallpaper choosing dialog in Windows Vista (or even XP). There's no credit or author info on who made the wallpaper.  Maybe that wasn't an issue back in the day of making bitmaps for wallpapers that didn't require effort.  But believe us, creating a decent animated wallpaper can take weeks. We strongly believe that artists would want to get credit for what they've done.

Finding the stuff...

Trying to find an animated wallpaper on the Internet? Good luck. Look for .WMV or .MPEG? Or maybe type in "animated wallpaper" and find all sorts of weird stuff.  People who make this stuff are going to want to find it.  That's one of the reasons we wanted to create a specific extension for animated wallpapers so that people would be able to know that THIS was created to be an animated desktop and isn't just some random video.

Extending the capability...

This has been discussed elsewhere but playing video as the wallpaper is just the beginning. The natural next step is dynamic content.  DeskScapes provides that capability.  Same for triggers (events that change what is being played as the wallpaper). In the coming weeks, we'll begin posting the documentation and examples on creating this sort of thing along with samples.

Providing a community site...

Another thing that is important that I don't know if most people realize is that for this sort of thing to take off, you need stable, reliable, trustworthy sites to host and provide a base for this kind of thing.  100,000 people downloading a 50 megabyte file is simply beyond the capability of most sites.  And while torrents and such might solve some of that, you're still stuck with having to hunt and peck for things rather than see what you're getting and talk to the people who made them directly.

So that's why we created the .dream format.  It does create some confusion initially that it's not part of Windows DreamScene. That may change in the future as the format matures, but obviously initially the extra step of downloading DeskScapes can be a hassle for some but on the other hand, because we're not Microsoft, we have a lot more latitude on what we can do in the short-term.

As for us at Stardock, we're just jazzed that animated wallpapers are finally a practical reality (they've been around in impractical forms for years -- even on OS/2 <g>).

Since 1975, the mean average recorded temperature world wide has increased slightly. Prior to that, it was actually cooling. That is, between 1940 and 1975 the earth was cooling.

Now, it could indeed turn out that the reason temperatures have increased is due to human impact on the environment.  CO2 is a greenhouse gas. And we're putting a lot of it in the air. We've significantly increased the amount in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolusion. What isn't known, however, is how much effect CO2 has on temperature. Anyone who claims they know is lying. It's an unknown and the various computer models basically take an educated guess as to what affect CO2 has on global temperatures. I.e. it's a "fudge factor". 

If I were a betting man, I would actually bet that CO2 isn't the cause of the increase in temperature. That doesn't mean I'm against reducing emmissions. I favor reasonable efforts to decrease human impact on the environment (though I am cynical enough to think that left-wing European politicians focus on CO2 in order to deflect from the amount of sulfur, soot, and heavy metals that Europe dumps into the air per capita compared to the US, Canada, and elsewhere).  But I am also not in favor of any sort of massive, immediate overhaul to our economy.

Global Warming theory is weak science.  The definition of weak science is whether it relies purely on consensus or not as opposed to scientific method. E=MC^2 is fact. It's been proven. Even evolution, which has its share of critics, works on proven scientific principles and has fossil evidence (don't hijack the discussion in the comments area about evolution).  Global warming, for instance, isn't even a theory. It's a hypothesis. CO2 is a green house gas. We put a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. The temperature since 1975 has increased. Therefore, CO2 is the cause.  That's it.  That is basically the entire argument.  And they say it's the cause because there's a "scientific consensus" around it made by many people who have an economic reason to be in favor of it (just as there are those who have an economic incentive to oppose the CO2 hypothesis).  

If you've watched films like "An inconvenient truth" note how much time is given over to "proving" the temperature has increased (I don't know anyone who's arguing that it hasn't) and how much damage higher temperatuers would do to the Earth.  But how much is actually spent making the case that humans are the cause? Virtually no time. That's because the paragraph above states the entire case. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We create a lot of it. Temperatures have increased. It's sure a good thing there aren't any other..you know..inputs into our system like a massive fusion powered gas fire fall thousands of times larger than the Earth nearby sending terrajoles of energy into our system...but I digress..

So like I said, if I was a betting man, I would bet that CO2 isn't the cause of the slight global increase in temperatures. I think there are other, much more likely, possibilities such as increased solar activity or slight changes in the orbit of the Earth or tilt of the earth. 

I don't claim to be a scientist, but I am pretty good at analysing statistics.  And so, if in say 5, 10 years the mean global temperature starts to dip -- i.e. definitively dip like it was doing pre-1975 -- what will the environmentalist movement do? Given the hysteria over global warming, does anyone think for one moment that the environmentalist movement will say "Oops, we're sorry, we really have no idea what we're talking about."?  Or, would they simply come up with another "man made" reason that over-compensated for global warming? I think we know the answer.

That's one of the reason I can't take environmentalists seriously. They are so often completely shameless in their claims. They take no responsibility when they're wrong. Heck, they rarely acknowledge when they're wrong.  As a result, I'm not inclined to latch onto the latest faith-based chicken little mongering from them.  In the meantime, I'll try to live my life as I always have -- with as little impact on the environment as I can do without compromising my standard of living.  But I'll also oppose attempts by the irresponsible to cripple our economy and way of life.

Yesterday Stardock released DeskScapes 1.0, the extension to Windows DreamScene (animated wallpaper feature for Windows Vista Ultimate) that allows it to use .dream files which have a lot more capability.

And in less than 24 hours, over 60,000 copies of it were downloaded and the initial 3 .dream files received thousands of downloads.

Next week, Object Desktop users will get an exclusive look at some of the first dynamic wallpaper.

With so much interest in so little time, it's pretty apparent that animated wallpaper is here to stay.

To get DeskScapes visit http://dream.wincustomize.com.

We're still working out the documentation and sample content on triggers and such.  We hope to have that ready in the next week or so.

Once we do that, we'll update DreamMaker to make it easy to do triggers in your creations.

Dream.WinCustomize.com is here!

And so is Stardock DeskScapes which you need to run the new .DREAM files!

Check out the guided tour below...

Microsoft released Windows Vista with a whole new graphics engine that is 3D accelerated.  Because of that, all kinds of cool visual effects become possible. One obvious thing that became possible for Microsoft to do was to allow users to optionally have animated wallpaper.

Now, like normal (1 frame) wallpaper, animated wallpaper could be pretty obnoxious. But if done right, it would simply take static wallpaper to the next logical step.

So Microsoft developed a new feature for Windows Vista Ultimate Extra called Windows DreamScene.  When it came time to get tools and content, they came to Stardock.  Stardock's graphics design team (Stardock Design) for the animated wallpaper and our desktop enhancement team for the tools.

This is where Stardock DeskScapes comes in.  We developed Stardock DeskScapes to extend Windows DreamScene in certain very important areas:

Feature	Windows DreamScene	Stardock DeskScapes
Plays .MPEG and .WMV content as wallpaper
Plays .DREAM content as wallpaper
Supports Triggers for changing animated wallpaper
Supports Dynamic (non-video) content
Supports author credit in dialog
Is Extensible
Requires	Windows Vista Ultimate	Windows DreamScene
Price	FREE (with Windows Vista Ultimate)	FREE (for users of Windows Vista Ultimate)

To be clear: Stardock DeskScapes extends Windows DreamScene. It isn't a replacement for it. You have to have Windows DreamScene installed first to use Stardock DeskScapes. 

Taking Windows DreamScene one step further -- Stardock DeskScapes

As we developed the animated wallpapers for Microsoft we became very experienced in how to make it so that it was subtle and use less CPU (there video encoding and then there is video encoding).  We also came up with our own wish list of things we felt users would want. For example:

DeskScapes Enhancement #1: Authors getting credit

DeskScapes allows author information to be displayed and that info can be linked to your website.

The first thing about DeskScapes -- there is no program to run. Once it's installed, your regular Windows wallpaper manager in Vista is simply extended to support .DREAM files. You don't have to do anything else.

When you click on a .Dream file, the title and author information comes up.

By contrast, Windows DreamScene on its own, as cool as it is, doesn't display author info. So no one knows who created the cool animated Aurora default in Windows DreamScene (Stardock Design created it incidentally)

DeskScapes Enhancement #2: Dynamic Wallpaper

This image is being rotated on the fly in 3D in total smoothness

World rotates in real-time (which is very slowly actually)

Modern video games generally don't use pre-rendered video anymore. That's because modern video cards have the horse power to do amazing things.  Most reviewers haven't talked much about this but the Windows Vista desktop IS A 3D SURFACE. It simply looks like previous versions of Windows. It's as if they took the Quake 3 engine and made the game look like Windows.  Seriously. 

That means you can do some pretty cool stuff with it...such as dynamic animated wallpapers.

My screenshot here is pretty lame but we've got earth rotating, snow/rain (based on weather -- there's probably a sunny one but we're in Michigan) ones, fish swimming, lava lamps, etc.  All are in various states of development. Obviously, it does take more work to make a good looking dynamic wallpaper but the results can be really cool. As they get finished, we'll be releasing them.

DeskScapes Enhancement #3: Triggers

Based on time of day your wallpaper can change.

Triggers are another way of saying that if a certain condition is met, then do something. Stardock DeskScapes lets .DREAM files have triggers. For instance, IF time is morning, then play wallpaper A, IF Time is afternoon, play wallpaper B and so forth. It's not that huge of a thing but something that wasn't hard to do that we think enriches the experience.

Summary

Probably the key thing that Stardock DeskScapes does is extend Windows DreamScene to support the .DREAM format. You don't need DeskScapes to play video (MPEG or WMV) content as your animated wallpaper. But consider this -- which will be easier to find in a year from now to use as your animated wallpaper? Googling .DREAM or Googling WMV?

If it's .DREAM you get all the advantages I mention above plus you know it's designed to be an animated wallpaper. And it costs nothing to create them (use DreamMaker) and nothing for Windows Vista Ultimate users to use them.

We'll be providing additional free content on Dream.WinCustomize.com over the coming weeks, months. Essentially, we created a host of high quality, high definition video content for the Microsoft project and Microsoft chose some to distribute and we kept the rest to distribute.

We hope you have fun with this and that as time goes on, more and more people will come to find that animated wallpapers are pretty nice.  While the concept of them isn't new (lots of people/developers have hacked at it for years), the key thing about Windows DreamScene / Stardock DeskScapes is that you get to have your cake and eat it too. When perfected, you'll have it without any performance or usability drawbacks. It'll be like the static wallpapers of the present except with more frames.

So the steps are...

1. Get Windows Vista Ultimate
2. Download Windows DreamScene
3. Download/Install Stardock DeskScapes
4. Start enjoying .DREAMs!

Have fun!

Our Story So Far...

Last year Microsoft contracted Stardock (and Stardock Design) to work with them on an animated wallpaper feature for Windows Vista Ultimate.  The feature went on to be called Windows DreamScene which plays video content as animated wallpaper.

Our design team created the default computer generated wallpapers that come with Windows DreamScene.  Our development team created a program called Stardock DeskScapes which extends Windows DreamScene to support the new .DREAM format which supports dynamic content (instead of video, generated dynamically) as well as support for triggers and author credit.

WinCustomize.com worked with the Windows Ultimate team to create a community for the uploading and sharing of animated wallpapers in the .DREAM format.

Today, Microsoft made Windows DreamScene Preview available as an Ultimate Extra (you can get it from Windows Update if you have Windows Vista Ultimate).  And Stardock has made Stardock DeskScapes available today too as well as a tool to create .DREAM files.

So to summarize, Dream.WinCustomize.com is up which has some new animated wallpapers available. You will need to download DeskScapes (which is free and requires Windows DreamScene to be installed) to use the animated wallpapers.

 Dream.WinCustomize.Com

 Guided Tour of Stardock DeskScapes

Resident JoeUser communist, Col Gene writes a steady stream of left-wing anti-Bush, anti-Capitalistic articles that are very interesting to read in that they really show the point of view of the very far left in this country and elsewhere.

In a recent article, he discussed how Exon's profits should be taxed at an exceptional rate because of their recent $30+ billion profit (on $300+ billion in revenue).  The article could be boiled down to this: Exxon is greedy and the government should punish them for their greed by taking away their profits.

He also added how "greedy" it is for CEOs to make 50 to 450 times how much the average workers make.

Okay, so who should decide how much people make? The government at the point of a gun? Or owners through the performance of the company made by individual choices of customers?

Some movie star or ball player or CEO making a gazillion dollars doesn't hurt me at all. Why should anyone care how much they make? The money they make isn't taken from someone else. It's made through the voluntary transaction between consumers and producers. Someone wants a product and service, someone else produces product or service and sells it at price X. The free citizen can choose to pay for the product or service or not.

Now, in the case of an Exxon, market forces are severely restrained because you can't just start up an oil company. But it's pretty hard to reasonably charge "Greed" to a company whose profit margin hovers around 10%. In most industries, that's considered unacceptably low.  But no doubt, because of the weak market forces, the CEOs of such companies have to be wary of increasing their margins lest they be regulated even further.

But let's be real, the word "greed" is recklessly thrown around by the economic losers of our society. It's the word used by people who don't produce at those who do produce.  And rather than trying to provide an alternative or choosing a different product/service they would rather that the men with guns (the government) confiscated the wealth generated by producers to give to the non-productive class. 

A free society should always be very wary of having decisions restrained at the point of a gun. Free people can decide for themselves what's best for themselves.

Europe is dying.

It will take awhile. But in the course of a few decades, the Europe that we know and love will be gone.  Even today, the world of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is largely something that can only exist in fiction. Any Greeks reading this? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Any?

Below is a table of the birth-death rate for selected countries from the year that just ended:

If the deathrate is higher than the bith rate, you get the idea.

In fact, if the deathrate is even close to the birth rate, you have a problem because, obviously, not al births are healthy children. Some will die. Some will have disabilities that preclude them from reproducing.

These numbers are worse than they look for anyone who is a fan of western civilization.  The reason? Because the only reason western Europe's birthrat is even close to the death rate is due to first genration birth of immigrants who are ovewhelmingly Islamic (coming from North Africa or Asia Minor). 

A lot of people, mostly Europeans, don't like talking about the I-word (Islam). It's a touchy subject and so they try to pretend Islam is a race rather than a religio-ideology and treat those of us who are concerned with it as racists or bigots or what have you. But Islam is a different culture, whether you like it as a culture or not is subject for a different discussion.  But when a native culture isn't reproducing itself and a foreign culture is, then in a human-life span or two, the foreign culture is the native one for better or worse.

But what is the cause of this?  Why have Europeans in particular given up on having children?

My opinion is that it is entitlements. Consider this: Why have children? What is the incentive other than biological urge, to have children?

Or more to the point, what is the incentive to have more than one child? Maybe you have a girl and want a boy so you have 2?

In the time before cradle to grave entitlements, people had children for a very specific reason: Because they needed them.  They needed them to work the farms. They needed them to help out in the household. They needed them to take care of them when they became old and infirm.

But now? What do we need kids for? Mother government will provide for us. The more urbanized, the lower the population growth. All those government services are so convenient. It takes a village right?  And when you get old, you don't need children anymore. No, the government will pay for your medicine, house you if necessary, and provide money to allow you to live pretty well.

But who am I to judge? I'm an only child. And in fact, I'm not trying to judge. I really don't consider one path to be morally superior to the other. So don't shoot the messenger.

Unless the birth rate of European countries changes course, and there's no reason to think it will, the native population of Europe will be decimated and it will only be a matter of how much immigration they are able to bring in that determines how well their country fairs economically. Of course, thena gain, it won't be their country anymore will it?