Let's face it, lots of PC users want to make Windows look like a Mac. There are all kinds of reasons for this. Some people just love Apple and want to do their part to promote the Mac -- even on their own PC. Other people just like the look and feel of the Mac but can't afford it or want the compatibilty of the PC.

Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure, some of the most popular skins and themes on the net come from people trying to make Windows feel a bit more like a Mac.

Read the full story at Wired News.

I decided to exile one of our more vocal users for a day after sending him an email. I had meant to do it last week when he got caught using a fake user to create a second account to disparage his various enemies (real or imagined). It was designed as a shot across the bow. I don't really like exiling anyone because it takes energy to do that (i.e. I don't like doing things that negative affect others) when I really have a lot of other things to work on.

Things with JoeUser.com have gone differently than we had imagined. Net communities are fairly predictable in their evolution. You attract a hard core group at the start and then you take a very very hard line relatively early on to drive off the napoleaonic wannabes. You see, in most net communities, you have people "regulars" who post often and believe that their very presence gives them "power" to dictate the rules to others. Healthy net communities discourage these people because they end up trying to build tight cliques that end up abusing their soft power on newcomers who don't fall into line.  So what we've done on our other net communities is try to discourage those kinds of people from getting too comfortable.

On WinCustomize.com, we lost about a third of the regulars in the first few months. We intentionally took a hard line on a range of issues that later on we became much softer on. I think the difference on JoeUser.com is that the authority is less delegated. On WinCustomize, there were several of us who were very publicly available to cut the would-be Napolean's at the knees. That's unlike here at JoeUser.

As I go through the forums I already see what I consider to be an unhealthy clique building. Not one particular clique but several. Over time, these cliques can exert a soft power to intimidate newcomers to the site and hence be able to mold the overall atmosphere at the site. Such cliques tend to be elitist. The same thing has gone on at our other sitmes from time to time. The difference is that there hasn't yet been a mass exodus of regulars from JoeUser. The reason this sort of thing is important is because the regulars who leave are quite certain that their departure will spell the doom of a given site that they frequent. I remember on WinCustomize the prediction that the site was going to "flop" because so many "old timers" from "the community" had abandoned the site because we would not recognize their inherent widsom and make ourselves subservient to it.

I think on JoeUser that things are much more complex because we want people to feel like their blogs are their own. They should feel comfortable to write about whatever they want. We don't want to hve to censor people....On the other hand, we (and me in particular) don't want people using our resources to trash us. Why should I put all this energy (and money) into the site so some guy can come on and harass me from blog to blog or use his own blog to trash me?  You can see the cunumdrum.

So here's my two cents (train of thought) on the matter:

1) Unless you're paying for yoru blog, you're not a customer. I'm not your servant. I don't work for you. Show some respect for those providing something to you free of charge. That respect can come in the form of simply not going out of your way to piss on the admins.

2) If you write an article and I come onto it and disagree with you, then I'm fair game. If I'm nasty in my response (in your opinion) you're free to return the favor in your response to me. You can even blacklist me from your blog if you find something I write obnoxious. You won't be penalized for blast listing me and in fact it might just be a sign of sound judgement on your part. But related to that, admins can't truly be blacklisted. It simply makes a note by the message box that this user has black listed me. I can still respond and reserve the right to in a pinch but will make an honest effort to respect your wishes.

3) I make no qualms about fairness. Use common sense. We're not on equal ground here. One's "soft power" of influence is meaningless if your opposition is an Admin. Besides that, soft power is related to the popularity of the articles. I have 4 of the top 5 most popular articles presently and 7 of the top 10. So right now the "admins" have the soft power and the hard power. So users shouldn't imagine leverage that they don't have.

4) It's not about meanness or niceness. It's about respect for one another. Respect others and you will find yourself receiving in return. Some of the best users on this site have very different philosphies than I do but they are intelligent and respectul of others and get it in return.

So that's my little rant for the evening.

 

 

This issue occasionally comes up and will almost certainly come up again in the future. That is, how does one go about getting something they've written on the home page of JoeUser.com.

There is no simple answer to this. Instead, the best I can do is provide some general tips on two basic things: a) How the feature system works and How to make a good article.

How the feature system works today

Right now JoeUser.com hasn't even officially been launched. We've been tidying up features here and there and figuring out things like the revenue model so that the site will be self-sustaining.

The way the featured article system is designed to work in the future is that articles that get a lot of points via "insightful" or "interesting". ratings in a short amount of time will automatically get featured. Each user has their own access level. There are 9 of them between Citizen (1) and Admin (9). The higher the access you have, the more points your "insightful" rating gives. As time goes on, users will move up the ladder in access. Access increases are given by admins. Users like Bakerstreet, Stevenadlous, Jeblackstar and others have already moved up from citizen to "Power user" (1 to 2). Eventually there will be enough users with high access that the aforementioned system will be able to be put into place.

In the meantime, articles are featured by me manually. I don't make any claims of objectivity. I feature articles based on what I think other people will find interesting. The goal, after all, is to attract more people to the site. Based on the phenomenal growth of this site it seems to be working reasonably well so far.

Good writing suggestions

Each day dozens of new articles get written. I don't have time to read them all. So here are some quick tips:

• Make titles that are descriptive. Many articles get passed by because they have titles like "Thoughts" or "Another day" or whatever. The first step to getting featured is getting someone who can feature your article to choose it in the first place to read which means having an article title that is descriptive.
• Use the sub-header. If you want to have a clever article title that isn't descriptive, then use the sub-header to describe what the article is about.
• Write about something specific. Lots of articles I read here meander all over the place and it's not clear what they're supposed to be about. Remember, you can always write several different blog entries rather than have one giant one each day.
• Formatting. I can't tell you how many times I've read something really good only to balk at featuring it because it was unreadable. Wacky font choices and other poor formatting choices can make something visually difficult to read.
• Paragraphs. Paragraphs are your friend. Use them. It's amazing how many people will write a single gigantic article. Doesn't matter how good it is, break up your article every few sentences based on context.
• Don't alienate the featurer. This is the one place where bias does play a role. There are people who write things that are so far out there that I tend to just not read what they write. You may be certain that the media is "government controlled" or that "Bush was behind 9/11" or that the "Democrats are putting drugs in the water." Feel free to write about whatever you want. But I reserve the right to not visit blogs that routinely write what seems crazy to me. Sorry, there's just too much to go through and I would agree that we're all poorer off by not checking in occasionally to see if something more mainstream has popped in there.
• Same as above but in terms of personally attacking me. I'm amazed at the energy some people put into their blogs in attacking me personally. To what end? We're providing you with a free blog. Sure, some of my articles may offend you. They are, afterall, designed to be provocative. I turn up the "gamma" when I write in an effort to make the article more interesting. But the sheer volume of people who write blogs that insult me personally is not constructive. I just end up not reading those blogs which again, because of the way the featuring system works, means those articles won't get featured. Sorry, I'm human. I don't like to read people calling me the Gastapo commander or a "liberal freak" or a "right wing kook" anymore than anyone else does so I avoid those sites. 

So there are some basic tips. I try to spend a few minutes each evening looking for things to feature. The more stuff other peopel write, the less stuff I have to write.

 

On May 4 the judging for the first event begins. That event, Most Minimalistic WindowBlinds visual style, will be judged by 5 judges. One from deviantART, one from Neowin, 2 from Nullsoft, and 3 from Stardock. If you have a minimalistic WindowBlinds skin you are working on, get it in before May 4.

Odds are, unless you regularly run anti-Spyware software, your computer is full of it. Not only does it invade your privacy by hijacking your web browser without your knowledge, throwing up pop-up ads, and reporting your activities to companies, it can slow your computer down and make it unstable.

This article as Joeuser.com talks about the growing problem of Spyware and how, thanks to legitimate companies bundling it and distributing it, it is financing a whole new Internet business model at the expense of unwary users.

Okay, based on working with people who had problems with BootSkin 1.05, we have put out a version 1.05A. If you have previously had problems with BootSkin, please try this version and let us know if it solves your problems.

BootSkin is a program that safely lets you change your Windows XP boot screens. The problems we've been mentioning actually highlight BootSkin's safety -- no matter how badly a boot screen is made, you can always get back to Safe mode and recover. By contrast, other boot screen programs patch your Windows XP kernel and if something goes wrong there, well you can imagine. BootSkin doesn't modify any system files. Instead, it takes the form of a boot screen driver.

In 2000 Stardock was presented with an opportunity. It was near the height of the dot-coms and one of those dot-coms recognized a fundamental truth about WindowBlinds: It had the ability to fully control what was presented by the Windows GUI.  So not only could WindowBlinds change the look and feel of your Windows GUI (title bars, push buttons, borders, etc.). But it could add new content. And one of these dot-coms came to us with a fairly straight forward proposition -- integrate advertisements into the Windows GUI and you could make big bucks.  We turned them down.

While lots of money is always appealing, we did not want to be the company that made it possible for advertisers to take over your desktop. But that was before spyware really took off. 

In the post-dot com collapse, advertising has lost much of its value but if companies could advertise without having to be on an actual website, they could still make money. And that's where spyware has come in.  What is spyware? Odds are you have some on your computer. In fact, odds are you have a lot of Spyware on your computer. Spyware are various programs that manage to get themselves installed on your computer, usually without you knowing it. They sit there quietly informing their patrons what you are doing on your computer. Maybe they'll just report what websites you visit. Maybe they'll send back what programs you use. Maybe they'll list what songs you listen to. Who knows. Different programs spy on different things. Some of them will hijack your web browser so that you end up going to different websites than you intend to. Or maybe they'll pop up an advertisement randomly on your screen. 

What they definitely do, besides invade your privacy, is cause all kinds of stability and performance issues on your computer. A couple of weeks ago I ended up having my system brought to its knees simply from having visited a website that used a vulnerability in Internet Explorer to install dozens of Spyware programs onto my computer. It took the better part of the day to get them off. They're as bad as viruses to remove and most anti-virus software won't remove them.

The program I've come to rely on is called Adaware. It'll scan your computer and remove much of the Spyware. If you haven't ever run one of these programs, you'll probably be shocked at a) how much of this crap has gotten onto your computer and how much it has slowed your computer down.

But that's not the worst part of it. Legitimate companies are increasingly putting Spyware in their software. The temptation is great. Stardock estimated that it could have generated between $600,000 to $800,000 last year in additional revenue by bundling Spyware with its software. It has rejected all proposals because it doesn't need to make money that way. Stardock generates its revenue by selling its software. On-line, you'll see on some tech forums people complain that Stardock is "greedy" because it charges money to buy full versions of some of its products. I would say this method is much better than the alternative. Because increasingly, "free" software and "free" services aren't really free anymore. They claim to be free but they put this stuff on your computer.

WinCustomize, for example, is paid for by the sales of software and subscriptions. But the revenue it receives is nothing compared to some of the other sites in its market that now bundle spyware with their downloads. As I make my rounds on the net, I see the trend moving forward -- more and more sites, more and more products are moving to Spyware. Why? Because its victims usually have no idea that they're even victims. The distributors of Spyware can make millions of dollars while most people are totally unaware that they are funding it.

The net result is that we are seeing a mini-resurgence of the Dot-Com era. Entire companies and industries and even business models are being funded by Spyware. Personally, I hope Microsoft updates Windows so that this junk can't get installed on your computer without your knowledge. It's a serious security issue. People shouldn't have things running on their computer that they haven't given their okay to. But one has to wonder what will happen to the industry and the products and services which have come to rely on it.

For this article I scanned one of my laptops. I have never intentionally installed any Spyware on my computer. These are programs that installed themselves after having been surfing the net. And I don't frequent porn or warez sites.

In game development subtlety has to take a back seat to directness. This is particularly true in algorithms where many developers with dither around trying to tweak their algorithms to the nth degree while the more successful ones will come with more straight forward approaches that do the job.

That isn't to say directness is superior to subtlety. It's just that the successful developer knows when the situation calls for subtlety and when the situation calls for directness. The same is true in diplomacy. Diplomats tend to love to dither with nuanced approaches. Lakhdar Brahimi seems typical. He's the new special UN envoy to Iraq. In an interview, he said that there is never a situation where military force is preferable to diplomacy.  Really?

I've often wondered just how knowledgeable on human history diplomats like Lakhdar Brahimi really are.  In May 1941, Great Britain was faced with a nightmare scenario. Germany had overrun essentially all of Europe. France had signed an armistice and was effectively out of the war. Hitler was making peace soundings.  Should Britain have accepted Hitler's offer?  After all, peace is always preferable to war isn't it? At least according to Lakhdar Brahimi. There was no diplomatic scenario one could envision in which Hitler's gains could be turned back.  France's official government was now on Germany's side at that point. The United States was still locked in isolationism. Luckily for the world, Britain was led by Churchill and not Lakhdar Brahimi. Churchill lacked the subtlety of a Brahimi. He saw things more "black and white". He recognize that there are bad people out there. And bad people do bad things for reasons that civilized people can't understand.

World War II wasn't some misunderstanding that could have been avoided. Hitler wanted to exterminate large swaths of the population and preferred to use military force to do so. The only way to defeat Nazi Germany was with military force -- not diplomacy. 

Fast forward to today and based on the words of UN diplomats and the chattering classes in some parts of Europe and you would think we had reached the end of history. If only Israel was more reasonable. If only the Americans would negotiate harder with the insurgents in Iraq.  If only Americans would understand "why they hate you". But that is all wishful thinking because ultimately, there are bad people out there that not only are willing to murder as many people as they can to achieve their objectives, but murder is their preferred mechanism for reaching those objectives.

There is a tendency by some to believe that it is only Americans and in particular the Bush administration that uses violence to achieve objectives. They believe that the opponents of the United States are simply misunderstood and left with no alternatives. What they don't realize is that these opponents come from a totally different way of thinking. To a secularist, killing is abhorrent because they believe deep down that death is the end of the line.  But to the Islamo-fascists, death is merely another step in a long journey and hence do not fear killing or being killed as a secularist might. When dealing with people like Lakhdar Brahimi they have a huge advantange because they believe in the most direct of strategies possible -- violence.  Whereas Lakhdar Brahimi has already forsworn using violence to achieve any of his objectives.

What people need to wake up to is that there are bad people out there. Lots of them. And if you think Bush or Cheney or whoever your American boogeyman is, they're angels compared to what we're facing over in the middle east. The terrorists would not think twice about exterminating every man, woman, and child in Europe and the United States had they the means. Luckily, they don't. Our job, is to make sure that they don't get the means. And one way of doing that is to to to have local allies devoted towards a peaceful, democratic culture that is more interested in improving the lives of their own people rather than snuffing out those they hate.

That is why people like Lakhdar Brahimi are not terribly helpful in Iraq right now. Hard work has to be done. Fallujah has to be taken and it will probably require the most direct of approaches to be taken -- violence. Lots of it. Brahimi needs to understand that we're in a part of the world that values strength over nuanced approaches. Courage over subtlety. Power over compassion.

History has shown, regrettably, over and over, that in order for diplomacy to work, both parties have to be committed to a diplomatic solution. The insurgents in Iraq are, generally, not interested in diplomacy.

WindowBlinds 4.3 is nearly ready. One of the new features is skin changing morphing. That is where going from one skin to another now smoothly morphs into the other.

Here is a link to a video that displays it. You'll need Windows Media Player 9 to view it.

Some of you may already knwo about this but it was new to me - Dos Box, a program that is designed to emulate a real DOS box so you can play games and such that were made in the DOS days under XP.