People on-line seem to have a...need to give their opinion regardless of whether it's relevant or not.

I see this particularly in the tech world where a new product gets announced and someone who wouldn't even use the program feels the need to comment "I wouldn't use that."  Whenever I see that, and it's often, my initial thought is, "Well who cares?"

I just don't get it. I have no use for greeting card making programs, for example. When I see a news item about one, my first thought isn't to jump in and say "I wouldn't use it."

This really came to a head today over at WinCustomize. Adam and I want to write a little freeware program that can sit in your system tray and send to a server the names of the skins and themes you're using on your system. Users who use it can then go to a special page and find the most popular skins that are in actual active user and if the database can match the skin name with one in the WinCustomize library, it'll provide a link to download it. Other features could include displaying links to popular customizing programs (basically we would put a list of all the customization programs we're aware of in a database and every time there's a match it would increment a counter). Then anything that's reasonably popular could be brought to the user's attention.

In short, it's a form of spyware. Except we would be very upfront about it. It's basically Alexa for skinning. The user provides information to the community on what skins and skinning apps they have and in return they gain access to the results of that data. There's no ulterior motive. It basically boils down to people who want to know what the most popular skins IN USE are and get them. Not everyone trusts download counts and really, the ultimate recommendation for skins is what people are using.  Just so that we're up front about it, I want to call it SkinSpy. 

So I wrote a post asking for additional features people who would USE it would want. I explicitly stated that some people would not want to use this program if they're uncomfortable with a program reporting what skin or theme they're using. The system doesn't track users or anything. I.e. it doesn't know who you are, just what skin User X is using. 

But most of the responses were from people who don't want such a program or think such a program is a bad idea. Again: Who cares? If you don't want it, don't download it and use it when it comes out. No one hates Spyware more than I do. I've written on it countless times. But good grief, I'm not paranoid about it. As long as I know what data is being sent and how it's being used I don't care. I run Alexa  -- happily because it tells me how popular a given website is in return. Oh no, Amazon.com knows what sites I visit.

But people just seem to have a reflexive need to give input even when it's not asked for or relevant.

Here's what the new Stardock Central is looking like. Beta should come out this month.

I want to make a program that spies on you.

That's right. Spies.

But how?

I want us (all of us) to be able to get a list of the most popular skins by USE. No downloads. Not impressions. Not mentions. What skins are people actually using.

So this program would look at what skins and themes you're using and return that data to a central server and then those who ran it would have access to the page that lists them so we can download them.  Afterall, the best skins for many are probably the ones people are actually running.

We used to have something like this built into WindowBlinds but it was a pain and some people complained that it was spying (which is was). Obviously paranoid people wouldn't want to run this and we could expand it to support as many apps as peple wanted. Most popular DesktopX theme? Most popular icon package? Most popular Winamp skin? Most popular Litestep theme, whatever.

We could even have it list most popular programs. so how popular is Samurize vs. Litestep vs. hoverdesk vs. whatever. The important thing is that people would be able to find new emerging customization programs that are getting more popular and know where to download them.

So first off, what kinds of features that those of you who might want to run something like this would want besides what I mentioned?

Secondly, obviously some people wouldn't want this kidn of program since it does return info about your computer (personally I don't care if people know what skin I'm using I make screenshots) but how many of you think this sort of thing would be neat?

Just a head's up head over to www.blognavigator.com and grab the new beta. It's a great way for reading blogs really really fast and easy.

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Based off of Pixtudio's outstanding Universe Metal suite of yore, Universe Metal 2004 completes the picture with a host of new enhancements:

• WindowBlinds 4.x based visual style to change your title bars, Start bar, scrollbars, etc.
• All new progress animations!
• All new toolbar icons
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• A DesktopX 2 based wharf on the right side with quick searches for dictionary.com and google.

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• Universe Metal Wallpaper
• Universe Metal Windows Media Player
• Universe Metal Winamp skin

And best of all, all of this combined is only $8.95 ($7.95 if you previously purchased Pixtudio Universe Metal).

Sales of premium suites help pay for the running of WinCustomize.com. Check it out at www.universemetal.com

As time goes on, the more I am convinced that most people who are anti-USA (specifically Americans who are anti-American) don't get their information from things we call books. At best, it seems they get their "information" from the Internet or from some propaganda source.

You have the people who claim Bush "lied" about our reasons for going into Iraq. It's hard to conclude that these people are either mindlessly regurgitating things they've read on the net or they just have no idea what the hell they're talking about.  Bob Woodward, one of the preeminent journalists of our age and certainly no conservative, has written 2 books on Bush and it becomes bloody clear why we needed to go into Iraq and that Bush certainly didn't lie. At one point, in fact, Bush demanded certainty that Iraq had WMD stockpiles as well as WMD programs.

History would show that WMD stockpiles may not have been present in Iraq but WMD programs certainly existed. In either case though, Bush didn't "lie" anymore than Clinton "lied". In Woordward's new book, the Egyptian Foreign Minister told Bush that Iraq definitely had biological weapons on hand. So did Saudi intelligence.

Not that any of that matters to me. I could have cared less whether Saddam had chemical weapons on hand. I don't consider such weapons to be a threat. What I do care about are REAL WMDs like nuclear weapons and Saddam (or his sons) only had to wait out sanctions. The French and Russians were interested in getting them lifted. And we were only one Democratic administration away from likely lifting those sanctions.  That was why I wanted Saddam removed.

Which brings me to the point of this article - what kind of idiot sees a comparison between Vietnam and Iraq? First of all, for those not in the know, Vietnam was a civil war between the north and the south. The north wanted to conquer the south and was being supplied by the USSR and China, two of the world's most powerful nations who were right on the border. The North wanted to implement communism in the south.  The US supported the south but was afraid of invading the North for fear of escalation. So it was a no-win situation for the US. The US goal was to keep the south free.

By contrast, the goal in Iraq has already been accomplished -- the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime. That was the whole "mission accomplished" thing that the left keeps spazzing about. Yes, anti-war people, the mission was accomplished. Saddam's gone. He regime is an ex-parrot. It's no more.

So why are we still there? Because the US wants to stay and help (key word HELP) build a stable liberal democracy to serve as an example to other nations in that region to "dry the swamp" of terrorists. 

So how does this compare to Vietnam? It doesn't. Not in the slightest. At this point, it's more akin to Kosovo or Bosnia. The US can stay or it can go. It just depends on mainly what the Iraqi's want. We want a stable democratic Iraq but we don't NEED it. We are willing to go through some pain because it helps the United States but it helps the Iraqi's more and we have a responsbiility to help them now as long as they want that help. I'm all for a referrendum in Iraq asking whether they want us to stay. If they voted no, I'd say we leave. It's no skin off our back.

By contrast, in South Vietnam, the people didn't want us to leave. We were what was keeping the murderous North from coming in. And when we left, the north conquered the south leading to the deaths of over 2 MILLION people and the spread of anarchy into Camobida, Laos, and other neighboring countries.  Not that the anti-war left of the 70s gave a rat's ass about the victims of communism. Didn't hear too much coverage of the massive slaughter of innocents once North Vietnam took over and led to such niceties as Pol Pot and more death and destruction.

It's really hard to think of any valid comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam -- superficial or otherwise.

We're starting to put together the feature list for the next generation of WinCustomize.com.

In short: Faster, more features, personal galleries, tracking, recommended skins, and much more. Check out this thread to see what's in the pipeline and to add your own 2 cents!

Show off your customized desktop while checking out what others are doing in the May desktop screenshot thread!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the judging for the most minimalistic skin. Which one is your favorite and why? Feel free to comment and put in your 2 cents on the issue.