Looking at the sales of DesktopX over the past 3 years for the month of August (first 23 days anyway of it) shows an interesting trend.  Historically, it was pretty flat, sales were decent but not great.  But in August, sales took a big jump over the same period in the previous years.  Sales of Stardock's customization programs have all increased each year over the past 3 years but DesktopX has seen the biggest jump in recent times.

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: http://www.skinstudio.net

 

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords beta 3 is nearly ready to go out to beta testers.  We are tentatively planning on releasing it a week from this Tuesday (Aug 30).  Shortly after that time, users who have pre-ordered GalCiv II but have not previously had access to betas will be enabled to download the beta.  But after September 1, new pre-orders will return to having to wait until beta 4 (late October).

The GalCiv.com site will begin moving towards its final state as well as work on the Metaverse begins taking shape and the site interaction will be much greater than it was in the first GalCiv.  We will be hand selecting a few active beta testers to take a sneak peek at beta 3A which will be out in September.

Another week has passed in the skinning world and it seems like, over time, it gets harder and harder to cover it all. 5 years ago, we used to refer to "the community" and that meant talking about a few dozen people who all hung out on a couple of websites.  Now, "the community" is made up of millions of people in various degrees that spans multiple sites.  But, I shall bravely try to go through and cover what I thought was interesting and hence offend those I leave off.  But I assure you, leaving something out is only a result of my sheer incompetence rather than malice.

So last week Stardock released the first beta of StyleVista. It lets Windows Vista beta testers change the opacity of windows and add color to them. By default, Windows Vista's GUI is clear glass which means it's colorless and semi-transparent.  I suspect something like this will be "built in" to Windows Vista by the time it ships. The Stardock Lab is disecting Vista to see what can and can't be done with it and this was one of the first things that came out of it.

Also last week, WindowBlinds 4.6 came out. That's the version that supports glow effects around buttons. It is a cool effect and represents a great final stage for the WindowBlinds 4.x line which is now nearly 3 years old shockingly enough (WindowBlinds 4 came out in March of 2003).  WindowBlinds 5 beta should start showing up sometime in September or October.  The most obvious new feature in WindowBlinds 5 is that it can do Aero-glass effects on Windows XP.  Personally, I don't think that's the impressive part.  Whoopie, Stardock has semi-transparent borders and title bars.  The impressive part is the performance. It was fast enough to impress Microsoft's people when I was there at Redmond.  I was against having this feature put in because I was convinced that such a thing couldn't be done without it being a pig.  But on my ThinkPad T42 laptop, it was fast enough that if there's a performance hit, I couldn't tell.  But it is certainly going to require a modern video card. And obviously, anyone who still thinks WindowBlinds is slow might as well wait until they save up enough allowance money to buy a Pentium class machine.

WindowBlinds 5's other big feature is something called "Deep Skinning" which we'll talk about more when we get closer.  And of course, being able to neat things on Windows Vista is a big goal.  The StyleVista project is part of our effort to find out what can and can't be done with the Windows Vista compositer.  For those of you in a cave, Windows Vista is the name of Microsoft's next version of Windows (previously referred to as "Longhorn").

Speaking of Windows Vista, there's a lot to debate about in the coming months about what WinCustomize should and shouldn't support.  On XP, we took the position that .msstyles were out of bounds because every .msstyles file is a Windows XP system file modified (every msstyle file out there is a patched version of luna.msstyles, a copyrighted file).  That's why there's no msstyles here on WinCustomize. On logons and boot screens, Stardock developed freeware that let people apply their own files to what's on other people's systems -- thus avoiding what other websites have done (pass around logonui.exe's and Windows kernel files).  That's something that we've had to suffer through since they are in significant demand and msstyles that are imported into WindowBlinds (via SkinStudio) run faster than they do when people patch their system files to get them to run.  But let's remember, at the end of the day, WinCustomize is still a "business".  And so not having msstyles on put WinCustomize at a severe disadvantage. 

So what about Windows Vista?  Windows Vista has a new .msstyles format.  It's not the same as what's in Windows XP which means those .msstyles that are floating around won't work (unless you have WindowBlinds and SkinStudio -- ironically).  The new .msstyles format isn't easily skinnable though.  In XP, the format was fully documented and in the clear.  It's not on Longhorn.  So it's not definite whether people will be able to make new .msstyles.  And by new, I mean not just replacing the graphical resources in it (that can be done but they results would be a zillion different Aero-glass like things).  But regardless of how much or how little .msstyles in Windows Vista can be modified, shoudl we support them here at WinCustomize?

Stardock has to deal with that question as well.  It's not commonly know but the first company to create third-party msstyles was Stardock.  In May 2001, Stardock figured out how to let people run third-party msstyles. The feature was going to be incorporated into "WindowBlinds XP".  It didn't require patching uxtheme.dll to make it work either (not in memory or on disk).  But Microsoft asked Stardock not to do so as they were concerned about branding and support issues if people were making their own msstyles.  "MSStyles is not designed for third party use." Stardock was told and so the feature was removed.  Half a year later, uxtheme patching came out and some companies have even released $20 programs that do little more than patch uxtheme.dll and Stardock had to go through a msstyles vs. WindowBlinds debate for the past 4 years even though it could have had both msstyles and WindowBlinds together in a single package from day one.

This time around, Stardock is intent on making sure that sort of thing doesn't happen again. StyleVista or some other free program may be developed that lets users apply .msstyles (or some other format that doesn't suffer from the copyright issues that .msstyles do). But whatever it's called, a free mechanism of some kind is likely to be developed to let people do what is possible to do with the built in engine.  WindowBlinds is $20 because it provides its own skinning engine that has vastly more features.  The idea that some users have paid $20 to patch a byte of memory in uxtheme.dll to use the built in engine is appalling.

Meanwhile, the Dangeruss project continues. MikeB has been going through Dangeruss's skins (with permission) and updating them to WindowBlinds 4.6 level. The results have been fantastic.  Personally, I'm waiting for Driftwood, possibly my all-time favorite skin. It's 5 years old now but if you check it out, you can see the real creativity there (insert random potshot at msstyles here).  This is why millions of people run WindowBlinds.

One thing that has been eating up a lot of time is PowerUser.TV.  We teamed up with the Neowin guys to make this.  I'd love to see more WinCustomize participation on that.  There's an IRC channel #poweruser.tv on irc.stardock.com.  Your WC UserID and PW will work on the website.  We plan to highlight some skinning stuff in the next week or so.  If you want to support us, the best thing you can do is to: A) Subscribe to PowerUser.TV on iTunes. Just click HERE to do that. And vote for us on PodCastAlley by clicking HERE.  Also, if we want to get more WinCustomize coverage on it, we need more WinCustomize user participation in the comments area and its forums.

Speaking of participation, we are going to be doing a major WinCustomize community overhaul soon.  That is, Stardock is going to be turning more of the site's duties over to the community.  We'll be needing over a dozen volunteer moderators in the coming weeks.  People who are active on WinCustomize.com's forums and comments areas and who know how to write.  WinCustomize gets over 3 million unique visitors monthly, it's a great place to build up a resume on. And we need your help.  Speaking of commenting, we will soon be displaying the top commentators on WinCustomize.  People who post on the news items, comment on skins, and comment on the forums.  Top users will be eligible for various prizes.  There will also be bonus points to those who make insightful comments and such (apprentices on up will be able to reward users with bonus points).  If you've ever read any Harry Potter books, one might look at it as the House Cup where people get points for their activities.

And to continue this rambling affair, another cool thing released last week was Gef's DesktopX theme - Office Extreem. It's a really fantastic work-oriented desktop environment. Speaking of DesktopX, the DesktopGadgets.com site is nearly ready to go up.  Still doing beta testing on it now. The site's developed, it just has to be tested as it's like creating a whole, Amazon.com like store.  Our hope is that people will come to realize just how powerful DesktopX is.  I'm biased but other widget software is much less featured in what they can do in terms of real application development.  Heck, DesktopX supports embedded ActiveX controls. Nobody else can do that kind of thing even close.  There's a cool Windows Vista browser gadget that makes use of an IE ActiveX control that demonstrates the kinds of things you can do.  There's a whole world beyond weather widgets and RSS readers and clocks.

Boxxi made a cool DesktopX widget for WinCustomize.com called LCDeep. It displays the newest skins available on WinCustomize. Another skinner who is on a roll is Solid Nuts. He has been putting out some great stuff.

Anyway, this is long enough.  To keep up with what's happening on WinCustomize.com, make sure you are subscribed to the news letter which you can do from your WinCustomize.com account.

Linus Torvald has trademarked the name Linux and has moved forward to ask companies using the name to pay a trademark fee.

Late last week, an Australian company started pursuing companies using the name with the demand that they pay a $5,000 fee to use it.

The problem is, trademarks are not designed to protect companies. Trademarks exist to protect consumers from confusion. In this way, they are different from patents. One cannot treat a trademark the same as a patent.

At this stage, Linux has an uphill battle as a mark because it's been so widely used for something that is, after all, advocated for its freeness. Instead, the strategy should be to look to those who have a vested interest in in Linux meaning something definitive to contribute to a legal defense fund for the mark. Trademark enforcement is very expensive and because of how long the name has been floating around in use, it could be expensive to protect it.

A Linux mark institute has been set up to try to coordinate efforts on the mark. The question is, is it too little too late or can Linux, as a name, be effectively protected at this stage?

Episode 3 of PowerUser.tv, the collaboratoin between Neowin.net and WinCustmize.com to create a cool podcast.  This week's episode talks about all kinds of stuff including CNN getting the latest Windows worm -- LIVE on the air, and Google losing to Geiko in court over trademarks and search terms.

So what the heck are we doing? Sure has been quiet on our part eh?

As the beta schedule indicates, beta 3 is due out soon.  In fact, it's due out this month.  So what sort of things can you expect? 

There's been a lot of changes over the past couple of months.  The ships look dramatically diifferent. The AI is starting to play the game - not well but is playing - and the first signs of basic play balance are going in.

We've had to make some...hard decisions in what we do and don't want to do.  Some good and some will be disappointing.

On the good side, the diplomacy, which won't be in beta 3, is going to be more sophisticated than in galCiv 2.  But probably not in the way one might think.  It's going to be sophisticated in the sense of the underlying AI in there.  We've developed a series of tools that allow us to have a lot more depth in how the player interacts with the AI players.

In GalCiv 1, you HAD to play as human. So all the text we precanned for dealing with humans.  But in GalCiv II, there's 10 civilizations and you can play as any one of them.  But we didn't want generic behavior from the AI.  So we made tools that lets each player have different reactions for each possible combination (10X10 grid X 3 for Good, Neutral, and Evil).  that means 300 different possible behaviors!  A LOT of work.  But what it means is that if you decide to play as the Torians and you are dealing with the Drengin, the Drengin will speak -- use different language -- than it would if you were a different race.

We felt this was important in giving the game an organic feel and increasing replayability.

..So what's the bad news? We had to jetison a feature that we just can't seem to get the playbalancing working out with -- space debris.  They may come back in some future expansion but the mining of asteroids and such was proving to be very difficult to balance with the rest of the game.  That is -- what's the player's focus? Improving planets or mining asteroids and other interstellar stuff?  This wasn't in GalCiv 1 so there wasn't any theoretical basis for balancing it well.  Worse, there's also the AI issue -- even once we did figure out a proper balance and context for asteroids and such, then the AI has to be developed to make use of them.

In GalCiv 1, the AI was IMO (and I wrote it) horrible at dealing with starbases because starbases weren't implemented until Beta 4 (the October 2002 beta) and there just wasn't enough time to develop proper strategies. 

I do still hope we can put some sort of space debris in there like asteroid fields and such.  But they won't be something you can get money and resources from.  The planets will remain the focus for that as well as the galactic resources from GalCiv I.

Another thing we're working on is improving the look of the ships.  We're almost done with the bump mapping of ships and we have specular lighting in.  We're pretty happy with how that's turned out but we'll learn qiuckly how compatible they are. 

We've made a lot of usability tweaks to the UI that we think you'll like.  Other places we're still struggling with.

Stability is much better than in beta 2 but as we add features, we inevitably run into other problems of course which we'll iron out.

One thing we think you'll be happy with is that all our output data is in XML.  NO BINARY files so if you want to change all the text or mess with the values, you will be able to do that all you want.  And unlike in galCiv 1, the metaverse games will use a different set of vlaues so you can customize your games for your single player games all you want and then when you play the metaverse it uses data from our servers.

If you have any specific questions, let us know.

Last year the family and I tried to go to Higgins Lake for vacation.  I can't find the blogs on it. Which reminds me, we need a calendar interface for accessing blogs as I know when I blogged about it.

Anyway, it was a bit of a disaster. The cabin we rented was supposed by be "by the beach" but I think they meant "by the beech" as in tree.  It was across a fairly busy street from a dirty wad of sand.

This year, we didn't even try to get something next to the beach.  We opted for a bit more comfort and we'd just drive to the state park.  That's worked well so far.  Now the only problem is that I can't turn off my brain.  Lots of interesting things going on at work that I want to work on.

For instance, the podcasting stuff is going well.  And we just released a beta of a program called StyleVista.  And of course, things with Galactic Civilizations II are reaching a climax as we start heading towards the final parts of development - only 4 months left to finish it!  And in between all this there's all kind of interesting things with Windows Vista, WindowBlinds and Object Desktop in general.

So anyway, I'm thinking about that stuff instead of relaxing.  Is that so bad?

I listened to a lot of podcasts on the way up north today and have some ideas I'd like to share.

The Podcsts

1) I like our segment based system but think when we get more episodes going we should redo the RSS to be by episode instead of by segment.

2) I think we should release our episodes on Monday morning EST.  So even if we finish everything on Friday, wait until Monday to actually launch it so that we aren't "end of week" stuff.  This would start once we have 5 episodes.

3) I think we should have a Sponsors section where the Neowin and WC BUTTONs should go on the right side of the page.  This way, we may be able to eventually pick up more sponsors.  Neowin and WC have a lot of friends who might be willing to help push Poweruser.tv in exchange for linkage.

4) To do good episodes, we couldn't just link the 3 segments together. The intro to each segment would have to be tweaked. I.e. right now segments have their own intro.

5) I think one of the segments should be called "Tech Round Table" in which Kristin and 3 guests basically "shoot the shit" about whatever they think is interesting to power users.  It could be tlak about the latest sci-fi movie, a good book we've read, a new computer case we'v emessed with, whatever. 

6) We would need to make use of the "bookmark" feature on iTunes so people could pick and choose which segments, etc.

7) Overlal format would thus be 3 9-12 min segments and 1 15 minute round-table segment.  

8) Once the channel system is up and running, one of the other team members could create a whole seperate sub-set of podcasts they want.  Then powerUser.tv could pick amongst several podcasts each week to include in the episode.

Example:

www.poweruser.tv would pick one or two of its segments from:

• powergamer.poweruser.tv
• hardware.poweruser.tv
• neocommunity.poweruser.tv
• underyourskin.poweruser.tv
• softwarethoughts.poweruser.tv
• TweakWin.poweruser.tv

Each of these channels would be its own show with its own unique RSS feed.  And www.poweruser.tv could syndicate some of these segments with the show.  With editing, Kristin would be the overall host of the show with other segments being hosted by panel leaders or something.

9) I think our round table thing should involve a IRC channel where people would know that we do our round table at a set time each week and that people could join an IRC question and suggest things to talk about, etc. and we could then say "Xirvon on our IRC channel is asking what we think about the Google/Microsoft hiring lawsuit.."  This in turn encourages people to want to participate and helps motivate our audience that they're part of the show.

From the first screenshots of Aero-Glass back awhile back, we knew that people would, after getting over the initial coolness of it, want to be able to have control over the color of active and inactive windows.

Moreover, as cool as the semi-transparent glass is, some people would want to tweak how transparent they are.  For example, maybe have the active window fully solid and inactive windows be a bit transparent.

And so was born the idea of StyleVista.  The name says it all -- it styles Windows Vista. 

And so here we are with the first beta.  Please let us know if you run into any problems.