We're starting to nail down designs. I'm still a little wary about the width of it.  The property is very narrow -- 55 feet. The house will end up being 40 feet wide. That means only 7.5 feet of space on each side before you're on someone else's property. That seems pretty tight.  I am losing 6 foot of the width because we really want to have an outdoor bathroom. The cottage is on a sandy beech at Higgins Lake so we really want kids to be able to go "potty" without having to come inside.

The other peculiarity of the design has to do with the fact that the entrance to the property is much higher than the rest of it -- it's on a hill.  So the garage is on the upper floor causing people to have to go downstairs from the garage.  My concern on that is from a resale point of view: Stairs != friendly to older people. However, that is the situation I'm basically faced with - a cottage designed for a family with children or a cottage designed for retired people.  Since we have 3 small children, we wanted a design that had the action area on the bottom floor -- kitchen, great froom, dining room.  That way, someone wants a snack or a drink, they run in from the beech, open the front sliding door (or go up to the outside bar) and get a drink or some food.  If we had the upper floor be the center of activity, you'd have to run upstairs to get anything.  But like I said, having the downstairs be the center of activity means you have to go down steps from when you arrive.  Once you're inside, you can stay on that bottom floor but the entrance of the cottage could prove tricky.

The goal of it is to get this all built by next Spring so we can actually go up north and use it.

They say youth is wasted on the young. As I get older, I start to agree with the wisdom of that saying.

My baby daughter is barely 2 weeks old, but I have some advice that hopefully I can keep in my mind to give her that hopefully she will be able to find useful.

#1 We don't know what we don't know.

The problem for kids, starting in teens and going on through their 20s is that they don't know what they don't know. That's obvious. What's not obvious is that htey often don't realize that they are making decisions based on a lack of knowledge.  Accept that knowledge isn't the same as intelligence and that sometimes understanding simply takes time.

#2 Don't make life-altering decisions hastily.

This sounds obvious but to get more specific -- many of the decisions that we have to live with on a day to day basis for the rest of our lives are made between the ages of 18 and 25. But we are scarcely equipped to make decisions that are going to have to be dealt with for the rest of our lives.  Take care to recognize how decisions will affect the rest of your life. This is particularly true of relationships.

#3 Don't take the path of least resistance.

This is the #1 thing that I have observed that leads to long-term sorrow.  Doing something because it is easiest. Many of life's choices aren't made, people just fall into them.  The success I've had in life can be entirely put towards not taking the path of least resistance.  In my case, I was driven by wanting to have some control over my life.  But many people often end up in dead end jobs or unsatisfactory relationships because there wasn't a compelling reason not to get out of them.

#4 Decide what makes you happy and don't compromise on that.

There isn't a good reason to compromise on things that make you happy. If something makes you happy and it is not doing you any long-term harm and isn't hurting others, consider pursuing it.

#5 Don't let others determine how you view yourself.

It's amazing how people end up falling into choices simply because it is "whast is expected". As soon as you give other people control over how you view yourself you cede your own self-esteem and choices to the whims of others.

We have finally set an official date for Galactic Civilizations II v1.3.  This free update has many dozens of new enhancements over the existing version based on player feedback (see the Journals for lists).

If you already have Galactic Civilizations II, you can try out the latest beta version of 1.3 by downloading Stardock Central from the downloads area and making sure "show pre-release versions" is checked.

Windows Vista looks great but no matter how good an operating system looks, there will always be people who want to personalize it beyond what the OS can provide.  The very first skinnable solution for Windows Vista will once again be Stardock WindowBlinds. 

Stardock is internally working on a new version of WindowBlinds code-named "WindowBlinds Vista".  This new version takes advantage of many new elements of Windows Vista and allows for existing WindowBlinds skins (and msstyles via SkinStudio) to run on Windows Vista.  WindowBlinds automatically extends existing skins to adapt to the new controls (i.e. most existing skins will not need to be updated to look great on Windows Vista).

More screenshots at the link below.

So I bought a cottage on the lake. The cottage on there is kind of crummy so we're designing a new one to tear down what's on there and build. The gotcha is that the lot is skinny. It's only 55 feet wide (200 feet deep).  So the house has to take that into account with 10 feet of space on each side (so we're talking about a 35 foot wide house.

So here's the lower floor as we try to find ways to squeeze it into 35 feet.  My wife really wants an out door bathroom so that kids who get sandy from the beech and such aren't tracking it in the house when they come in to the bathroom.

The other unusual aspect about the house is that it is into a hill. So when you drive to it, you're actually facing the upper floor. So the garage is above.  Now, one way to look at that is to say that the "top" floor is your main floor and then to have a walk out basement.  But I really wanted to have the kitchen and hang out area on the floor that is on the same level as the beech (the lower floor).  So I have the garage connected to the upper floor with stairs leading down to the main floor.  I'm still working on it.

So that's where I'm at with the cottage design.  Right now it's looking like it'll end up being around 2200 square feet. So it's a pretty big cottage but I want to make sure that it is something that someone could live in.

We're almost done with 1.3 but we have a new beta that should be available on Stardock Central to all users of Galactic Civilizations II.

Here is what is new in beta 3 over beta 2A.

 
************************************************************
Changes for v1.3 Beta 3:
************************************************************
 

+ Changed some of the planetary improvement values and costs

+ Tweaked some of the values in starbase modules

+ made entry field selection show up

+ added tech report to trade screen

+ Tweaked text and dialog in teh campaign and in some scenarios

+ fixed save games not showing up in save game window if there were other files with the same extension.

+ Custom window sizes work now

+ fixed error where mod subfolders PlanetDescriptions and TerrainColorScheme didn't work

+ fixed error where Terrain query images + ship component thumbnails did not show up even if they were in the correct mod subfolder

+ Tweaked the minimap where it didn't draw all of the ZOC

+ fixed destination cursors not being visible after loading save game

+ added checks to make sure that dead civs are ignored in the UP

+ Added strings for moralists event

+ fixed typo in Singularity Driver IV's name

+ Removed redunant use of short civ name in battle messages in GNN

+ changed FindShipInSensorRange to use a predicate function

+ Sentry/Guard should work better now

+ Made it so that clicking on a ship will not cancel guard/sentry

+ changed it so that the ship list does not do a full update so often (should help move times)

+ added option to not prompt to pay cost of a module if you have enough money in your treasury

+ Changed missing turn button if a rallypoint is on an uninhabitable or uncolonized planet

+ fixed bug where there was a 1 turn delay before ships would calc a new path after swapping rallypoint destinations from the governor

+ fixed bug with trade screen where dialogs did not hide when switching civs

+ fixed government bonus strings so that they now show the bonuses as implemented.

+ updated ship designs that wasn't using correct ranges

+ Re-did UI so that where clicking on the minimap couldn't accidently click on the find or turn buttons

+ Updated calculation of alliance victory status string

+ tweaked locale code so that it doesn't change so much, which should fix some performance issues and some crashes.  Have verification that display and entry of German characters is working, but would like confirmation from other languages also.

+ Changed auto-attack behavior; When a ship is set on auto-attack, it will attempt to find a nearby ship belonging to a civ it is at war with. If it can't find a ship that is not hidden by fow, it will cancel auto-attack to avoid causing the missing turn button bug.  To avoid slowdown, it does not attempt to pick the 'best' target, it just picks the first valid target it finds. 

+ added additional debug messages to activation code

+ Updated screen on OpponentWnd where the civ name was not using the displayname field.

+ made rallypoint wnd sort rallypoint names alphabetically

+ Terran Alliance should now start with the correct intelligence

+ Addressed playability issue where the last non-custom race you played would be loaded when going to customize the custom race (You may get this the first time before you load the correct custom race config or clear the LastRace string under CustomRace in the Prefs.ini file)

+ Changed Ctrl+B where hitting CTRL+N when playing a Custom Race started a new game using the default Custom Race config

+ Fixed bug where planet quality and number of tiles did not match after choosing Neutral alignment

+ Updated Invasion behavior to avoid invading a planet with a planetary bonus multiple times would cause more tiles to become available every invasion

+ Added tool tip on planet screen

+ Fixed bug where info icons would appear jumbled together at the top of the screen if there were too many.  Now, new icons will fall as soon as the existing icons have been cleared.

+ Improved the graphics management system for better compatibility

+ Dead Civs no longer show up with voting power. We realize not counting dead people in voting makes game less realistic... JK.

+ Fixed "Specialized Ships" stat on Foreign Stats/Military page to show correct number of ships

+ Tweaked where starport icons on planets on main map were not updated after using the Civ Manager Governor to change what starports were building

+ Changed behavior where first turn after loading a saved game would show a dip in the manufacturing history graph

+ Updated Combat viewer to change where ship icons in combat viewer did not show the correct amount of damage if the civ had HP bonuses

+ Fixed an API that made the AI like you more than they should

+ Syncronized relations code that caused the AI and Human player relations to be out of sync

+ Hooked planet data to economic engine. Where planet data wasn't refreshing after changing spending sliders

+ Updated UI structs where intelligences were reset without updating difficulty level if you went back to a previous screen

+ Made decomission of planetary improvements never take more than 1 turn.

+ added code to make sure that decomission 'improvements' can't be built on empty or non-functional tiles

+ Our system now suppports tab keysin entry fields

+ added dialog to warn if you're using an invalid race config when playing a metaverse game

+ fixed bug where starting a new game after having started/loaded a game and left the ship list open causes a crash or empty game screen

+ added code to delete shipcfgs from My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2\ships (or metaverse\ships) folder that do not have an xml file.  This will help keep the folder clean and cut down on save game sizes (and time to save/load)

+ rallypoints will no longer show up in the stacked ship context area, since they now show up in the context area in the bottom left corner of the main screen interface

+ Fixed bug where sometimes, after an alt-tab, freighter ships would not appear to be the correct size.

+ Fixed bug where planet quality penalties were applied in the case of an invasion that ended in a draw

+ fixed crash on foreign report if no race has any ships

+ fixed bug that didn't read in modded conversations or flavor text

+ fixed bug where last custom race wasn't loaded

+ Tweaked it so that tooltips will now show up for the lower row of ships in the Ships in Orbit

+ fixed it so that if you select a ship in the Ships In Orbit area, it will deselect the previous one, even if it's in another row.

+ SizeMods now use only the base capacity of the hull, not the max capacity (the capacity after miniturization is applied)

+ Made changes to font manager to fix the slow-down on foreign language systems.

+ Added option to disable city lights on the dark side of planets

+ fleet upgrade overlays always update properly

UPDATE: 1.3 BETA 3X

+ Tweaked ship weapons/defenses

+ Tweaked more planetary improvements

+ Fixed an infinite loop caused by Beta 3.

+ Changed the way planetary invasions penalties work when a draw (extremely rare)

Yes. It's finally done.  ObjectBar 2.0 is going through its final testing and will be out on September 12th. So what's new and what can you expect? See the linked article to get a full preview of what to expect in ObjectBar 2.0.

ObjectBar 2.0 is finally complete. Stardock will be releasing ObjectBar 2.0 on September 12th.  So what is ObjectBar and what has taken so long to go from 1.6 to 2.0?

What is ObjectBar

ObjectBar is essentially a GUI construction kit. With it, users can create their own alternative interfaces of Windows XP (and soon Windows Vista).  After all, Apple and Microsoft aren't the only ones with ideas on how the desktop interface should be done. 

ObjectBar can pretty much emulate virtually any existing desktop interface out there as well as add new twists to them or enable users to create their own.  Creations can be exported as actual programs that others can use (or the bar theme itself can be exported for those who want to trade and modify each other's designs).

ObjectBar: Two groups of users

ObjectBar content is much more involved than what is the norm in skinning.  ObjectBar content can be split up in two pieces: The actual bar theme and then the skin for the bar.  One could imagine the Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista or the Start Bar or the Mac finder as being examples of bar themes.  But beyond that, those themes can also be skinned independently.

ObjectBar skins are best when designed for the bar in question but ObjectBar can also automatically inherit your WindowBlinds skin.  The bar themes themselves are very customizeable. If the person who creates the bar theme exports it as an EXE, the user of the EXE (as long as they have ObjectBar installed) can use that bar theme as a stand alone program with a much simplified interface for adding content and tweaking what's there.  It's powerful and yet simple.

ObjectBar 2: Years in the making

For a long time, ObjectBar 1.x was quite popular with power users.  The problem Stardock ran into was one of support and expanding its market and deciding where it should go.  It seemed to be stuck between worlds.  Google, Microsoft, and tons of other companies have gotten into the "sidebar" business.  That is, having a vertical bar on the right side of the screen that users can insert various things into (clocks, gadgets, RSS feeds, short cuts, etc.). 

Such specialized programs tended to do what they did very well.  ObjectBar, by contrast, has been a generalist -- you could create a Sidebar with it. A fully skinnable sidebar at that.  And since ObjectBar 2 supports embedding DesktopX widgets, you could create some pretty spectacular sidebars.  But here's the problem with that -- the widgets and skins would have to be made with that particular sidebar theme in mind.

So what Stardock has done is re-imagine how ObjectBar is likely to be used.  First off, it made it so that the people who spend the time to create the bars can export them as programs.  Secondly, it has begun to try to separate the skinning from the bar creation part.  To that end, Stardock has made creating new bars somewhat more technically challenging but resulting in far more powerful and interesting bars.  On the other hand, customizing and modifying those bars has been made much easier.  Before, it was just somewhat hard to do most things but  never easy to do anything. 

The ObjectBar 2 Strategy

With ObjectBar 2, Stardock intends to provide a series of high quality template bar themes created by Jeff Bargmann and Treetog.  Then make it relatively easy for users to create skins for those bars.  The WinCustomize gallery will be set up so that users can upload skins that are distinct from bars.  A skinning guide has been developed and will be made available.

Since ObjectBar is a super-set of anything that any sidebar or similar program can do, it is our hope that by focusing initial effort on a handful of bar themes and then branch out from there as others create new bar themes that we can build a strong customization community for ObjectBar 2.

The key is for users to recognize that there are two elements at work here: Bar themes and skins. And while a bar theme will include a skin (by default) that users can create skins on their own.  So picture dozens of Sidebar skins or Finder bar skins or other types.

ObjectBar 2.0 on September 12th. Stay tuned!

The third world GUI Championship (previously called the GUI Olympics) is about to get going.

The three contests will be WindowBlinds skins, Icon packages (with at least 55 icons), and wallpapers.

Nearly $10,000 in cash and prizes will be handed out to the winners.  The formal announcement will be next week but since some of this stuff takes considerable time to do, we wanted to make sure people had time.  Events in each contest will include most usable, most original, and best overall (and possibly others).

ANYONE can participate as long as they aren't a judge of course. Stardock will NOT be judging (though I may be an alternate judge in the event that one of the official judges is not able to judge a particular event in time).  Registed users will be able to vote on skins to bring it down to a top 10 in each category with the judges judging the 10 finalists.

Submissions must be NEW (i.e. you can't take an existing skin and submit it).  Official announcement next week.