Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (GalCiv II) beta 3 has been released to its public beta testing team.  GalCiv II is due to hit store shelves at the end of February of next year.  To make sure that the shipping game is rock solid and as fun as possible, Stardock has public, NO-NDA beta tests so that what actually ends up on store shelves has been thoroughly play-tested by the toughest testers of all -- actual gaming customers.  The last two Stardock games have won Editor's Choice Awards (The Political Machine and Galactic Civilizations I). 

With the success of Stardock's last two games, it has been able to put a lot more resources towards the development of Galactic Civilizations II. The new 3D engine, increased production values, and more sophisticated planet and ship design elements add more strategic depth while also making the game more fun and have less micro-management than the first one had.

The public beta 3 has ship textures disabled (so ships don't look nearly as good as they will in the final version) and numerous missing features (such as diplomacy and fleet combat).  But it does have a working computer AI (beta 2 did not), the start of the human ship designs, a new technology manager with built in tech tree, lots of play balancing in, the new ship battle system, cleaner UI, and many other changes.

The home page for Galactic Civilizations II is www.galciv2.com.

Microsoft is about to announce that it is acquiring an Internet start-up called Teleo. Teleo is developing a voice over IP technology that is similar to what is found in Skype and the new Google Talk.

Sources say that Microsoft intends to integrate this technology into an upcoming version of MSN. Teleo's voice over IP technology revolves mostly around making calls to normal phones. Presently, Teleo offers a monthly $4.95 service that allows users to make calls to traditional phones for 2 cents per minute world-wide. It also provides users with their own unique phone number that allows users to call them via a regular phone (imbound calling). In essence, users receive their own universal net phone number and users can call it with their regular phones.

Other features include being able to insert click-to-call commands in email and webpages, conferencing, call forwarding, voice mail, and more.

The acquisition puts MSN in a more direct head to head competition with Skype and Google's recently released "Google Talk". When these features will first show up in MSN is anyone's guess.

September 2005

Contents WindowBlinds 4.6 released IconX 1.1 charges up your desktop icons Top Skins of August Bring the outside onto your PC with Natural Desktop 2006 PowerUser.TV Arrives Make your own skins with SkinStudio 4.6 Make beautiful icons with IconDeveloper 1.2 Stardock prepares StyleVista for Windows Vista August Skinning Highlights... WindowBlinds 4.6 dresses up your Windows desktop WindowBlinds is a program that can change the look & feel of the Windows GUI.  In short, it allows users to personalize their Windows based PCs.  Outside computers, nearly everything people use are personalized to people's particular tastes -- cars, houses, appliances, even cell phones.  And yet, the Windows GUI has a style for everyone.  WindowBlinds changes all this.  With thousands of different skins to choose from, WindowBlinds users can make their PC match their own tastes and styles.  Version 4.6 adds some new effects to title bars (glowing effects on mouse-over) that many newer skins now make use of. Download: [WindowBlinds home page] Part of: [Object Desktop]   Natural Desktop 2006 brings the outside world to your computer Imagine a desktop where the backgrounds were based on the time of day and time of year. Imagine being able to listen to natural sounds such as birds singing, crickets chirping, or rain falling. Imagine having a mini-display on the desktop that showed animated day and night cycles, clouds, lightning, and more! That is what the Natural Desktop is.  It doesn't interfere with your work or your other desktop enhancements. The sounds, which can be turned off if you wish, are a welcome treat for those who work inside all day. Morning doves singing in the morning to cicadas in the afternoon and crickets and owls at night all give a subtle and realistic simulation of what the outside might be like (or what you might wish it were like if you're wishing it was a pleasant spring afternoon instead of a dreary late Fall afternoon). Natural Desktop 2006 is a near rewrite of the underlying code that made Natural Desktop work.  New customization options and new weather options make it easier than ever to customize Natural Desktop to your local area. Visit: [www.naturaldesktop.com]   Make beautiful icons with IconDeveloper IconDeveloper 1.2 has been released.  IconDeveloper is a program designed to make it easy for users and artists to create their own Windows XP icons.  Once installed, it can take nearly any image and convert it into an icon very quickly. It automatically generates all the common icon sizes and supports various advanced scaling algorithms to make sure that your icons look good at different resolutions.  IconDeveloper can also export icons as most common graphics formats. New in IconDeveloper 1.2: Ability to export icons into multiple graphics formats (PNG, GIF, JPG, BMP, etc.) at once. Can export ICLs as individual icons (very handy for ObjectDock users for instance) Ability to work with GIF files Support for IconPackager 3 files Numerous usability features Download: [www.icondeveloper.com] Part of: [Object Desktop]   IconX turbo-charges your existing icons IconDeveloper creates icons. Another program called IconPackager can change your Windows icons to new ones.  IconX makes your existing desktop icons look better by being able to add shadows to them, make them appear any size you want on your desktop, add special effects to them when you mouse over them (such as zooming or playing a sound or glowing or other effects). The new version even lets you enhance your desktop icon labels to have a background. Download: [IconX Homepage] Part of: [Object Desktop]   PowerUser.TV PowerUser.TV is a new podcast dedicated to bringing you the latest news of interest to power users with a regular panel of expert power users along with guests from the community.  Already four episodes have been released.   Episode 1: Windows Vista Preview, Yahoo buys Konfabulator and more! Episode 2: OS/2 RIP, Sex & Grand Theft Auto, IE 7 preview Episode 3: Google loses adwords lawsuit, CNN gets worms, MacOS X gets into the wild Episode 4: QuakeCon wrap-up, Windows 95 turns 10, Linus trademarks Linux and more! And best of all, it's FREE!   Subscribe by: or or     Windows Vista gets StyleVista Windows Vista is the official name to what was previously called Longhorn -- the next major version of Windows to follow Windows XP. And already Stardock is out of the gate with a freeware utility to tweak the appearance of it.  It's called StyleVista.  StyleVista allows users to change the color and opacity of the new Windows Vista "Aero" GUI.  As Windows Vista progresses, so will StyleVista since the feature set of Windows Vista will likely change dramatically between now and release. If you have the Windows Vista beta, download StyleVista. Download: [StyleVista home page]    Top Skins of August Here is a list of the top 10 most popular skins from August:   Longhorn 5203 WB  (72,762) Cryo64 Colossus  (42,554) Icon-A-Day  (25,783) Sputnik  (25,524) Encoded  (24,518) Office Extreem  (22,262) Encoded  (21,659) Sputnik  (21,028) myLonghorn  (19,579) SevenSwords3D  (18,468)      Make your own skins with SkinStudio 4.6 SkinStudio 4.6 has been released.  SkinStudio is an application that allows artists of all levels to create skins for programs such as WindowBlinds and Windows Media Player.  WindowBlinds allows users to change the "skin" (the graphics that makes up the title bar, push buttons, scrollbars, start bar, etc.) of Windows.  Those skins are created with SkinStudio.  Operating system wide skins are commonly referred to as "visual styles". When a user first loads SkinStudio and chooses to create a new visual style, they are presented with the default Windows XP GUI.  From there, they can change as much or as little of the GUI as they want by replacing graphics, moving buttons, changing attributes on different elements of the Windows interface and more.  When they are done, users can save their skin and can either use them themselves or upload them to websites that distribute WindowBlinds visual styles.  The same is true for users who create new skins for Microsoft Windows Media Player. SkinStudio has a ton of features to make it easy for beginners as well as pros to create excellent skins.  For example, skinners can change the hue of individual parts of a skin or the entire skin at once. Seasoned skinners can bank various skin parts for later use in other skins.  Skinners can open up existing visual styles and edit them as well as import pieces (buttons, borders, start bars, etc.) from other skins to create a skin that is a combination of various other skins. SkinStudio also allows users to import alternative skin formats such as .msstyles, edit them and save as a WindowBlinds skin or even Windows Media Player skin.  In fact, when SkinStudio is installed on a system, .msstyles are automaticaly able to be used by WindowBlinds users simply by double clicking on a .msstyles file.  This means users can make use of .msstyles files without having to patch any system files. SkinStudio 4.6 has a number of new features including text shifting in the Start menu, exporting skins to directly support the .WMZ (Windows Media Player) file type, the ability to preview .msstyles files without having to import them, support for non-regular msstyles title bar buttons, support for .GIF files, and probably most notably, now supports the new WindowBlinds 4.6 button glow effects. A freeware version of SkinStudio is available for download.  SkinStudio Enhanced adds additional features such as skin piece importing and colorization, and SkinStudio Pro adds support for Windows Media Player skins. SkinStudio Pro is also part of Stardock's Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancement utilities. Screenshots:   Download:  [www.skinstudio.net] Part of: [Object Desktop]    August Skinning Highlights by Brad Wardell August is usually the low point of skinning.  People are outside -- or trying to be outside.  And to losers like me, who look outside at the sun, it's a reminder that we're slowly evolving into vampires or something.  Thankfully, programs like Natural Desktop help give us the illusion that we're outside enjoying the summer.  But luckily for me, I'm not the only one indoors because August was the best month for WinCustomize.com on record.  It's a pretty far cry from just a few years ago when we were just breaking the 1 million mark. The most popular skin of the month has been Kol's Longhorn visual style.  It gives a pretty close approximation to the Windows Vista look and feel.  The popular skin downloads charts are publicly accessible.  So here are some things I found on the site that I thought were pretty interesting. Boot Screens (you need to get www.bootskin.com to use these). This month was particularly good for boot screens. Check these out! Custom PC boot screen Windows 1 boot Gotes Atari 800 Xbox 360 Fresh Gnome Desktop There were a lot of other really good ones this month so it was tough to narrow it down to just these. It was also a good month for Extended mouse cursors.  You need CursorXP for those. Split Amixroed Fresh Meanwhile, over in DesktopX land things are still a bit of a confusing mess.  For the record, DesktopX OBJECTS are supposed to be desktop objects. Little animated icons and other goodies.  If they have functionality - like a mini-program - they should be uploaded as a widget. Some DesktopX widget that really caught my eye include: Digital Clear Media Aero Album Art Digital Clear meters PR System Over on the icon front, August was pretty quiet actually.  Incidentally, make sure you have IconPackager 3 so that you can apply the new packages. Some particularly noteworthy icon packages included: Amixroed Amiga OS4 It was a particularly good month for wallpapers and I'm going to only be able to scratch the surface here. So here are a selected few that I really enjoyed. Vista Gold Peaceful Emotion 4 Vista World 2 TruBlu Serpenteau Amixroed Eyes Emotion 2 Meld-V2 And that's just a few of them! Meanwhile, in the WindowBlinds area, a bunch of new skins to change the look & feel of your Windows GUI have arrived including (wait for it) Driftwood (an update to my all time favorite skin). Nimbus Driftwood Kimble Fresco Darker Theme Indebted Darth Mustang Fresh Fear Factory Rack Amp ErgoVX Some other interesting skins this month: iPOd Media Player skin Web Gizmo's various ObjectDock backgrounds Windows Vista logon My Homestead for Rainlendar Vista SMX for SysMetrix So that's all for this month.  WinCustomize is looking for moderators btw to help moderate skins and the forums.  If you're interested and already have at least Master Apprentice access, drop me a line at [email protected].  I probably won't be able to respond right away as I'm always way behind on email but I will read it at some point. Cheers!     About WinCustomize Magazine WinCustomize Magazine is a monthly magazine that is sent to WinCustomize users. If for some reason you do not want to continue receiving this magazine, visit https://www.wincustomize.com and click on "My account" once you're logged in. Then click on the "Account information" tab and type in your userID/PW to bring up your personal info. On the mailing list tab you control which mailing lists you are suscribed to. Uncheck the WinCustomize Magazine one. Get your own free blog site.. JoeUser.com

WinCustomize.com - 15090 Beck Rd. Plymouth MI 48170

One of the major enhancements in beta 3 is the inclusion of decent ship battles.

Here's some screenshots:

Note: Public beta 3 does not include ship textures so your ships won't look quite like this.

At around 5pm EST on August 30 beta 3 will be made available.  PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE MAKING BUG REPORTS..

Release Notes:

• Ship textures are OFF for this beta.  So the ships will not look as cool as they do in the screenshots. We want to maximize compatibility and move up from there. Plus, it gives beta testers something to look forward to. Beta 4 will have them.
• Diplomacy is not in yet. It's a pure space war game presently.  Diplomacy will not appear until Beta 4 (late October).
• Fleet battles are not in yet.  That will probably appear in Beta 3B (September).
• Beta 3B will not be available to all beta testers.  We will be selecting a group from the forums based on their participation and help to receive beta 3B so that we can more effectively prepare for beta 4.
• There's still a ton of missing features and tweaking.  If you see a "bug" or problem that you think is pretty obvious, assume for now that we are well aware of it.
• Minimum requirements: Pentium II 600 Mhz with a Geforce 3 level card (or ATI 7500) or better that has at least 64MB of video memory.

Feedback we are looking for:

• We are looking for bugs in this build primarily. That is, if the game crashes, we want to know. Extra work has been done to make saved games more reliable. If you have a crash and it's reproducible in a saved game, we will be setting up an FTP site: ftp://ftp.galciv2.com to upload your saved games (please ZIP them first).
• We also want to know how performance is.  A lot of work has gone into performance tuning. We are aware that on the second turn of the game there's a pause as the game generates AI ships. We will be working to reduce this.
• We want to make sure that the game is compatible.  IF you run into any graphical glitches, screenshots help (use print-screen) to copy and then paste it into something like MS Paint. We need to know your processor speed, video card, and what version of DirectX you are using.
• MAKE SURE YOU HAVE READ THIS POST.  It has information on how to obtain various debugging tools and other bug submission guidelines.
• GalCiv II uses a lot of texture memory. If your card doesn't have 64MB of video RAM, it probably won't run.  But if you do have 64MB of RAM and run the game in gigantic sized galaxies and run into problems, let us know.
• Are the basic game mechanics "fun"?  What can make it more fun? Not in terms of new features but pacing.  Do technologies come up too fast? Are there too many types of components or too few? One of the things that is a major factor in game fun is the pacing of it.

WinCustomize's official podcast, PowerUser.tv has posted episode 4. This week, the Neowin gang tackles Linus trademarking Linux, looking at psycho bosses, the Amazon sex store, Windows 95 turning 10, thoughts on QuakeCon, and more!

View: Subscribe to PowerUser.tv via iTunes

August is usually the low point of skinning.  People are outside -- or trying to be outside.  And to losers like me, who look outside at the sun, it's a reminder that we're slowly evolving into vampires or something.  Thankfully, programs like Natural Desktop help give us the illusion that we're outside enjoying the summer.  But luckily for me, I'm not the only one indoors because August was the best month for WinCustomize.com on record.  We make break the 20 million visitor mark in August. The graph data is only until August 27 so there's still 4 more days to go on it for the month.  It's a pretty far cry from just a few years ago when we were just breaking the 1 million mark.

The most popular skin of the month has been Kol's Longhorn visual style.  It gives a pretty close approximation to the Windows Vista look and feel.  The popular skin downloads charts are publicly accessible.  So here are some things I found on the site that I thought were pretty interesting.

Boot Screens (you need to get www.bootskin.com to use these). This month was particularly good for boot screens. Check these out!

• Custom PC boot screen
• Windows 1 boot
• Gotes
• Atari 800
• Xbox 360
• Fresh
• Gnome Desktop

There were a lot of other really good ones this month so it was tough to narrow it down to just these.

It was also a good month for Extended mouse cursors.  You need CursorXP for those.

• Split
• Amixroed
• Fresh

Meanwhile, over in DesktopX land things are still a bit of a confusing mess.  For the record, DesktopX OBJECTS are supposed to be desktop objects. Little animated icons and other goodies.  If they have functionality - like a mini-program - they should be uploaded as a widget.

Some DesktopX widget that really caught my eye include:

• Digital Clear Media
• Aero Album Art
• Digital Clear meters
• PR System

Over on the icon front, August was pretty quiet actually.  Incidentally, make sure you have IconPackager 3 so that you can apply the new packages.

Some particularly noteworthy icon packages included:

• Amixroed
• Amiga OS4

It was a particularly good month for wallpapers and I'm going to only be able to scratch the surface here. So here are a selected few that I really enjoyed.

• Vista Gold
• Peaceful
• Emotion 4
• Vista
• World 2
• TruBlu
• Serpenteau
• Amixroed
• Eyes
• Emotion 2
• Meld-V2

And that's just a few of them!

Meanwhile, in the WindowBlinds area, a bunch of new skins to change the look & feel of your Windows GUI have arrived including (wait for it) Driftwood (an update to my all time favorite skin).

• Nimbus
• Driftwood
• Kimble
• Fresco
• Darker Theme
• Indebted
• Darth
• Mustang
• Fresh
• Fear Factory
• Rack Amp
• ErgoVX

Some other interesting skins this month:

• iPOd Media Player skin
• Web Gizmo's various ObjectDock backgrounds
• Windows Vista logon
• My Homestead for Rainlendar
• Vista SMX for SysMetrix

So that's all for this month.  WinCustomize is looking for moderators btw to help moderate skins and the forums.  If you're interested and already have at least Master Apprentice access, drop me a line at [email protected].  I probably won't be able to respond right away as I'm always way behind on email but I will read it at some point. Cheers!

On Tuesday we're scheduled to release beta 3 of GalCiv II.

But this Monday afternoon (EST) Stardock developers will be on IRC in #stardock on the IRC server irc.stardock.com during the day to interact with users on what's happening with GalCiv and share exlusive behind the scenes screenshots, code-snippets, and other goodies.

Hope to see you there.

The Hotfix.net website has posted a feature list that is expected to debut with version 8.0 of MSN Messenger sometime next year. While he hints that this is speculation and rumour, we are confident that this information is accurate.

While MSN Messenger 7.5 just came out, 8.0 is already being worked on and heading towards beta by the end of the year. A third party source whom is said to be from Microsoft has provided us with this information. Here's a list of possible and rumored features Microsoft is contemplating on going into the IM client:
Change of Messenger Skins

• Real-time Emotions
• Messenger Built Internal Windows Media Player 10
• Pause/Resumed File Transfers (File Blocked Extension Applied)
• Detailed File Transfer (Download/Upload Speed)
• Animated Display Pictures (.gif .jpg .png (File Support under Consideration))
• Mood Status
• Faster Contact List Loading and scrolling
• Public Profile and MSN Spaces Combined
• More MSN Space features
• New Hotmail and MSN Messenger Integration
• Downloadable MSN Messenger on Mobile
• News Updates according to Location
• Top 10 MSN Music Radio
• New Stylish Notifier Pop-up
• Downloadable Skins for MSN (Contact Window & Conversation Window)
• Complete Integration with Windows XP® & Windows Vista® Codename: Longhorn®
• Offline Voice/Message Machine
• Animated Buddy Icon Helper
• Display Picture Ratings

Source: Neowin.net

So what's the verdict? You guys want us to put in a MSN section here?