Quick recap: DesktopX is a program designed to extend Microsoft Windows to support additional content. By default, only one thing sits on your desktop - icons.  DesktopX lets people add desktop objects (think "super icons"), widgets (mini-programs that sit on your desktop), or build entirely new desktops (.desktop) files.

DesktopX 3 is designed to make doing all this easier than ever and adds a ton of new features. Moreover, DesktopX Pro supports creating stand-alone programs called "gadgets". So now you can take your creations, export them as a gadget and give them to anyone running Windows 2000 or XP (and soon Longhorn).

Here's a quick tour of what DesktopX 3 brings..

The most obvious change will be immediate. This is the new DesktopX interface. Users will be able to pick what they want to do from the start.

For users who just want to run widgets, DesktopX 3 includes a simple system tray program that lets users manage their widgets. DesktopX widgets don't require any sort of "environment" to be already running (once DesktopX is installed you can just run widgets like programs). But this tiny program lets you manage your widgets really conveniently.

The second option is the "Load object" option. Desktop objects are similar to widgets except they all run together in a single environment saving memory. As a result, they are primarily used as "super icons".

(loading some desktop objects onto my desktop)

The third option, "Load Desktop" is for people who want to load an alternative desktop (like the one below). 

So up to this point, these are the things you will be able to do with DesktopX Client (the $14.95 Run-Time). It also comes with Object Desktop. 

But if you want to edit or create your own content, that's where DesktopX 3 Standard comes in ($24.95). That's where the 4th option comes: "Create".

The DesktopX Builder is the environment for creating objects, widgets, and desktops. It's also needed for modifying existing content. So unless all the content you download is exactly as you want it, you'll still want the standard version of DesktopX. DesktopX 3 Standard will also come with Object Desktop.

It is DesktopX Builder that users can create new objects and widgets and desktops that they can share with others.

Because DesktopX Builder is separate from the end user portions, it is a much simpler experience for the developer. They can focus purely on the development aspects. The settings they put in become part of the theme itself.

When a user is done, they can export an individual object (.dxpack), widget (.exe) , or an entire desktop (.desktop) for others to use.

And lastly, if you have DesktopX Pro, you get an additional export option: Export as a gadget.

Stardock will be launching DesktopGadgets.com this Spring to enable developers to submit their gadgets.  The developer chooses the price they want to sell them at (or give them away for free) and once it passes moderation it becomes available with DesktopGadgets.com and the developer splitting the proceeds.

Now, all that you see here so far are just the user experience differences.  There has been tons of code changes to DesktopX.

Here are some more highlights that long time DesktopX users can appreciate:

• UI Threading. The biggest engine change is that DesktopX 3 scripts are synchronized with the user interface. That means when something is done in the script, DesktopX acts on it immediately. This eliminates the timing headaches many widget developers ran into and allows for real-time widget behaviors.

• Centralized scripts. In DesktopX 2, each object that made up a widget had to have scripting associated with that particular object. That could make things quite complicated to developer.  Developers can still choose to do this, but now developers can do the whole thing from a single script. That includes creating objects, deleting objects, handling callbacks for other objects, etc.

• On-The-Fly states. DesktopX 3 allows for new states to be added to other objects from a remote script and be handled from that same remote script.

• Custom Preference Dialogs.  Developers can now add a preferences page to a widgets properties dialog for their own settings.

• Third party DesktopX API extensions.  Developers can create plugins that add new APIs that are accessible from scripts. So if there is some feature we didn't think of, developers can fill in those gaps. No other program of this type can do this.

• New options for text handling (word-wrap for instance).

• Clipboard control from script. This is actually a pretty big deal. Many "widgets" look neat but can't interact with the system clipboard. Now it'll be easy for developers to put clipboard support into their widgets.

• API wrapping. Stardock is working to make all the relevant Windows APIs available via script. Not all of this will be in 3.0 but the start of it will be.
   

These things may sound a bit "techie" but they will allow for much far-reaching content.  The goal of DesktopX 3 is to make widgets much more mainstream and to deliver widgets that are more than a collection of desktop toys. There are all kinds of very useful, innovative things waiting to be made but the widget enabling programs have to support them. DesktopX 3 will be the most powerful environment for this kind of thing.

We will also be working on the new .desktop format that will support better system tray support (through a new, improved MCP) and 64bit support as soon as we can.

DesktopX 3's home page is www.desktopx.net. Release date: March 15.

ObjectBar 2, one of the key features of Stardock Object Desktop, has long been waiting for its major update. The next beta, due out just after DesktopX 3's release will natively support DesktopX 3 widgets as part of a ObjectBar bar.

This is significant because every other "bar" like program that's ever been made has been limited to either plugins or what features were built into it in terms of what it could display.  When one thinks of all those various Longhorn bar type programs out there, one can imagine what becomes possible when widgets can be designed and made for a desktop bar.

It is much easier to create and customize a widget than it is to try to write some plugin or try to visually customize some element of a desktop bar program.

Stay tuned..

WinCustomize subscribers will soon be able to have their own photo albums as part of their personal pages. Users will be able to upload pictures of family, friends, their skins, whatever (within reason). What's particularly cool is how easy it is to submit images - an Explorer-like view is given of your local machine for picking photos, giving them captions and then submitting. So you can upload dozens of images at once.

See my personal page for an example.

Once JoeUser goes through its speed/architecture overhaul we plan to offer premium accounts for users.

One of the features will be photo albums. Here's an example of what they'll be like from what we are about to launch on WinCustomize.com:

http://frogboy.wincustomize.com/photos.aspx

The adding of photos is really the key though. It's incredibly slick -- a built in ActiveX control (soon to be Java) enables me to see thumbnails of images that are on my hard drives and select as many as I want, type in the captions quickly and then press a submit button where it'll put them up.

Eventually we'll enable it so that you can allow (if you want) people to comment on photos and such.

American college graduates are making themselves increasingly vulnerable to outsourcing. I'm not the only one who thinks this. A top Intel executive has expressed this concern too.

The problem is that American technology workers have a lethal combination upon graduation: A sense of entitlement and a lack of skills. 

The sense of entitlement is the from the belief that simply graduating with a degree in engineering, computer science, information technology, etc. somehow should entitle them to a high paying ($40k to $50k) job right away. 

The lack of skills has to do with the poor quality of college education these days in these fields. They don't keep up well. I've yet to meet a technology major college graduate who actually benefited from their formal "education".  The talented people we meet on the net are often in a scenario where we have to simply wait for them to finish college before hiring them.  Their degree made no difference in hiring, them, it simply delayed their hiring and slowed down their development on projects with us.

How much someone makes is dependent on how much "wealth" they produce.  A person making $40k per year has to be able to generate at least $120k in "wealth" to be fully secure in their position.

If I make a product that will make $1 million during its effective lifetime, I obviously can't spend more than that if I want to stay in business.  Since Americans don't really care that much about WHERE something is made, my products and services have to compete with products made by people all over the world (as well as with "freeware").  Look at all the people who bellyache'd last month about RightClick costing $14.95!

So how much we can pay someone is dependent on how much they produce. Typically, it takes quite awhile for someone to be able to produce high quality results in high enough quantity.  Many (most) Americans aren't willing to go without even if it's to their long-term benefit to sacrifice short-term.

When I founded Stardock, I was very poor for the first few years.  In its first year, the company made less than $15k. My (ahem) "salary" was obviously less than that.  It wasn't for a long while before I was able to make more than what I could have made had I simply taken an engineering job. But that short-term sacrifice led to greater long-term opportunities. Increasingly, I see fewer Americans willing to do that -- but I also see plenty of Europeans who are willing to.

The Americans we hire in the technology area typically start at far less for two reasons. One, because we're a fun place to work at for most people and two, because we have a consistent record of rewarding those who increase their skills and output with significant increases in salary. 

But where we can't find someone to do the job, we don't discriminate, we'll look to anyone we can do the job and that increasingly means Europeans who are willing to sacrifice short-term for long term gain.

If Americans want to make the big bucks right out of college without fear of being outsourced then they need to dramatically increase their skills. And the first step would be to get our education system improved so that college graduates don't require a few years of training before they can produce anything of real value.

As I watch my two little boys playing out in the snow, I feel a certainty at the core of my being of why I was born. Why I was put on this earth.  To be a dad.  Being a dad is what I'm best at. It is what I love doing and being more than anything else in the world (other than being a husband to my wife). 

There is nothing I'd rather be than the dad of my two sons.

Those GMail accounts have a lot of disk space available to them eh?

Well here's a program that lets you turn your Gmail account into a virtual drive that shows up in My Computer. It's pretty darn cool. Using it right now.

SAN FRANCISCO--Echoing concerns voiced by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, a top Intel executive warned on Thursday that the United States risks becoming a second-tier technology player because of a declining educational system.

"We have a lousy education system," Intel Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger said, speaking on a panel of technology leaders at the Intel Developer Forum here. "We have a weak infrastructure that is decaying."

Gelsinger noted that companies like Intel can adjust by hiring workers in other places but said the consequences for the United States could be devastating. He has noted in the past that the decline in the number of doctorates being awarded is particularly troubling.

I think it goes well beyond this. American culture is also becoming less competitive in the global market place in my opinion. The American need for instant gratification is really problematic.  Stardock, an American company, is really half European, half American. That's because many American workers want to make money really fast and in the technology indstury, particularly when dealing in emerging markets, it takes considerable up-front investment in time and energy. Many young Americans don't have the patience or willingness to make short-term sacrifices in order for long-term success.

For widget developers out there who are interested in making DesktopX 3 widgets/objects/themes early, let us know (email me at [email protected] with "DesktopX 3 Beta" as your subject).  You need to previously have submitted objects, widgets, or themes here to qualify.

For those of you who already have the DesktopX 3 beta, check the link below to let us know your experiences.