WindowBlinds 5 Beta 3 is now out.  WindowBlinds is a program designed to enable users to completely customize their Windows GUI.  It loads special "skins" called "Visual styles" that can change your title bars, push buttons, Start bar, scrollbars, and virtually every other part of the Windows GUI.

WindowBlinds 5 has a ton of new features and changes but probably the most obvious new feature is the ability to do per-pixel alpha-blended title bars, borders, and menus which enable users to have "glass" effects or borders that are very smoothed out.  Other features include the elimination of wbload.exe (there is no longer a resident program required to run WindowBlinds, it behaves as part of the OS).  WindowBlinds 5 also takes far more advantage of hardware acceleration by default (anyone with a recent nVidia or ATI card should immediately notice the difference. For instance, no screen repaints when users move windows in front of other windows).

BETA 3 of WindowBlinds 5 is a major step forward and if all goes well, it will move to release candidate status.

• Added .JPG wallpaper support
• Per Pixel Alpha Blended skins support left aligned buttons for Mac-style
• Per Pixel Alpha Blended skins now support text backgrounds for title bar text
• Added support for constant alpha blending on taskbar
• New trouble-shooting advisors
• Fixed issue with Norton Protection recycle pin and hopefully the weird problem with some Lexmark printer drivers
• Better support for drawing custom controls in MS Access, OnFolio, Corel Painter
• Fixed user icon changing
• Fixed Run-As issue
• Re-enabled RMB on title bar override options (yay!)
• Reflection maps can now be clipped to avoid shadows
• Apps with custom menus should work fine with custom per pixel WB menus
• Fixed remaining installer issues for X64 users. 

Right now WindowBlinds 5 is only available to Object Desktop users.  When completed, it'll be available on its own for $19.95.  Anyone who has purchased WindowBlinds 4 after September 1 will receive WindowBlinds 5 for free.

This email is floating around. While it's totally unfair in comparing Texas and Louisiana in terms of their handling of hurricans (after Katrina, people were taking these things more seriously) but the general reality is still pretty accurate IMO.

Where are WinCustomize members? This terrific and fun (and free) website uses Google Maps to display where we all are in the "real world"! 

Try it out and let's see how big of a community we can create!

DesktopGadgets.com continues to see its library of high quality gadgets grow.  This week,  MikeB has added a new Arrow Windows Media Player gadget.  Gadgets, unlike widgets, do not require any additional software to run, they're stand-alone programs but with all the advantages of widgets.  The most popular way to create gadgets currently is with DesktopX Pro.

Recently, Sony was discovered to have been installing software on people's computers without the user knowing it.  When a user inserted a Sony CD into their computer CD-ROM drive, a "root kit" was installed that enabled the music giant to install "copy protection" without the user knowing.

Some spyware developers and trojan horse virus makers have already begun to make use of Sony's root kit to hide their presence on the user's machine.

Some users of argued that this plays right into the hands of pirates.  This issue was discussed last week on PowerUser.TV at length.  Why be legitimate in acquiring music if you're going to be treated like a criminal when it's so much easier to simply warez it was what many have said on-line.

CNET has an excellent follow-up on the situation.  Check it out.

File-swapping company, Grokster is gone.  After a $50 million settlement with Hollywood studios, the company agreed to discontinue providing its peer-to-peer program.

Grokster, it was found this past summer, encouraged its users to use its service to pirate software, music, and other digital content.  In a ruling that raised a lot of controversy this summer, the courts said that a company can be held liable if it is found to actively encourage people to violate copyright.  Grokster and other peer networks many believe try to gain users by promising them access to free everything (including commercial content).

Companies like Grokster were making impressive levels of profit through advertising and other means. Many developers, (including this one), felt it pretty unacceptable for a company to make a profit by empowering users to steal from other companies.

While peer-to-peer file sharing is a legitimate form of software distribution, there is little excuse for having generic, unmoderated search engines or unregulated listings of it (just as WinCustomize and other reputable skin sites actively police what content it links to and what is displayed).

CNET is reporting that this month marks the 30th anniversary of the Homebrew computer club.  Homebrew is particularly famous as the place where the Apple I got started when Steve Wozniak showed off his creation.

"It was the most important thing in my life and every two weeks I lived for it," Wozniak told CNET News.com, speaking of the Homebrew Computer Club. "I was too shy to even speak at all. The only two times I ever spoke were to introduce the Apple I and the Apple II."

Full story at CNET.

We got the new beta up tonight.  Lots of tweaks and changes.  Here's what we got in this week:

Notes for v0.77 BETA Release
+ SAVED GAMES FROM PREVIOUS BETAS WON'T WORK
+ New Planetary Approval system (completely new) will need more play testing.
+ New Computer AI relations evaluation system.
+ Several crash and memory leak issues resolved
+ AI now gets rid of older ships.
+ New planetary improvement (requires Planetary Defense) that enables ships in orbit to defend as a fleet
+ Human diplomacy advantage reduced
+ made winbink disable anti-aliasing for the bink movies, which should increase the framerate
+ achievementwnd
+ more support for tooltips
+ build queue in planetwnd is now clickable again changed it so that the
+ default value (if there isn't one specified in the
race config) is neutral.
+ added alignment values to RaceConfig.xml saved planet focus in save
+ game added code to make it not cancel ship destinations if a
+ constructor of the same race reaches a resource first
+ fixed crash in calculating planet defection string fixed a crash in
+ the 3D engine caused by a bug in the code that loads amodel.
+ fixed crash in where a null fleet was trying to set a destination
+ added default definition for custom star system so that custom races
+ don't get random systems, they get one comparable to other races.
+ check for tech victory now uses correct tech; tech victory is now possible.
+ made it so that if your social queue is empty, the planet list entry shows the word Nothing
+ fixed bug where the starport's rallypoint wasn't showing up after setting it
+ made it so that ESC will close options menu added ring size info to
+ custom planet defs tweaked tooltips to resize if they would otherwise cut off text.
+ made tradescreen update as you move slider for money or influence
+ fixed bug where money wasn't being returned to the right list, which should fix crashes as well
+ made tooltips slower to come up
+ fixed bug where AI designed ships show up in the tech complete screen
+ I believe that I've fixed the bug where two starbases could harvest the same resource
+ fixed bug where technology rate was not being saved and loaded added
+ code that should keep newly designed ship designs from losing their tech reqs when saved and restored
+ moved the user designed ship designs + ship configs to the My Documents folder
+ fixed bug where homeworld variable wasn't being saved fixed the strings on the stacked ship list fixed the tint colors on he foreign
+ treaties wnd color legend fixed grammar error in description of earth
+ as homeworld added code to fix broken trade routes; if a mini
+ freighter gets knocked off course, it will reset itself, but it may take a turn before it gives up and resets.
+ Tool tip pop up for planetary approval and planetary improvements.
+ New tool tip system to make it easier to have tool tips for non-buttons to give users more info
+ First Colony event not human Specific Anymore Torian Movies into Game
+ (for Bink Technology Testing) Displaying the Next Upgradable Planet
+ Tile before you have the Tech Fixed Hardpoints on Huge Human ships
+ (Had to All Weapon and Propulsion
points to prevent oddities when auto-placing a component)
+ Propoganda affecting Approval
+ All Trade Goods show up and are Tradable in the Negotiation Screen
+ Hooked-Up Xeno Farm and Research Acadamy to Upgrade List Change Back
+ Rallypoint Cursor when Clicking away from the Map Screen (or
rightclicking while in that mode)
+ Fixed Focus BG so it wasn't clickable
+ Can't offer to go to war on Negotiation Screen if you have less than
+ 2/3
senate control
+ Clicking on Main Interface buttons close already open windows
+ Added CanUpgrade() functions to improvement records.  These functions will determine whether or not a given improvement can upgrade another improvement by walking back up the upgrade path.  I haven’t checked in my code that *uses* these functions (waiting until after this beta release), but they do work so if you have a need for this functionality, they will work as advertised.
+ Fixed a memory leak in IncrementImprovementBuilding().
+ Super Projects and Galactic Achievements are now assigned special IDs by the game; the SpecialID value in PlanetImprovements.xml is only honored for Trade Goods.
+ Implemented the UP Headquarters improvement.
+ Checked Cari’s fix for the crash that happens when you open the Pick Your Race screen but don’t have a custom race defined on your install.
+ Implemented the Hyperion Shipyard and Secret Police Center improvements.
+ In the course of implementing those improvements, I discovered some memory leaks resulting from unreleased planet improvements, so I took a detour to fix those.
+ In the course of fixing those memory leaks, I discovered some problems related to buying and upgrading improvements.
+ In the course of fixing those buying and upgrading issues, I discovered some problems related to the saving and restoring of upgrades.
+ Your military power now takes into account the hitpoints on your ships.
+ Mini freighters were sometimes set by the AI to have a new course which could lock up the game.
+ Implemented Play button to watch ships after full battle is finished
+ Added prompt to switch government type when new government type is
available
+ Smarter ship movement in full battles
+ Fixed bug where explosion would not appear on map after full battle
+ Fixed crash when locking a slider in Economy window Fixed a bug where
+ the number of moves left after a full battle was
lost
+ Fixed bug where damage would not show on a ship after reloading a
saved game
+ Added option for showing fleet battles only if both sides of the
battle are fleets
+ Fixed bug in fleet battles where damage on the ship icons was not in
synch with the action on-screen
+ Fixed several ALT+Tab related crashes
+ Fixed a bug where small ships would sometimes overlap in a fleet
battle
+ Made smoother transitions from place to place for top-down cameras in
full battles
+ Fixed a bug where freighters that were destroyed show up in trade
routes as blown apart ships
+ Fixed a bug where the mini-map zoom was not reset after starting or
loading a new game
+ Added an option for controlling the Edge Scrolling speed

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Next week: United Planets, Military Governors, and more!

You can now pre-order copy of Galactic Civilizations II at Gamestop or EB Games.  Just click on pre-order and then choose which retailer you would like to get it from.

Users who pre-order the game will get additional content including extra ship components, the Galactic Civilizations desktop, and more.  The retail box will include be a special pre-order box that has additional content inside include a tech-tree and some other extras!