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The Political Machine  [August 2004] https://www.politicalmachine.com
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Overview
--------

Thank you for buying The Political Machine. This README file
contains information not included in the game's manual.

*** Important information for multi-player games ***

If you are using Windows XP SP2's firewall or a third-party
firewall on any supported platform, you must set it to allow
PolMachine.exe to connect to the Internet and allow traffic
on port 2509 (TCP).

Please see section 3 of this README.TXT (Multiplayer Notes)
for more information.

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Stardock Entertainment
THE POLITICAL MACHINE
August 2004
README.TXT United States of America

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Table of Contents

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1. Minimum/Recommended Specifications
2. Single Player Notes
   2.1. Quickstart
   2.2. Hotkeys
   2.3. Windowed mode
3. Multiplayer Notes
4. Known Issues
   4.1. Installing video drivers
   4.2. Installing sound drivers
   4.3. Installing DirectX
   4.4. Known problems
   4.5. Troubleshooting
5. Important Web Sites, Contact Information and Technical Support
   5.1. Technical Support
   5.2. Other Important websites
6. Legal Information
7. Copyright

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1. Minimum/Recommended specifications

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-Minimum Configuration:
 Win 98/ME/2000/XP Only
 DirectX 9.0b
 600 MHz Pentium III, AMD Athlon, or equivalent
 128 MB RAM (2000/XP users: 256 MB required)
 32MB DirectX 9.0 compatible graphics card with hardware accelerated 3D support
 DirectX 9.0 compatible sound device
 CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 2x or faster
 100MB hard drive space
 Windows-compatible mouse required
 Display device capable of supporting 1024x768

-Recommended Configuration:
 Win 98/ME/2000/XP Only
 DirectX 9.0b
 1.0 GHz Pentium 4, AMD Athlon or equivalent
 256 MB RAM
 64MB DirectX 9.0 compatible graphics card with hardware accelerated 3D support
 DirectX 9.0 compatible sound device
 CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 16x or faster
 100MB hard drive space
 Windows-compatible mouse required
 Display device capable of supporting 1024x768
 Broadband Internet connection for play PoliticalMachine.com

-Supported Video Cards at Time of Release
 GeForce(TM) 2/3/4/FX/6 families
 ATI(R) Radeon(TM) 7000/8000/9000 families
 Matrox 400-450 and Parhelia(TM)
 Hercules Kyro I & II
 Intel(R) Extreme

 These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game in 3D.  Additional
 chipsets may be supported after releasee.  For an up-to-date list of supported
 chipsets, please visit the FAQ for this game on our support website at:
 http://support.ubi.com

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2. Single Player Notes

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2.1. Quickstart
 Left-click to select your candidate or operatives.

 Right-click on a target state to move there.

 Build campaign headquarters to research the top issues in a given state,
 raise funds, and increase awareness.

 Create ads tailored to the most important issues in battleground states.

 Use political operatives and endorsements to pump up your campaign and
 counter your opponent.

 Remember: at the end of the campaign, winning is a question of electoral math.

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2.2. Hotkeys

-State Action Hotkeys
 1 - Create Ad (unhides the window)
 2 - Campaign
 3 - Raise Funds
 4 - Headquarters
 6 - State Details

-Map View Hotkeys
 F1 - Normal Mode
 F2 - Awareness
 F3 - Wealth
 F4 - Electoral Votes
 F5 - Polling Data
 F6 - Liberals / Conservatives
 F7 - Popular Vote
 F8 - Political Strategy

-Map Hotkeys
 C        - Select Player's Candidate Icon
 TAB      - Cycle through Assets (Operatives, Ads, Headquarters, ect.)
 Spacebar - Request New Week

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2.3. Windowed mode - UNSUPPORTED

-To run PM in a window on your desktop (with a desktop resolution
 of greater than 1024x768), modify the shortcut to load the game to
 have a parameter of 'w'. e.g. "c:\PolMachine\PolMachine.exe w"

 This is unsupported, as is Alt-Tab/Alt-Esc'ing away from the game,
 but should work well for most configurations.

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3. Multiplayer Notes (Broadband Internet connection required)

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-Firewall/NAT configuration
 To join a multiplayer game from behind a firewall or NAT, you must
 open TCP port 2509 and forward it to your machine (if applicable).

-Firewalls in general and Windows XP Service Pack 2
 To join a multiplayer game, you must configure your firewall to
 allow PolMachine.exe to access the Internet.

 With Windows XP Service Pack 2, the included Windows Firewall is
 activated by default. You can add an exception for PolMachine.exe
 via Control Panel / Network Connections / Local Area Connection /
 Properties / Advanced / Settings / Exceptions. Use the Add Program...
 and Add Port... buttons to Browse to PolMachine.exe AND allow
 communication over TCP port 2509.

-Difficulty setting
 As you are not playing against the computer AI, the Difficulty
 setting has no impact on multiplayer games.

-Highscores
 Highscores are not tracked for multiplayer games.

-ESRB Notice
 ESRB Notice: Game Experience May Change During Online Play

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4. Known Issues

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4.1. Installing video drivers

If you experience any graphical problems, please install the latest video
drivers available for your video card. Links to the most popular video cards
manufacturers are available at the bottom of this document.

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4.2. Installing sound drivers

If you experience any sound problems, please install the latest sound
drivers available for your sound card. Links to the most popular sound cards
manufacturers are available at the bottom of this document.

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4.3. Installing DirectX

The Political Machine required DirectX 9.0b to run properly. This is included
on the CD in the SUPPORT\DIRECTX folder or please visit:
 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads

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4.4. Known Problems

-ACE Mega CoDecS
 Installation of the ACE Mega CoDecS Pack from the Internet is
 unsupported and may cause elements of the game (like the intro movie)
 to function abnormally.

-Music keeps restarting
 Other codec packs or media players may overwrite or unregister default
 system codecs that are used for playing music in PM. In some cases,
 reinstalling these applications may fix up any codec conflicts.

 https://www.stardock.com/files/ms_mp3codec.exe can be downloaded to
 attempt to reregister your system codecs.

-Missing unit display on main map
 Older ATI Radeon drivers had a bug with display the graphics on
 the main map. Update to Catalyst 4.5 or later and this will be corrected.

-Intro movie on secondary monitor
 The intro movie will not play if you are playing the game on
 a secondary monitor (e.g. with a laptop having a second display
 configured for use in addition to the LCD).

-Weird graphics in-game
 Setting the ForceTextureUpdate=1 in PolMachine.ini will regenerate
 the texture cache the next time you run the program.

-Using all numbers for character name
 Using all numbers for your character name is not supported. Please
 start your character name with a letter or unexpected results may
 occur.

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4.5. Troubleshooting

-PolMachine.exe debug
 Modify the PM shortcut to have a parameter of 'debug' to generate
 additional information to a DEBUG.ERR file in the PM directory.
 This information may be useful to support in tracing problem reports.

 Shortcut Target: "C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Stardock\PolMachine\PolMachine.exe" debug

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5. Important Web Sites, Contact Information and Technical Support

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5.1. Technical Support

Before contacting Ubisoft's Technical Support, please browse through
our FAQ listings or search our support database at our website:
http://support.ubi.com. Here you will find the most recently updated information
since the games release.

Also please make sure that your computer meets the minimum system requirements,
as our support representatives will be unable to assist customers whose
computers do not meet these criteria.

Whenever you contact the Technical Support Department, please include the
following information or have it available if you are calling:

-Complete product title (including version number)
-Exact error message reported (if applicable) and a brief description of the
 problem you're encountering
-Processor speed and manufacturer
-Amount of RAM
-Operating system
-Video card that you are using and amount of RAM it has
-Maker and speed of your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
-Type of sound card you are using

Contact Us Over the Internet
This is the best way to contact us. Our website is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week and it contains the most up to date Technical Support information available
including patches that can be downloaded free of charge. We update the Support
pages on a daily basis so please check here first for solutions to your problems
http://support.ubi.com/.

Contact Us by E-mail
For fastest response via e-mail, please visit our website at:

http://support.ubi.com/

From this site, you will be able to enter the Ubisoft Solution Center
where you can browse through our listings of Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ),  search our database of known problems and solutions, or, for fastest
e-mail response, you can send in a request for Personal Assistance from a
Technical Support Representative.
It may take up to 72 hours for us to respond to your e-mail depending upon the
volume of messages we receive.

Contact Us by Phone
You can also contact us by phone by calling (919) 460-9778.  Note that this
number is for technical assistance only.  No hints or tips are given over the
Technical Support line.  When calling our Technical Support line, please make
sure you are in front of your computer and have all of the necessary information
listed above at hand.
Be advised that our Technical Support Representatives are available to help you
Monday-Friday from 9 am- 9 pm (Eastern Standard Time).
While we do not charge for technical support, normal long distance charges
apply.  To avoid long distance charges, or to contact a support representative
directly after these hours, please feel free to use one of the other support
avenues listed above.  E-mail issues usually receive a response within 2
business days.

Contact Us by Standard Mail

If all else fails you can write to us at:

Ubisoft Technical Support
3200 Gateway Center Blvd
Suite 100
Morrisville, NC 27560

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5.2. Other Important websites

The Political Machine's official web site:
 https://www.politicalmachine.com

Latest DirectX Runtime:
 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads

Latest ATI Drivers:
 http://www.ati.com

Latest NVIDIA Drivers:
 http://www.nvidia.com

Latest Matrox Drivers:
 http://www.matrox.com

Latest Creative Labs Drivers:
 http://www.creative.com

Latest Hercules Drivers:
 http://www.hercules.com

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6. Legal Information

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Developed by:
Stardock Entertainment
17292 Farmington Road
Livonia, MI 48152 USA
https://www.stardock.com

Published by:
Ubisoft
625 Third Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
http://www.ubi.com

Stardock is a registered trademark of Stardock
Systems, Inc. The Political Machine is a
trademark of Stardock Entertainment, Inc.

(c) Copyright Stardock Entertainment, Inc. 2004.
(c) Copyright Ubisoft 2004.

All trademarked names mentioned in this document
and SOFTWARE are used for editorial purposes
only, with no intention of infringing upon the
trademarks.

No part of this publication may be reproduced
without written permission from Stardock Entertainment.

All rights reserved.

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7. Copyright

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LICENCE TO USE THE MULTIMEDIA PRODUCT

Please read this Licence carefully before installing the game
("Multimedia Product"). This Licence is an agreement between you, the "User",
and Stardock Entertainment, Inc. which grants the User the non-exclusive
and non-transferable right to use the Multimedia Product. This Licence is
valid in every countries except in France, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy,
and United Kingdom. By installing the Multimedia Product, the User is
undertaking to respect the terms and conditions of the Licence.

1- The Licence

Stardock Entertainment grants the User a non-exclusive and non-transferable
Licence to use the Multimedia Product, but remains the owner of all the
rights relating thereto. Any rights not specifically transferred by this
Licence remain the property of Stardock Entertainment and/or its licensees.

The Multimedia Product is licensed and not sold to the User, for private use.

The Licence does not confer any right or title to the Multimedia Product
and cannot be understood as a transfer of intellectual property rights
to the Multimedia Product.

2- Ownership of the Multimedia Product

The User recognises that all of the rights associated with the Multimedia Product
and its components (in particular the titles, computer codes, themes, characters,
character names, plots, stories, dialogues, places, concepts, images, photographs,
animation, videos, music and text contained in the Multimedia Product),
as well as the rights relating to the trademark, royalties and copyrights,
are the property of Stardock Entertainment and/or its licensees and are
protected by national regulations or other Laws, Treaties and international
agreements concerning intellectual property.

3- Use of the Multimedia Product

The User is authorised to use the Multimedia Product in accordance with
the instructions provided in the manual or on the packaging of the
Multimedia Product. The Licence is granted solely for private use.

It is not permitted:
- To make copies of the Multimedia Product,
- To operate the Multimedia Product commercially,
- To use it contrary to morality or the laws in force,
- To modify the Multimedia Product or create any derived work,
- To transmit the Multimedia Product via a telephone network or
        any other electronic means, except during multi-player games on
        authorised networks,
- To create or distribute unauthorised levels and/or scenarios,
- To decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble the Multimedia Product.

The User cannot sell, sublicense or lease the Multimedia Product to a third party.
The User can only transfer the Multimedia Product if the recipient agrees
to the terms and conditions of the Licence. In this event, the User undertakes
to transfer all components and documentation relating to the Multimedia Product.
He also undertakes to delete any copy of the Multimedia Product from his computer.
In this event, this Licence is automatically and immediately terminated.

4- Termination of the Licence

The Licence is effective from the first time the Multimedia Product is used.
It is terminated automatically by Stardock Entertainment without notice if
the User fails to adhere to the terms and conditions of the Licence.

5- Liability
In no event can Stardock Entertainment and its licensees be held liable
for any direct, consequential, accidental, special, ancillary or other
damages arising out of the use or inability to use the Multimedia Product,
as well as out of the ownership or poor functioning thereof, even if
Stardock Entertainment and/or its licensees has been advised of the
possibility of such damages.

In particular, Stardock Entertainment and its licensees accept no liability
regarding use of the Multimedia Product contrary to the precautions for use
set out in the manual and on the packaging.

As some legislations do not allow exemption from liability in the event
of direct or incidental damages, it is possible that the aforementioned
exclusion does not apply to the User.

This Licence to use the Multimedia Product grants specific rights to the User
and he may have other rights depending on the laws in his State.

1) The retail box at the stores in August is the 1.0 version.  We are working on a 1.01 version which has enhanced multiplayer features and a saved game manager.  So if you see people talking about 1.01, they're using a version that is only available via Stardock Central to TotalGaming.net players and those who pre-ordered it. Don't sweat it, it'll be available to everyone shortly and there aren't any significant differences between them.

2) If you get a "Display Cannot be found" type error there are only two possible reasons we know for this.  1) Your video card isn't able to handle 32bit mode (some older video cards for instance).  Or 2) You're running a different version of DirectX than the game is expecting and in that event, take the safe route and download the latest DirectX from http://www.microsoft.com/directx (9.0c right now).

3) We have had reports that Service Pack 2 is causing some people graphical pain.  We are looking into this.  Our advice would be to wait a bit on SP2 as we're seeing a LOT of problems with a lot of products across the board with SP2. We'll be making adjustments to the game to ensure SP2 compatibility but it won't happen instantly.

4) IF you happen to get a crash to desktop for some reason check the debug.err file in your game directory to see if something is messed up. Installations, particularly on-line installations, sometimes have a corrupted file (sometimes as in very rarely).  If you still get a crash to desktop problem, you'll want to get Stardock Smart Exception. If you have Stardock Central, just click on the "free stuff" icon and install Smart Exception.  Otherwise you can get it at: http://storage.stardock.com/files/smartexception.exe

5) A demo version of the game should be out in the next couple of weeks. We want to button up the final 1.01 release and make that generally available to all players and then the demo should be out shortly afterwards.

6) The game should be at most retail outlets within the next week.

7) The version that we sell at PoliticalMachine.com ($29.99) is $10 more than the retail version but includes the Operatives Kit which is a way to add your own issues and TV interviewer questions.  There will be a $10 upgrade path for those users who want to get it as soon as things calm down a bit from the initial launch.

8) Yes, you can put your own pictures in for candidate pictures. They're just small PNG files (128x128 I think) thrown into the candidate images directory.

9) Make sure you have the LATEST video drivers.  Yea, everyone always says they have the latest video drivers and then after back and forth in email it's often found that no, they didn't. Thankfully DOOM 3 just came out and lots of people got the newest ATI and nVidia drivers. Trust us, they can make all kinds of weird things go away. Not just in this game but for all kinds of games.

10) You need a video card with at least 16 megs of RAM to play the game. While the map is 2D, the game is using a 3D engine. You can play the game on a very low end setup as long as your video card has 16 megs of RAM and can do 32bit color in Direct3D.

1) If you are using Windows XP SP2's firewall or a third-party firewall on any supported platform, you must set it to allow PolMachine.exe to connect to the Internet and allow traffic on port 2509 (TCP). This also means ROUTERS.  That said, you should be able to connect to other people's games and play them even behind the firewall. But hosting requires the open ports.

2) If you are playing on dial-up, slow the speed down some. Don't play at "Rabbit" speed for instance. When you play single player, experts tend to whale on various buttons in a sort of speed-dial like way. Don't do this in multiplayer if you're not hosting as you may find that lag loses some of your commands. Play deliberately. It's not an arcade game.

3) In the lobby, use the refresh game option regularly to check for games.

4) From Stardock Central (www.sdcentral.net) go to the chat area and type /join #polmachine to talk to other people including the development team.

So we went up to Higgins Lake.  Had a good time there, particularly thanks to visiting with family there.  My family isn't very large, there's not many of us. Since college, I haven't been very good at staying in touch with my family. Which is pretty lame on my part because there aren't that many people to stay in touch with.

But when my sons came along and work started to be a little less crazy, I decided it was time to start trying to provide them the sort of rich experiences my mom and dad (independently) provided to me.

Hence this year we went to South Padre Island which is where my dad used to take me and Higgins Lake which is where my mom took me.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate very well. And the cabin we rented was only 400 square foot so it wasn't exactly a fun place to spend the indoors in.  We spent a lot of time hanging out with my cousins up there which saved the day for us.  I'd like us to look for a place up there. I also think it would be a great place for my mom to retire to since she would be able to be around her family and in a place where people would have even more reason to want to visit her which I know she'd enjoy.

So we came back early. And just in time too.  The Political Machine was announced while I was gone but there was confusion on the old "shipping" vs. "general availability". On August 10th the boxes started getting shipped out to stores and to us.  On the website, Stardock is able to sell the game directly but we have to purchase our units from our publisher, Ubi Soft per our agreement.  Users who have a subscription to TotalGaming.net were able to immediately download the game. But that left an interesting scenario -- what about the people who pre-ordered just the game? With me gone at Higgins Lake, things went on according to the original plan which was that we would wait for the boxes to come in and then ship them to people who pre-ordered the game.

However, that would mean that users who pre-ordered the game would end up getting the game after people who just went to the store and picked it up. Not exactly the way we wanted our customers to be treated. And certainly not a situation that us or Ubi Soft would want users to go through. After all, the people who pre-ordered the game are our "core" customers. Their loyalty must be returned.  But luckily, because of the terrible weather, we decided to come home and once I got a handle on what happened, I authorized those who had pre-ordered to be able to download the game via Stardock Central while they wait for their boxes to arrive.  Once we have the boxes, we'll discontinue that. But to make a long story short, there was some confusion on day 1 of release. 

But when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade and that extra day allowed us to finish up some of the changes in 1.01 which adds some new features. So those users will end up being able to get the updated version with the save game manager and multiplayer lobby. So everyone wins.  So people who buy the game from PoliticalMachine.com can get the game and download it while waiting for the box -- at least until the actual boxes come in which could be as soon as tomorrow hopefully.

Everyone is excited though about the game.  Our friends at Ubi Soft and us know the game is really good. Usually these "timely" games suck.  But all bias aside, The Political Machine is one of if not the best game I've ever worked on from raw game mechanics. And I say that as the designer of Galactic Civilizations. I just find TPM very addictive.  It'll be interesting to see how it holds up in multiplayer as there's really not another game quite like it and we're not sure what will end up happening. I think it'll be fun but  it'll be interesting to see what kinds of strategies come up.

Anyway, we have no idea how well it will sell.  We do know we've done everything we can. The game quality is where we wanted it to be. As early players are finding, it's very solid so we've been able to focus on features for the "bonus pak" aka 1.01 rather than fixing "bugs".  On Friday I'll head out to Best Buy to see if it's on the shelves.  Thanks to the power of Ubi Soft, the game should be all over the place.

So that's where things are.

On August 10 The Political Machine began shipping.  What this means is literally the manufactured retail units began shipping from the manufacturer to stores and other resellers.

If you pre-ordered just The Political Machine after June 1, we expect to receive our boxes imminently at which point your orders will get charged and units sent out to you.

If you pre-order just The Political Machine before June 1, we should have the gold version available via Stardock Central for you to download right now while we wait for the retail boxes to arrive from Ubi Soft to send to you.  If you've lost your serial #, visit https://www.stardock.com/support.asp and type in your email addresss and it'll send you your information.

If you purchased a TotalGaming.net subscription then it should be available right now for download.

If you have any questions, post here and we'll try to answer as soon as possible.

The Political Machine is scheduled to be shipping to retailers today.  Those users who pre-ordered the retail package should be getting theirs shipped out to them shortly.

Those of you with TotalGaming.net should have the 1.01 version of it available later today! Have fun!

Currently on vacation up north at the lake but it's raining and I have my laptop with me with my cell phone.

Was doing some searching on the web and came across this article (below) about the liberal media bias. It's quite an interesting read.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow for a week. Hopefully the site will still be here when I get back.   The irony is that next week The Political Machine will be released. It was on CNN Headline News yesterday. I'm working on a post mortem on the game for Game Developer.  One of the things we'll be talking about is the fact that we used DesktopX to develop the game screens and then created a DirectX backend to read in the DesktopX objects and blit them in a full screen game.  But like I said, I won't be around, going to Higgins Lake Michigan. Looking forward to getting away and relaxing. 

Talisman vs. Aston...

The other day I asked if anyone knew of a good Aston vs. Talisman competitive review.  Doesn't look like there are any. So yesterday I spent a few hours playing with them both. Me commenting on other desktop customization products, especially if there's negativity, is highly inappropriate btw since I work for Stardock.  But then again, I'm always inappropriate. So you can take my opinions for what they're worth.  I used them both and I did find Aston to be significantly "better" from an end user point of view when trying out the various themes.

For Talisman, my biggest problem was that it seemed overly concerned with looking pretty rather than being useful out of the box. The biggest problem that all of these shells and shell enhancers (including OUR stuff btw) is that they generally do a poor job of letting you share your desktop with others. They always seem very specific to the original author's machine. But some are less poor than others.  Talisman seemed to me to be something that is probably pretty decent if you're creating a shell environment for yourself. But when you go and create stuff for others, things don't go as well.  The default themes had some problems on my computer. I wouldn't give it a hard time on that except these are the default themes and it was pretty basic stuff like the taskbar goofing up because I have a lot of tasks running and the system try clock looking goofy. And none of them seem to have task grouping which, I suspect, kills these shells to begin with for most users.

I'm really surprised that something that's been developed this long would have such obvious problems.  Again, I want to stress that I am not claiming to be a Talisman expert. I am just talking about loading it up and running into glitches that would happen to anyone.  Taskbar overflowing, for instance, just seems to be unforgivable in a third generation product. I'll be writing a more thorough review when I get back.

My Aston experience was much smoother with themes but it isn't fooling around about wanting to be your shell. Its taskbar features are also pretty primitive but it felt a lot snappier and less flakey than Talisman.  The included themes worked the way you would expect them to.  The only gripe I have is that one of them is an Aqua theme complete with Apple's trademarked logo which I suspect they didn't acquire a license to use.  One can forgive freeware programs for playing fast and loose with intellectual property law but commercial software needs to be at a higher standard.  If you think YOUR stuff is worth charging for, then it's probably good not to bundle other people's stuff with it. A minor quibble since the difference between bundling stuff and having it available on your library may seem like splitting hairs but I think it matters. But I doubt most people care either way.

I think the biggest difference between Aston and Talisman is that Aston feels better put together.  Talisman strikes me as something that has too much legacy code in it and they keep taping more stuff on top of it.  By contrast, Aston feels like it had a specific vision and went for it. Its interface seems more logically put together. Its system tray support seemed more complete to me.  Not that it was a slam dunk either way.  For instance, I couldn't find a way to have my desktop icons show on the desktop. That's a big deal to me and I suspect others too. But overall I had a much more positive experience with Aston than Talisman. And btw, I have no relationship with either developer. I've never spoken to either one as far as I know.

Now, someone might be asking why we don't support these programs on WinCustomize. The biggest reason is simple: deep linking.  Both deep link to the skin libraries of other sites. They don't have their own libraries. Oh, they look like they do. But look closer. If you actually download a theme you'll discover that it's actually going to deviantART or Skinz.org or some other site that is paying the bandwidth bill without even so much as a button promoting the skin site whose bandwidth they're using. And again, one might cut some slack for a free program but these programs aren't free. Aston is $28 for instance. They should have banners or something for those sites. They don't have to deep link to the actual file, they could just link to the library entry. When Studio Twenty Eight links to files from its meta library, it does it right. Example of how to do it. He's not deep linking to the underlying .zip file. This way, the site can potentially get new visitors and get ad revenue and such.  Anyway, it's a pet peeve of mine that maybe you think I'm making a big deal of.  I just think that commercial software developers who rely on skin sites should be trying to support those skin sites, not just silently use their bandwidth without giving back.

But anyway, if you're looking to use themes created by others, I give the edge to Aston over Talisman. If you're looking to create your own desktop yourself, then someone else's view would be more appropriate as I have no experience in that.

Customize your Windows taskbar...

On a totally different topic, I got an interesting email today from a user who just wants to have a nicer Start bar (the taskbar typically at the bottom of your screen). But they don't want the rest of their computer to look all weird.  After some thought I answered: WindowBlinds.  In WindowBlinds you can have one visual style be your main GUI and another one just for the taskbar (Start bar and menu).  So you would just download the Luna WindowBlinds visual style. Use that as your main GUI (blue, silver, green) and then download the skin whose taskbar you like and then set your main skin to be Luna and the taskbar to be the one you like. Voila.

So that's all for now.  Hope you all have a great week! Some exciting things coming in the next few weeks.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow for a week. Hopefully the site will still be here when I get back.   The irony is that next week The Political Machine will be released. It was on CNN Headline News yesterday. I'm working on a post mortem on the game for Game Developer.  One of the things we'll be talking about is the fact that we used DesktopX to develop the game screens and then created a DirectX backend to read in the DesktopX objects and blit them in a full screen game.  But like I said, I won't be around, going to Higgins Lake Michigan. Looking forward to getting away and relaxing. 

Talisman vs. Aston...

The other day I asked if anyone knew of a good Aston vs. Talisman competitive review.  Doesn't look like there are any. So yesterday I spent a few hours playing with them both. Me commenting on other desktop customization products, especially if there's negativity, is highly inappropriate btw since I work for Stardock.  But then again, I'm always inappropriate. So you can take my opinions for what they're worth.  I used them both and I did find Aston to be significantly "better" from an end user point of view when trying out the various themes.

For Talisman, my biggest problem was that it seemed overly concerned with looking pretty rather than being useful out of the box. The biggest problem that all of these shells and shell enhancers (including OUR stuff btw) is that they generally do a poor job of letting you share your desktop with others. They always seem very specific to the original author's machine. But some are less poor than others.  Talisman seemed to me to be something that is probably pretty decent if you're creating a shell environment for yourself. But when you go and create stuff for others, things don't go as well.  The default themes had some problems on my computer. I wouldn't give it a hard time on that except these are the default themes and it was pretty basic stuff like the taskbar goofing up because I have a lot of tasks running and the system try clock looking goofy. And none of them seem to have task grouping which, I suspect, kills these shells to begin with for most users.

I'm really surprised that something that's been developed this long would have such obvious problems.  Again, I want to stress that I am not claiming to be a Talisman expert. I am just talking about loading it up and running into glitches that would happen to anyone.  Taskbar overflowing, for instance, just seems to be unforgivable in a third generation product. I'll be writing a more thorough review when I get back.

My Aston experience was much smoother with themes but it isn't fooling around about wanting to be your shell. Its taskbar features are also pretty primitive but it felt a lot snappier and less flakey than Talisman.  The included themes worked the way you would expect them to.  The only gripe I have is that one of them is an Aqua theme complete with Apple's trademarked logo which I suspect they didn't acquire a license to use.  One can forgive freeware programs for playing fast and loose with intellectual property law but commercial software needs to be at a higher standard.  If you think YOUR stuff is worth charging for, then it's probably good not to bundle other people's stuff with it. A minor quibble since the difference between bundling stuff and having it available on your library may seem like splitting hairs but I think it matters. But I doubt most people care either way.

I think the biggest difference between Aston and Talisman is that Aston feels better put together.  Talisman strikes me as something that has too much legacy code in it and they keep taping more stuff on top of it.  By contrast, Aston feels like it had a specific vision and went for it. Its interface seems more logically put together. Its system tray support seemed more complete to me.  Not that it was a slam dunk either way.  For instance, I couldn't find a way to have my desktop icons show on the desktop. That's a big deal to me and I suspect others too. But overall I had a much more positive experience with Aston than Talisman. And btw, I have no relationship with either developer. I've never spoken to either one as far as I know.

Now, someone might be asking why we don't support these programs on WinCustomize. The biggest reason is simple: deep linking.  Both deep link to the skin libraries of other sites. They don't have their own libraries. Oh, they look like they do. But look closer. If you actually download a theme you'll discover that it's actually going to deviantART or Skinz.org or some other site that is paying the bandwidth bill without even so much as a button promoting the skin site whose bandwidth they're using. And again, one might cut some slack for a free program but these programs aren't free. Aston is $28 for instance. They should have banners or something for those sites. They don't have to deep link to the actual file, they could just link to the library entry. When Studio Twenty Eight links to files from its meta library, it does it right. Example of how to do it. He's not deep linking to the underlying .zip file. This way, the site can potentially get new visitors and get ad revenue and such.  Anyway, it's a pet peeve of mine that maybe you think I'm making a big deal of.  I just think that commercial software developers who rely on skin sites should be trying to support those skin sites, not just silently use their bandwidth without giving back.

But anyway, if you're looking to use themes created by others, I give the edge to Aston over Talisman. If you're looking to create your own desktop yourself, then someone else's view would be more appropriate as I have no experience in that.

Customize your Windows taskbar...

On a totally different topic, I got an interesting email today from a user who just wants to have a nicer Start bar (the taskbar typically at the bottom of your screen). But they don't want the rest of their computer to look all weird.  After some thought I answered: WindowBlinds.  In WindowBlinds you can have one visual style be your main GUI and another one just for the taskbar (Start bar and menu).  So you would just download the Luna WindowBlinds visual style. Use that as your main GUI (blue, silver, green) and then download the skin whose taskbar you like and then set your main skin to be Luna and the taskbar to be the one you like. Voila.

So that's all for now.  Hope you all have a great week! Some exciting things coming in the next few weeks.