Macromedia Flash is very popular on the Web.  It's used for creating advertisements, multimedia presentations, and even games.  It's designed to live on the web.  But wouldn't it be cool to marry Flash's multimedia abilities with the customization powers seen in widgets?  The answer is, you can with DesktopX.  With DesktopX you can take a flash object and embed it into a DesktopX object and the two will work seamlessly.

For my quick example I'm gong to take a Tetris.swf file and combine it with a DesktopX object. Bear in mind, if you're going to use .swf files you need to make sure you have permission (or see if it's freely distributable) before you start distributing it around.  So first you find your .swf (flash) file. 

So innocent, these two objects have no idea what's going to be happening to them soon...

Now, you'll want to create two objects. The first one is your background, the second one is the one that will contain the .swf file. For the background, I've created a quickie Tetrisy like background. Remember, I suck when it comes to art. So I'm sure you can do better.

Oh the shame of my background. But let's not worry too much about how ugly my background. Pretend it was rendered and looks fantastic.

Now comes the really interesting part:  Embedding files into a DesktopX object. On the summary page there is a "custom files" button.  Press that button and add in your files:

So now I have the flash file in there. The next step is to make that object actually use them. So I go back to the general tab and press the "New" script button.

Once I'm in the script editor, I go to the script menu and select the Microsoft Web Browser ActiveX control. Then I add one line:

This line tells my Microsoft Web Browser control to navigate to the object directory (where DesktopX keeps embedded files) and open the tetris.swf file

At this point, I have an itty bitty Tetris game appearing.  You manipulate ActiveX controls in DesktopX with the CTRL key (we'll be making this user definable in the future). So holding down the CTRL key I move and resize my object on top of my ugly background.  Then I select them both and group them.

And voila:

Like I said, it's kind of ugly but you get the idea.  Obviously the ultimate combination is if you know how to make Flash files as now you have an interesting way to embed them.  Or if you don't want to embed them but rather use them to drive people to your site, you can have the browser object link to your web server that has the .swf file and then add controls onto your DesktopX widget that drives people to your website.  This provides a whole new avenue for distributing Flash content.  Of course, you could create the game with DesktopX using scripting.  DesktopX doesn't currently support vector drawing natively but any sort of bitmap based game (Tetris, Pac-Man, etc.) could be done with DesktopX. 

But the goal of DesktopX isn't to try to force developers into using a proprietary system but rather let them exploit their existing skills much more effectively.

You can get DesktopX at www.desktopx.net.

Yesterday's court ruling in which companies can force on-line journalists to reveal sources could have a dramatic impact on the world of on-line news.

Consider the ramifications, the ruling states that a company (such as Apple or Microsoft or whomever) can demand that a website that has broken a story about something that was confidential (or under NDA) has to reveal its sources to that company.

This is something that print journalists don't have to worry about. Two years ago, when someone leaked that the wife of a white house critic was working for the CIA, the Washington Post journalist was not required to present who his source was. In other words, even when it potentially affected national security, journalists weren't forced to reveal sources.

However, on-line news sources, such as Neowin, could face having to reveal its sources to any corporate entity that deems the information on the site to be confidential.

This ruling, if it stands, could give immense weight to corporations who want to control what information is provided from news sites.

Microsoft announced yesterday that they are planning to kill access to the MSN Service via MSN for Mac OS X software from May 31st onwards.

In a statement to customers and press, Microsoft is advising customers to "access MSN services and features with their preferred browser and by setting up a My MSN page as a portal to their favorite online destinations." Customers will still be able to use the MSN Messenger service but will be unable to use MSN Explorer for Mac OS X. It's not clear what prompted this action but it's widely thought that the MSN Service isn't that popular on the Mac platform.

For months users have been protesting against MSN for their lack of support for MSN software on Mac OS X. This latest move will likely be a knock to MSN software and support for the Mac and may lead to further announcements.

(hat tip to Neowin.net).

DesktopX is about being able to take your Windows desktop and add stuff beyond icons. And it does this by letting you add objects to the Windows desktop.  What is done with those objects, depends on the user.  You can take those objects and put them together and build an entirely new desktop. Or you could put them together into a mini-application and export them as a widget.

Widgets have become pretty popular because they take up less memory than a normal program but can do the same kinds of things as a program.  And enough time has passed that a few common widgets have emerged -- clocks, calendars, weather monitors, stock tickers, MP3 players, etc. 

In most "widget" enabling programs, all widgets are created in a scripting language (JavaScript or VB Script typically).  This is good but it does require that the person making the widget be reasonably technically knowledgeable.

But if we know what kinds of widgets people are making, can we not make it a bit easier? That's where the "Additional Abilities" feature of DesktopX come in. Additional abilities come in the form of plugins. Plugins take care of most of the work for the widget developer and typically provide a GUI configuration to allow developers to determine the specific functionality of their objects without coding.

One plugin that has been heavily revamped for DesktopX 3 is DXPlayer.  DXPlayer was designed to make it much easier to create media players with DesktopX.  In fact, it is easier to create really slick looking MP3 players with DesktopX than it is to create them using Winamp 5 (modern) or Windows Media Player.

Let's take a look at just how easy that is.

The first step is to create a DesktopX object.

Now we need to give our object an image. This is just a matter of getting a PNG file. So here's a play PNG image.

For my "play" button I want to have a mouse down state. No problem, very easy.

Next, I want to create my other objects. To save time, I'll right click on my play button object and clone it a few times and assign them images.

So here's where we're at. I've got a background image and 3 buttons.  Next I'll create the track name text.

So I create the object, go to the states tab, on appearance I make it a "text" object. Then I change its color to be white.
 

Now it's time to start making these buttons and things to something. So I go back to the general tab on each object, press the "add button" and pick the "DXPlayer" plugin.

Now I select it and press "Configure". The first button I choose play, the next one I choose "pause/resume" and the last button I choose "Next".

For the text, I don't want it to be a button but rather a text display so I choose that from the combo box and then choose "track name".

Now I group them together.

And finally export it as a widget.

The DXPlayer plugin already supports Winamp, iTunes, CoolPlayer, ObjectMedia, or an Internal player which requires no external media player at all but rather works with the OS directly. It typically makes sense to let DXPlayer choose what to use so that other people will be able to easily use it with whatever their media player of choice is.  But obviously if you want it to be stand-alone you'll want it to be internal.

Now obviously this is a very simple player. There are MP3 players with play lists, equalizers, album pictures, animations, etc.  But you get the idea.

Here's my final widget, total time taken (including taking screenshots): ~ 3 minutes.

The ability for developers to pick between plugins (or even make their own plugins) or do it in script is one of the major advantages of using DesktopX.  Over time, hopefully third party developers will create plugins (the plugin development guide can be found here). But Stardock plans to create more as well over time. There's plugins for creating resource meters of various kinds, clocks (one reason we have so many clocks, and several other kinds). 

Have fun!

I stumbled across a song called "Sugar" from Imperial Teen.  I really like the song but I had a hard time telling what the lyrics were.  But the mind, at least mine, fills in the blanks with its own lyrics. And so my mind filled in lyrics that turned it into a pretty romantic song.

But it was bugging me, what are the lyrics to that song? Well it turns out these are:

You can be white
I can be brown again
We have to go hide
'Cause your mother's in town again

And I wanna take you home
And I wanna take you back

I'm on the ground
You're in the air again
Releasing the hounds
You wanted a harlequin

And I wanna take you home
And I wanna take you back

And I wanna take you home
And I wanna take you back (Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)

I'm cutting the wire (Sugar sugar)
There's nobody listening (Sugar sugar)
Slashing the tires (Sugar sugar)
Made you late for the christening (Sugar sugar)

And I wanna take you home
And I wanna throw you back
And I wanna take you home
And the screen just turns to black

It's hot, it's warm, it's cool, all right
I kiss, you take another bite
You said, "Just stay away from light"
Down here I'm not afraid of height

And I wanna take you home
'Cause I wanna take it back
And I wanna take you home
And the screen just turns to black (Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)
(Sugar sugar)

Huh? What the hell does that mean? That sounds like nonsense! So then I started looking at other songs I liked but couldn't quite hear the lyrics. It turns out that many many songs have utterly ridiculous, nonsensical lyrics. Maybe there's a deeper meaning that is personal to the artist. But it's amazing that people can put together great music but can't write coherent lyrics that seem to go anywhere beyond just rhyming.

Even popular songs you hear end up doing that. Avril Lavigne's "My happy ending" uses the word "dead" to rhyme with the word..."dead". Huh? You couldn't think of more words that rhyme with dead that you end up using the word dead twice?

Luckily they're judged on the music and not the lyrics, because they may be good song writers but poets..they are not.

Jakub from Firing Squad is very familiar with Galactic Civilizations and Stardock. He has a very in depth interview with regards to the game along with some choice screenshots.

In the good old days, the only things that lived on your desktop were icons.  Ah, icons. So safe and predictable. Icons, after all, are all static pictures that are typically 32 pixels wide and 32 pixels tall.

When DesktopX 1 was released 5 years ago, a new type of content was added to the Windows desktop - objects.  Objects could be any shape or size.  And that was great for people who wanted to create their own stuff.  But most users want some conformity.  In recent years, mini-applications called "widgets" now populate the desktops of many users.  And the best widgets tend to follow a consistent style.

For DesktopX 3, Stardock wanted to go with its own, unique look for how the included "widget" content would be done.  So we sat down and looked at what was available.  Most widgets tend to have a "glassy" look to them. The style we were most influenced by was the "Aero" look from Microsoft's upcoming "Longhorn".  But we didn't just want to take the Aero-style. We wanted our DesktopX widgets to have their own distinctive look and feel.

So Scott Tykoski (BoogieBac) and Paul Boyer (Mormegil) came up with "Silica".  A crystallized design that is used throughout many of the included DesktopX 3 widgets.

While many of the DesktopX 3 widgets include a user interface for changing the color, they can also have their color changes from their preference dialog. Below you can see an example of the generic properties dialog that every widget gets. The second page even lets users assign a hot key for bringing up their widgets or hiding them all (if you're worried about getting your desktop "cluttered" have no fear.

One of the new features of DesktopX 3 is the ease developers can add their own custom preference page to the widget properties page. This is useful on things like Disk space meters where the user might want to display the space free on a particular hard disk.

Obviously, coming up with any particular style for the widgets is tricky. Even picking the right size is important.  We had felt that too many DesktopX widgets were far far too big.  The Silica widgets tend to be quite small in size. Usability over flash.

Hopefully users will find the design of the Silica widgets to be both aesthetically pleasing and very useful.

Stardock also hopes (And gives permission) for widget authors to freely use the Silica artwork for the creation of DesktopX widgets so that users can look forward to a consistent look and feel for their desktops.

Stardock has put the BETA version of DesktopX 3 Standard onto Object Desktop (via Stardock Central). This version is a warm-up towards Monday's release and is nearly feature complete with just a few more tweaks left before next Tuesday's official launch.

DesktopX is a program that enables users to enhance their Windows desktops by adding new content to it in the form of desktop objects and widgets (the Windows desktop traditionally only supports static images called "icons").  In addition, users can use DesktopX to build entirely new desktops.  Stardock will also be releasing DesktopX 3 Pro next week which adds the ability to export content as "gadgets" (stand-alone programs that can be used by any Windows 2000 or Windows XP user).  A new website called DesktopGadgets.com is being developed to enable gadget developers to create premium gadgets in which they can submit them, name their price, and if they pass moderation be available for sale.

Users who have pre-ordered DesktopX are expected to be able to start receiving their orders the night before the official release.

DesktopX 3 has a vast number of major improvements that have been in development for a long while.  Some of the highlights include:

• Vastly easier to use interface.  Now users who just want to use widgets, objects, and desktops created by others can do that without interacting with the sophisticated DesktopX developer environment.
• A new program called "Widget Manager" is included that provides quick access to widgets that are installed.
• A whole batch of brand new widgets modeled after Microsoft's Aero but with Stardock's own spin called "Silica".
• Widgets can have their own custom preference dialogs.
• User Interface threading -- scripts and the objects they are part of run synchronously. This allows DesktopX developers to create much.
• Lots of enhancements to ActiveX controls which can now be used seamlessly with other DesktopX objects (so every COM object on your Windows PC can be treated like a DesktopX object potentially).
• Centralized script development. Before each object that needed any scripting logic had to have its script associated with it. In DesktopX 3, scripts can easily access and manage messages for object objects (and can create and destroy objects as well).
• Scripts can access particular frames of animation (this is a big deal because now someone can make a bitmap strip of animation frames and access a particular frame and show it).
• Text objects will word wrap.
• Lots and lots of fixes, usability enhancements, etc. (Users who create desktops should be particularly pleased with enhanced system tray support, better taskbar support, etc.)
• Much faster performance and uses less memory.

If you already have Object Desktop, just go to Stardock Central to get it (v2.99b.003). If you don't have Object Desktop you can purchase it here (Object Desktop includes WindowBlinds, IconPackager, SkinStudio, ObjectBar, as well as DesktopX and many other programs).

We are currently aiming for a March 24th release date for the BETA (that means test version) of Galactic Civilizations.  For those of you who haven't been through a Stardock beta program before, our betas tend to be much earlier on than what is the norm.

Most betas, by definition, are "feature complete" with only bugs to fix.  Stardock's beta programs have traditionally encompassed both the alpha phase (early development) phase and beta (late development) phase.  This is so that our beta testers have the maximum amount of time to provide input into the game and give us the maximum amount of time to react (for example, the star bases from Galactic Civilizations I came from beta tester suggestions).

The first beta will primarily be about trying out the new 3D engine.  It uses the latest DirectX 9 features (and ironically one of the really new features of DirectX 9 is seamless True Type support which will let us support any language easily).

On March 15th, Stardock will be releasing DesktopX 3. We are using DesktopX to create the entire UI environment in the game (there is literally a directory full of .dxpacks that can be opened and modified via DesktopX - total customization of how the game will look beyond anything that has been seen before).  So players will be able to play around with this as well.

This first beta release won't have most of the key features in the game. For instance, star bases aren't in yet.  We mainly want to see how well the game runs on your computers and find out what configurations are having problems with the game.  The star ships, while 3D, won't have textures on them yet. The final game will look quite a bit better than what you will see in the beta. To get an idea of where Galactic Civilizations 1 looked like at this point see THIS for what it looked like for beta 1 and THIS for what the game looked like when it was done.

HERE is a screenshot of what the game looked like last week.

So two weeks from today we expect to have the first bete available to those who have PRE-ORDERED the game or have active TotalGaming.net subscriptions.  It is through pre-orders that we are able to maintain our independence of the larger publishers and be able to deliver games in the way we do.

We had a logic error that prevented non-admins from creating photo albums that we resolved today.  Anyway, now if you're a WinCustomize premium subscriber, you can now create your own photo albums.

We're currently in the process of migrating servers across the country to Chicago so there may be some slowness on the personal pages while we transit (then it should become quite fast). You can check out my personal photo album at the link below.