What's fixed / new

The retail version of The Political Machine is going to probably go for around $19.95 whereas the version purchased here is $29.95.  What gives you might ask.

The version sold from here will include the Political Operatives Kit.  That includes: The Issue Editor and the TV Interview Creator.  So you'll be able to greatly expand the game. You will also have the ability, starting January 1, 2005, to redownload the whole game electronically. So that even if you lose your CD or whatever, years from now you'll still be able to just click a few buttons and have the game.

We will have a way for people who are purchasing at retail to get the Political Operatives Kit / Download Access for a $10 upgrade fee soon.

In Windows 95, 98, and ME, we were always running out of "resources". There was even a resource monitor that would tell you what % was left.  But don't worry, Windows NT (and its descendants Win2K and XP) would take care of that...NOT. Now there's a new resource limit that causes the unwary all kinds of problems: Handles. 

If you get up over around 17,000 used on your system, it'll eventually start getting flakey just like if you ran out of resources on the old versions of Windows. And what's really bad is that Internet Explorer is the biggest pig.

I've been resetting up my laptop so it's still quite "stock" right now. I don't really have that much stuff running yet. But Internet Explorer, for some reason, feels like it needs to suck up 20 megs for each window. I have 5 Internet explorer windows open using a total of 60 megabytes of RAM and about 1,400 handles. Give it time though and it will grow.  I also have 5 svchost.exe's running using a total of ~40 megs and 2000 handles. SVCHost.exe is one of the processes that the XP theme service runs. This hiding out under that process name allows some people to claim XP themes are (ahem) "0 foot print" or use no resources and other such nonsense.  So just between those two things I've got about 100 megabytes using and 3,500 handles used. 

Of course, DesktopX is using 20 megs of RAM and 400 handles itself. But in its defense, it has a ton of ActiveX based controls floating on it right now. In watching the various Dashboard vs. Konfabulator flame wars I've seen Mac advocates make a big deal that unlike Konfabulator, Dashboard "widgets" are just web pages and that was the real innovation that others didn't have.  Ahem. Once again, this is an area DesktopX has had for years and before that, Active Desktop.  Any web page can be a DesktopX object (See screenshot of this Java clock).  What I've been playing around with is trying to find a way to have irregularly shaped web-based objects (like a round clock) on my desktop.  Alberto and Martin have done it but I haven't quite figured out how to do it.  It has to do with covering the parts you want with a transparent object that ignores the web control.  I haven't figured out how to do it despite having received 2 working samples.

Meanwhile, DesktopX 2.2 should go "gold" for Object Desktop users this next week. It's got the new graphics engine and hundreds of other features and tweaks.  For me though it's all about the overlays.  The overlay feature allows me to have all my widgets/objects pop up or disappear by hitting a hot key (like F9).  So I can cram my desktop full of widgets (calculator, stock monitor, headlines, weather, task list, sales monitor, etc.) but hit F9 and make them all disappear off my desktop and with another press of F9 have them all appear on top of whatever I'm doing so I can do whatever.  No doubt the Mac people will say we stole this from their unreleased OS feature.  For the record, we stole this idea from Tivo.   I think this feature will make DesktopX even more compelling.

This past week has been full of massive amounts of work that few people will ever notice. We're working on getting WindowBlinds working on the 64bit version of Windows XP.  It's almost done.  Plus there are some SP2 things with certain AMD chipsets we're looking into.  Stuff that few people will notice but has to be dealt with. Especially given how widespread Object Desktop based technologies are.  For instance, a certain super-hero based premium suite is expected to come out in the next couple of weeks to coincide with its movie which came out recently.  Since it's likely to be very popular, we have to make sure this stuff works perfectly.

In Windows 95, 98, and ME, we were always running out of "resources". There was even a resource monitor that would tell you what % was left.  But don't worry, Windows NT (and its descendants Win2K and XP) would take care of that...NOT. Now there's a new resource limit that causes the unwary all kinds of problems: Handles. 

If you get up over around 17,000 used on your system, it'll eventually start getting flakey just like if you ran out of resources on the old versions of Windows. And what's really bad is that Internet Explorer is the biggest pig.

I've been resetting up my laptop so it's still quite "stock" right now. I don't really have that much stuff running yet. But Internet Explorer, for some reason, feels like it needs to suck up 20 megs for each window. I have 5 Internet explorer windows open using a total of 60 megabytes of RAM and about 1,400 handles. Give it time though and it will grow.  I also have 5 svchost.exe's running using a total of ~40 megs and 2000 handles. SVCHost.exe is one of the processes that the XP theme service runs. This hiding out under that process name allows some people to claim XP themes are (ahem) "0 foot print" or use no resources and other such nonsense.  So just between those two things I've got about 100 megabytes using and 3,500 handles used. 

Of course, DesktopX is using 20 megs of RAM and 400 handles itself. But in its defense, it has a ton of ActiveX based controls floating on it right now. In watching the various Dashboard vs. Konfabulator flame wars I've seen Mac advocates make a big deal that unlike Konfabulator, Dashboard "widgets" are just web pages and that was the real innovation that others didn't have.  Ahem. Once again, this is an area DesktopX has had for years and before that, Active Desktop.  Any web page can be a DesktopX object (See screenshot of this Java clock).  What I've been playing around with is trying to find a way to have irregularly shaped web-based objects (like a round clock) on my desktop.  Alberto and Martin have done it but I haven't quite figured out how to do it.  It has to do with covering the parts you want with a transparent object that ignores the web control.  I haven't figured out how to do it despite having received 2 working samples.

Meanwhile, DesktopX 2.2 should go "gold" for Object Desktop users this next week. It's got the new graphics engine and hundreds of other features and tweaks.  For me though it's all about the overlays.  The overlay feature allows me to have all my widgets/objects pop up or disappear by hitting a hot key (like F9).  So I can cram my desktop full of widgets (calculator, stock monitor, headlines, weather, task list, sales monitor, etc.) but hit F9 and make them all disappear off my desktop and with another press of F9 have them all appear on top of whatever I'm doing so I can do whatever.  No doubt the Mac people will say we stole this from their unreleased OS feature.  For the record, we stole this idea from Tivo.   I think this feature will make DesktopX even more compelling.

This past week has been full of massive amounts of work that few people will ever notice. We're working on getting WindowBlinds working on the 64bit version of Windows XP.  It's almost done.  Plus there are some SP2 things with certain AMD chipsets we're looking into.  Stuff that few people will notice but has to be dealt with. Especially given how widespread Object Desktop based technologies are.  For instance, a certain super-hero based premium suite is expected to come out in the next couple of weeks to coincide with its movie which came out recently.  Since it's likely to be very popular, we have to make sure this stuff works perfectly.

Last month I wrote about the importance of friendship. I think for me the biggest reason why friendships matter so much is because I'm an only child. And not just an only child, the only-child of a single parent who grew up with no local extended family members for most of that time.

So for me, friends mean a lot. They're like family. And I don't mean that like a cliché.  People who have no brothers or sisters, for instance, simply cannot imagine the feelings associated with having them.  For me, there isn't that much distinction between family/friends. 

Ironically, my oldest friend who I hang out with on a regular basis has something like a dozen or two brothers and sisters. I work with him (his office is next to mine).  We've been friends since I was just getting out of junior high (which is a long time when you're in your 30s to be around someone you see every day). At some point in the distant past, he had crossed that threshold between being a friend and being equivalent to a family member.

But it goes beyond that.  Many of my "family" get togethers are with people who aren't genetically related to me at all. My Memorial Day / Labor day cookouts are always with the same group of people who are, effectively my aunts, uncles, and cousins even though we're not related at all. It's been that way since I was 5. When many of them were over at my son's birthday party last week, I didn't see them merely as friends but rather as part of my family.

That isn't to say I don't have strong feelings for my genetically related extended family members. My wife and I feel particularly close to my cousin and her husband. But growing up, with it just being my mom and I, friendships simply took on greater meaning.

Perhaps someone reading this who has lots of brothers and sisters and cousins that they see regularly will argue (correctly possibly) that I just don't understand the true meaning of family.  I can't say whether they're right or not.  To me, family is more than just genetic connection. Much more.

A good friendship, IMO, is one where you enjoy just being with your friends.  You don't have to be doing anything. Their mere presence makes the visit worthwhile.  I wonder if that is the same feeling people get when they're around their brothers and sisters. Of course, I wouldn't know.

One of the projects we're working on right now that's been quite a blast is tentatively called The Natural Desktop.  It's similar in execution to Aquarium Desktop. Aquarium Desktop has done so well that it makes sense to come up with other ideas to let people make their desktop come alive. 

So in Natural Desktop, we're contracted well known composer Mason Fisher to put together natural sounds based on what time of the day it is and current weather conditions. Those of us stuck working in-doors can appreciate having a subtle background sound of morning doves and birds chirping or the occasional cicada in the background. Or if it's raining the gentle sound of rain falling.  The second part of the project, the visual part, is a wallpaper project where we're scouting around for top wallpaper authors to put together good wallpapers of scenery depending on a) the time of day and the season.  So the wallpaper would change over the course of the day based on what time of year it is.  The last part is a dynamic weather widget which blows away any weather object that's been made so far (totally animated at all times, it's really amazing).  We're hoping to get this out by the first week of August but it depends on our success in getting the wallpapers together. 

Speaking of Aquarium Desktop, we are looking at putting out booster packs for it that provide additional fish. We've gotten some new fish rendered and should be ready in the next several weeks to start making those available. They would go right along side the existing fish that make up the Aquarium desktop.

We hope to have a new ObjectDock Plus beta ready to go in the next day or two.  Tons of little glitches have been fixed, most of which I'd never noticed but users reported and got reproduced/fixed. I will try to put together a video of ObjectDock Plus in action.  The screenshots, as others can tell you, don't really tell the story.  I'm using it probably in a very unusual way.  I have a series of ONE tab docks strewn about my screen now.  Think of them as drawers. Docks can be shaped in weird ways.  So I have various drawers on my desktop that I keep various "things" in.

It gave me an idea for an ObjectDock Plugin I'd like to see.  I'd like to see a plugin that when clicked on creates a "To-Do" item. So when I click on it, a little bubble appears and I type in what I have to do. It then creates a new ObjectDock icon with its own distinct icon.  I could then move these items to my "To-Do" drawers.  When I finish that task, I can go to the drawer and drag it off and feel a bit of satisfaction watching that "Puff".  I don't know if ObjectDock supports virtual icons (i.e. items that aren't anchored to something that resides on your hard disk). But if not, that's something I think would be pretty neat.

One of the projects we're working on right now that's been quite a blast is tentatively called The Natural Desktop.  It's similar in execution to Aquarium Desktop. Aquarium Desktop has done so well that it makes sense to come up with other ideas to let people make their desktop come alive. 

So in Natural Desktop, we're contracted well known composer Mason Fisher to put together natural sounds based on what time of the day it is and current weather conditions. Those of us stuck working in-doors can appreciate having a subtle background sound of morning doves and birds chirping or the occasional cicada in the background. Or if it's raining the gentle sound of rain falling.  The second part of the project, the visual part, is a wallpaper project where we're scouting around for top wallpaper authors to put together good wallpapers of scenery depending on a) the time of day and the season.  So the wallpaper would change over the course of the day based on what time of year it is.  The last part is a dynamic weather widget which blows away any weather object that's been made so far (totally animated at all times, it's really amazing).  We're hoping to get this out by the first week of August but it depends on our success in getting the wallpapers together. 

Speaking of Aquarium Desktop, we are looking at putting out booster packs for it that provide additional fish. We've gotten some new fish rendered and should be ready in the next several weeks to start making those available. They would go right along side the existing fish that make up the Aquarium desktop.

We hope to have a new ObjectDock Plus beta ready to go in the next day or two.  Tons of little glitches have been fixed, most of which I'd never noticed but users reported and got reproduced/fixed. I will try to put together a video of ObjectDock Plus in action.  The screenshots, as others can tell you, don't really tell the story.  I'm using it probably in a very unusual way.  I have a series of ONE tab docks strewn about my screen now.  Think of them as drawers. Docks can be shaped in weird ways.  So I have various drawers on my desktop that I keep various "things" in.

It gave me an idea for an ObjectDock Plugin I'd like to see.  I'd like to see a plugin that when clicked on creates a "To-Do" item. So when I click on it, a little bubble appears and I type in what I have to do. It then creates a new ObjectDock icon with its own distinct icon.  I could then move these items to my "To-Do" drawers.  When I finish that task, I can go to the drawer and drag it off and feel a bit of satisfaction watching that "Puff".  I don't know if ObjectDock supports virtual icons (i.e. items that aren't anchored to something that resides on your hard disk). But if not, that's something I think would be pretty neat.

I really like Stargate: SG1.  I watch it every week.  The characters are good, the stories are good, and despite every planet looking a lot like the forests near Vancouver, the universe they play in is good.

I wasn't expecting much of Stargate Atlantis so it came as a pleasant surprise that it was so good.  I mean really good. The jury is out on the characters but the story and backdrop are really outstanding.  The bad guys have to be amongst the scariest bad guys I've seen on TV before.  Think really really bad ass vampires.  Vampires who defeated the ancients, which is particularly scary since the ancients are the ones who built the stargates in the first place!

So I can safely say that I recommend giving it a try. I think they have a hit on their hands.

Stardock has released a new freeware program called Theme Manager 2004. It is the successor to WinStyles in that it enables users to manage all their skins, themes, wallpapers, and icons all from a single user interface. 

From Theme Manager, users can change their visual styles, wallpapers, or apply entire suites at once.  Users can also take a snapshot of their desktop and save it as a .suite file. 

WinCustomize.com includes a .suite section (make sure if you upload a suite that you use the LINKING feature to link to skins and themes that aren't yours rather than including them directly).

Theme Manager is part of Stardock's Object Desktop.

The average age of the typical WinCustomize user has decreased.  From 2001 to 2003 the average age remained steady at 34 years. This was a good thing as I am younger than that.  But in the most recent poll, with 5000 or so respondents, the new average age decreased to roughly 29.

Which works out because I just turned 29 again for the fourth year in a row.