Our "what's change" doc is a little week but we've been updating and working on ObjectBar 2 over the summer and into the Fall now and we figured it was time to put out a new update.

While it is close to 2.0, it is still not quite ready yet for release.  But this new build has some really interesting things in it. For one thing, it has a bunch of new default controls that come with it including native RSS reading, CPU, disk, and other meters (no need for widgets on those).

It still has some skinning, customization, and sizing issues that we'll need to deal with before it goes gold but it should be a significant improvement over the May beta.

Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee I think pretty much seals it that Bush is really just an idiot.  I've had misgivings about him and was not a fan of his in the past but this nomination reeks of arrogance.

The Roman emperor, Caligula, made his horse a senator.  I suppose now we know that reincarnation is possible though at least Bush's advisors managed to thwart any ideas of nominating a favorite horse to the supreme court. 

Bush's croneyism is possibly the worst in the modern era.  He may be fairly moral in most respects but his professional ethics certainly are in question. 

Frankly, I'm disgusted with Bush.  And since the Republican senators are likely to rubber stamp his nominee, I've lost interest in politics.  We have the Republicans who seem to be eager to appear as the party of the corrupt and the Democrats who are eager to be the party of the screwballs (when they're not bitching and moaning pathetically).

And so here we are. Sigh.

The next version of Windows really does need to take things to another level.

Let's face it, Windows XP is basically Windows 2000 with some fixes and cosmetic enhancements.

Longhorn needs to be much more than that.  Here are a few things I think it needs:

1) New display system. This is what Avalon is supposed to address. The new display system needs to let us always run our systems as the maximum resolution our monitor supports and have the DPI (dots per inch) be fluidly scaleable without impacting software compatibility.  I shouldn't have to run my laptop at 1024x768 in order to be able to read text if it supports 1600x1200.  I should be able to run at 1600x1200 and size everything on the fly to be bigger. 

2) Updated Searching.  Google Desktop search only exists because the Find Files feature of Windows is essentially useless.  I should be able to quickly find something on my system instantly.  WinFS won't be out as part of Longhorn so what will they be improving in the meantime?

3) Smoother Multitasking.  Windows still sucks at multitasking.  Even when running on an SMP box, if the OS is "busy" doing something, you still can't quickly do something else.  I eventually gave up on SMP since on Windows it's only good for CPU bound tasks and doesn't really affect multitasking efficiency very much (on MacOS X and OS/2, for instance, SMP basically made it so you could always be doing something in the UI, but on Windows, the UI is apparently not as multithreaded as it could be). In the meantime, I use Multiplicity to maximize my computing power. But I'd like the OS itself to let me always be able to do stuff -- even if the app is written badly.

4) More Componentized. Whether we'll get Microsoft to make it so that pieces of Windows can be replaced or inherited from remains to be seen. I would like to be able to easily add more views (no, Ishell stuff doesn't cut it) to foldrers. 

5) Stop bloating with needless bundling.  Every new version of Windows throws in some half-assed immitation of third party software.  While we can all appreciate having a "free" version of ZIP or uxtheme or movie maker, it damages third party software development. I'd rather think that when I BUY my copy of Windows that the work was put into features that only the OS vendor could do.  Especially since Microsoft rarely puts any effort to let third parties expand on what they bundle (like adding RAR support to the compressed folders for example). There are some features only the OS vendor can really do. I'd rather see resources put there.

6) Make Networking better. I don't know about you guys but the LAN support in Windows is still quite a pain.  As I type this, I am on a wireless LAN which has several computers on the same work group.  It often takes several seconds, if at all, to find all the machines on the network.  It would be nice if Microsoft re-thought how people use network resources and included ways of working with them in a more straight forward, ROBUST, centralized way.

7) Better use of memory. I have 2 gigabytes of memory on my main machine. I turn off the swap file.  And yet I still hear the hard drive chipmunks going away.  Why is that? And don't even get me started about the limited number of handles. Even on my 2 gigabyte machine, if programs use more than 24,000 or so handles, programs start crashing. The average person doesn't even know why their system becomes unstable because limited user handles on Windows XP has been largely ignored.

8) Fix Internet Explorer. CSS 2.0 compliance would be a nice start. How about making it much smarter about what it caches? I have lots of friends at Microsoft who admit to having switched to Firefox (or Opera).  That's sad.

9) Fix your third party licenses. One of the ugly secrets of the PC OEM market is that computer manufacturers can't install things on Windows that changes the first boot-up experience. At best, they can put a few things on the desktop.  But they can't, for example, include an alternative shell or have WindowBlinds running by default or change the boot screen or many ohter things.  In short, there's not much way for PC manufacturers to distinguish their computer from every other computer.  That means a LOT of lost innovation.

10) Fix Security.  Outlook Express is still a spyware/spammer's dream. We shouldn't have to "upgrade" to Outlook to have some basic protections. There should be more end user tools that make it very easy to monitor net traffic.  The "Network" tab in task manager is a nice start but it needs to go much furthre than that.  Worms and the like should be stopped at the OS level. SP2 was a nice start, but there's still so much more to do.

There's lost of little things that are being addressed that I'm very excited about.  Avalon is the big thing for me. XAML in particular is interesting but I fear it may lead to a ton of wacky looking "apps". I don't want my apps to be as poorly designed UI as the typical website. Let me put it this way, the people who make Office are VERY different from the people who made http://www.microsoft.com.  I want the former writings the stand alone apps I use, not the latter.

So what would you like to see? What features in Longhorn make you excited?

WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1B was released today. It is a major update and improvement over yesterday's beta and should clear up most of the issues for those users who ran into problems.  But it's more than just a bug fix, additional performance improvements have been put in as well. 

Users of WindowBlinds 5 have also reported that it is significantly faster than WindowBlinds 4.6 (which in itself was already very fast).  That's because WindowBlinds 5's engine has been further optimized for drawing and resizing and taking advantage of the latest video cards.

A few notes about WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1b (4.90b):

1. We don't recommend using it with WindowFX yet.  We have a new WindowFX about to go up that has been optimized to work with WindowBlinds 5.
2. Skin changing should be faster.
3. Right-Click on title bar override to make it roll up the window has been added for Alpha-Blended title bars.
4. RunDLL32 issue resolved.
5. WinZip issue resolved.
6. Min/Max settings respect settings.
7. WB Config now has support for helping those with ATI 9000 that have corrupted mouse buttons.
8. Corruption with Kol's WinVista skin has been resolved.
9. Taskbar corruption (graphical) issues should be fixed.
10. LogonStudio compatibility issue resolved.

All in all, a busy day for the WindowBlinds team.  You need to have Object Desktop (www.objectdesktop.com) in order to get access to the beta. 

As we near the end of Day 5 of the WinCustomize subscription drive it looks like we'll be at just over 200 by the end of the day.  This means we'll be a little off-par for the month to make our 2000 new/renewed subscriber goal.

Earlier, we talked about the incredible WinCustomize direct-browser and the system tray applet that users get when they subscribe. These programs provide the ultimate way to access the gigs of content, posts, etc. that are on WinCustomize.

Another cool feature that will be coming up in the coming months will be exclusive WinCustomize subscriber skins.  We'll be releasing skins, themes, icons, wallpapers, etc. that will be only available to subscribers for 60 days.  Skin authors with Master access or higher will initially be able to release skins in this fashion as well.  Top skins based on subscriber downloads will be what is used to determine uploads so that skinners who choose to make use of that feature won't be punished.  Eventually, we hope to enable skinners to be subscriber-affiliates, that is, users who subscribe from their particular skin will get a 20% royalty on that skin once a base # of subscriptions are collected.

Stay tuned!

ATI has finally has an answer to nVidia's 7800 in the form of the Radeon X1000 series.  Whether the new family of graphics cards can match nVidia's latest offerings remains to be seen.

The top of the line card, the X1800 has over 320 million transistors in it, 16 pixel shaders and other features that simply look crazy-incredible.  In either case, it'll certainly be more than enough for today's games.  One can hope that ATI remains committed to their generally good driver quality -- something nVidia has been lacking on recently despite having more horse power on their cards.

Links:
View: Source and Specs

Cogent and Level 3, two of the world's largest ISPs are having a dispute.  As a result, users of Level 3 may not be able to reach sites that make use of Cogent and users of Cogent may not be able to reach websites that use Level 3.  Stardock, Betanews, WinCustomize, Neowin.net, deviantART, and many other sites use Cogent.  So if someone isn't able to connect to Stardock or any of its sites, this may be a reason.

But it speaks to a larger issue -- could the Internet eventually be broken up with us all at the whim of large corporations?

Links:
View: Cogent's Side of the story

Stardock has released the first BETA of WindowBlinds 5.  WindowBlinds is a program that can completely alter the look and feel of the Windows GUI.  It does so by applying visual styles (skins) to your title bars, push buttons, Start bar, borders, etc.

The most anticipated new feature of WindowBlinds 5 is its ability to deliver glass effects to Windows XP user.  Technically speaking, WindowBlinds can do full alpha blended user interfaces now, that means that skins can have a variable level of transparency.  Numerous new features have been added to allow skinners to do reflective effects, shadows, smooth edges and more to their WindowBlinds skins.

WindowBlinds 5 also eliminates any dedicated processes to it.  When running WindowBlinds 5, no additional processes are needed anymore, it runs as part of the system.  WindowBlinds 5 BETA currently requires Windows XP (32-bit edition).  A 64-bit edition will be available with beta 2.  It should run on any reasonably modern video card. 

WindowBlinds 5 is currently only available on Object Desktop.  To get Object Desktop visit: www.objectdesktop.com.

Preview Guide

Beta 1 Readme

Autodesk, the makers of 3D Studio Max has acquired Alias, the makers of Maya for $182 million in cash.  For those of you who thought that 3D Studio Max was made by Discreet, well, Autodesk now owns Discreet so in effect, the 3D modeling software market is under control by Autodesk.

Most 3D modeling that you see in movies, TV, and games is done using either Maya or 3D Studio Max.  This concentration of market power by a single company in such a key market has many designers and artists quite nervous.

"What about the cost of both products?" said Scott Tykoski, a 3D graphics designer at Stardock. "These are expensive products today when there's competition, what about in the future? Are we going to be paying $12,000 base cost for these programs in a year?"

According to Autodesk, the product release schedule for both products will continue into the foreseeable future without modification.  The two companies will continue to exist and market and sell both Maya and 3D Studio Max for the near future.

What the actual effect on development of both products now that competition between the two is gone remains to be seen.  This story is still developing..

• Autodesk/Alias fact sheet.
• Acquisition FAQ
• Acquisition Presentation
• Press Release

WindowBlinds 5 beta 1 (4.90) has been released on Object Desktop (it's only available if you have Object Desktop presently).

UPDATE: 4.9A now up -- support for older nVidia cards added!

Support: https://forums.stardock.com/?forumid=167