The rules are spelled out elsewhere but here are some of the details:

(1) Entries cannot have been previously uploaded elsewhere. After the contest is over, contestants are free to submit their skins anywhere they choose (and in fact, are encouraged to do so).

(2)Entries must be new content overall. They will go through moderation and the moderators will make a judgement call on that. What that means is that we're not expecting every piece to have every single element done from scratch. There's just not enough time. This is particularly true of the icons. One month is not a lot of time to do a fully new icon set. So icon authors can make use of their existing graphics design libraries but they must be generaly new (i.e. you can't just reupload something you've made in the past or just recolorize something you've uploaded in the past, it has to be generally new content).

That's about it. Good luck!

ATI is providing hardware to the winners.

The hardware includes:

5 Radeon 9800 XT 256MB AGP cards

5 All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB AGP

5 TV Wonder Pro Remote Control Editions

We will be listing which events provide which prizes shortly.

In addition to this, there will be around $10,000 in cash/prizes from Stardock, Microsoft, Nullsoft, nVidia, and Eclipsit.

So all total we're actually looking at nearly $15,000 in total cash/prizes for the top entries in this year's GUI Olympics.

The GUI Olympics 2004 has begun!

It's a contest to see who can create the world's best WindowBlinds visual styles, icon packages, and Winamp 5 skins. Over $10,000 in cash and prizes will be provided by Stardock, Microsoft, ATI, Nullsoft, and others.

You will be able to enter skins individually or as part of a team. The top teams will get a big bonus prize. Anyone can form a team and there are no restrictions on the size of team (though obviously the bigger the team, the bigger the split in the prize money). You could have a Team MyfavoriteWebsite or a Team "l33t". It's up to whoever starts the team (on Monday there will be a mechanism on www.guiolympics.com to create your own team).

The rules are fairly straight forward. You have to enter submissions that are NEW. They can't be things that already exist. That doesn't mean every single element of your skin has to be new (i.e. you don't have to redo every single component but the overall skin needs to be new). But they must be things that are only available on the GUI Olympics website (after the contest is over you can upload them wherever).

While the contest begins today, the JUDGING won't begin until April 5. That's over a month away. A few events will be judged per week so the contest won't end until the end of April -- 2 months from now.

Here is the schedule of events:

April 5: Most minimalist visual style, Most creative Winamp skin, Most original icon package

April 8: Best Power user visual style, Most useable Winamp skin

April 12: Most usable visual style, Best power user Winamp skin, Best "themed" (icons go together the best) icon package

April 15: Most creative visual style

April 19: Best themed* visual style*, Best themed* Winamp skin, Best pseudo-OS icon package

April 22: Best Pseudo-OS visual style

April 26: Best overall visual style, Best overall Winamp skin, Best overall icon package

April 27: Top Team/Individual: WindowBlinds, Top Team/Individual: Winamp, Top Team/Individual: Icons

April 29: User's Choice: Best visual style, User's Choice: Best Winamp skin: User's Choice: Best icon package

*themed skin as in the whole skin keeps to a particular theme.

16 Events. Over $10,000 in cash and prizes. Anyone can enter.

The judges will be admins/employees from Stardock, Neowin, deviantART, and Nullsoft.

So there you have it. WB visual styles, icon packages, and Winamp 5. For $10k to $15k in cash and prizes spread among 16 main events.

Regarding entries:

You can now submit your entries. You can update those entries as much as you want.

When you do enter in a submission, you will first which contest (WindowBlinds, Winamp, Icons). Then you can pick up to 2 events. All skins will automatically contend for the various "Overall" contests (i.e. "best overall skin" for instance).

Example, you might enter a skin and choose these two entries:

[X] Best Power User Visual Style
[X] Most Usable Visual Style
[ ] Most Creative Visual Style
[ ] Best Pseudo-OS Visual Style
[ ] Best Minimalistic Visual Style
[ ] Best Themed Visual Style


Good luck to everyone!

The GUI Olympics 2004 has begun!

It's a contest to see who can create the world's best WindowBlinds visual styles, icon packages, and Winamp 5 skins. Over $10,000 in cash and prizes will be provided by Stardock, Microsoft, ATI, Nullsoft, and others.

You will be able to enter skins individually or as part of a team. The top teams will get a big bonus prize. Anyone can form a team and there are no restrictions on the size of team (though obviously the bigger the team, the bigger the split in the prize money). You could have a Team MyfavoriteWebsite or a Team "l33t". It's up to whoever starts the team (on Monday there will be a mechanism on www.guiolympics.com to create your own team).

The rules are fairly straight forward. You have to enter submissions that are NEW. They can't be things that already exist. That doesn't mean every single element of your skin has to be new (i.e. you don't have to redo every single component but the overall skin needs to be new). But they must be things that are only available on the GUI Olympics website (after the contest is over you can upload them wherever).

While the contest begins today, the JUDGING won't begin until April 5. That's over a month away. A few events will be judged per week so the contest won't end until the end of April -- 2 months from now.

Here is the schedule of events:

April 5: Most minimalist visual style, Most creative Winamp skin, Most original icon package

April 8: Best Power user visual style, Most useable Winamp skin

April 12: Most usable visual style, Best power user Winamp skin, Best "themed" (icons go together the best) icon package

April 15: Most creative visual style

April 19: Best themed* visual style*, Best themed* Winamp skin, Best pseudo-OS icon package

April 22: Best Pseudo-OS visual style

April 26: Best overall visual style, Best overall Winamp skin, Best overall icon package

April 27: Top Team/Individual: WindowBlinds, Top Team/Individual: Winamp, Top Team/Individual: Icons

April 29: User's Choice: Best visual style, User's Choice: Best Winamp skin: User's Choice: Best icon package

*themed skin as in the whole skin keeps to a particular theme.

16 Events. Over $10,000 in cash and prizes. Anyone can enter.

The judges will be admins/employees from Stardock, Neowin, deviantART, and Nullsoft.

So there you have it. WB visual styles, icon packages, and Winamp 5. For $10k to $15k in cash and prizes spread among 16 main events.

Regarding entries:

You can now submit your entries. You can update those entries as much as you want.

When you do enter in a submission, you will first which contest (WindowBlinds, Winamp, Icons). Then you can pick up to 2 events. All skins will automatically contend for the various "Overall" contests (i.e. "best overall skin" for instance).

Example, you might enter a skin and choose these two entries:

[X] Best Power User Visual Style
[X] Most Usable Visual Style
[ ] Most Creative Visual Style
[ ] Best Pseudo-OS Visual Style
[ ] Best Minimalistic Visual Style
[ ] Best Themed Visual Style


Good luck to everyone!

This Monday, the GUI Olympics 2004 will begin. It's a contest to see who can create the world's best visual styles, icons, and Winamp 5 skins.  Sponsors include Stardock, Nullsoft, ATI, nVidia, and others.  Microsoft is also providing prizes to the contest.  In total, over $10,000 (closer to $15,000) in cash and prizes will be given out including ATI video cards, an Xbox, tons of software and probably some surprises.

You will be able to enter skins individually or as part of a team.  The top teams will get a big bonus prize.  Anyone can form a team and there are no restrictions on the size of team (though obviously the bigger the team, the bigger the split in the prize money). You could have a Team MyfavoriteWebsite or a Team "l33t". It's up to whoever starts the team (on Monday there will be a mechanism on www.guiolympics.com to create your own team).

The rules are fairly straight forward. You have to enter submissions that are NEW. They can't be things that already exist.  They also have to be in WindowBlinds visual style format. But if you've ever made a .msstyles visual style, it's pretty easy to make a WindowBlinds one and SkinStudio can convert a .msstyles file to WindowBlinds visual style format. And then from there add the missing features to make it competitive.

The contest begins on March 1 but JUDGING won't begin until April 5 so you'll have over a month to actually put together your stuff. And judging goes on during the entire month so you may potentially have nearly 2 months depending on what events you're concentrating on.

Here is the schedule of events:

April 5: Most minimalist visual style, Most creative Winamp skin, Most original icon package
April 8: Best Power user visual style, Most useable Winamp skin
April 12: Most usable visual style, Best power user Winamp skin, Best "themed" (icons go together the best) icon package
April 15: Most creative visual style
April 19: Best themed* visual style*, Best themed* Winamp skin, Best pseudo-OS icon package
April 22: Best Pseudo-OS visual style
April 26: Best overall visual style, Best overall Winamp skin, Best overall icon package
April 27: Top Team/Individual: WindowBlinds, Top Team/Individual: Winamp, Top Team/Individual: Icons
April 29: User's Choice: Best visual style, User's Choice: Best Winamp skin: User's Choice: Best icon package

*themed skin as in the whole skin keeps to a particular theme.

16 Events. Over $10,000 in cash and prizes. Anyone can enter.

The judges will be admins/employees from Stardock, Neowin, deviantART, and Nullsoft.

So there you have it.  WB visual styles, icon packages, and Winamp 5. For $10k to $15k in cash and prizes spread among 16 main events.

Regarding entries:

Submissions will begin mid Monday afternoon.  Most submissions probably won't come in until April so don't feel rushed. But remember, youc an update your stuff as often as you want.

When you do enter in a submission, you will first which contest (WindowBlinds, Winamp, Icons). Then you can pick up to 2 events.  All skins will automatically contend for the various "Overall" contests (i.e. "best overall skin" for instance).

Example, to use MetalX (top skin from GUI Olympis 2002) as an example, I would probably do:

[X] Best Power User Visual Style
[X] Most Usable Visual Style
[ ] Most Creative Visual Style
[ ] Best Pseudo-OS Visual Style
[ ] Best Minimalistic Visual Style
[ ] Best Themed Visual Style

We learned, the hard way, how problematic it was to judge 140 skins for every contest. That's just not doable.

Sometimes running a blog site is almost not worth the effort. I can see why so many blog sites are moving to charging money to use them. The amount of technical support I'm starting to receive in email from users is becoming problematic.

What's worse, is that an increasing number of people are demanding technical support responses that are simply not realistic in something that we are providing for free.

Let me give you an example.  Someone named "Andrew" emailed me a couple of days ago:

I searched for my name (Name withheld) using Google and there were exactly 203 results (narrowed down to just JoeUser.com, 194 results). I would like to have my name removed from those pages immediately! This means that JoeUser has personal information about me (name) and I would like to have that deleted, or at the very least, not openly available to the public.
 

I couldn't figure out what exactly the issue was. How did we get personal information on him? Why would we be listing personal information on him? Remember, at this point he hasn't told me he has a blog. He's just some guy who emailed me telling me that we're giving away his personal information. Perhaps someone on the site was talking about him. So I started looking and eventually asked back "Do you have a blog here?"

To which I get:

Yes, I did create a blog on JoeUser because of a recommendation from a friend, and I have to admit I now regret that decision. What I did not expect was that my name would appear 194 times on JoeUser.com. When I requested to have my account terminated, I assumed the problem would be fixed, but I was wrong. I respectfully suggest you contact Google and find a solution to this mess.

So he created a blog here using his name. When he created the blog, his name got put into the index and other top user lists and that sort of thing (since he used his name for his blog and his user name). So every person's page here would have his name cached at some point even for a day or two. He terminated his blog so his blog is gone. But of course, Google and other search engines will keep that information around a long while. That is the nature of the Internet.

So I wrote him back explaining as much. I also pointed out that I didn't really appreciate his tone on this. We're providing a free site. We don't charge him a thing. He's not some sort of "Customer". We can try to help him within reason but there's no way we're going to get in touch with Google and demand that they somehow do something special to clean out a particular person's name. For crying out loud, we're talking about just his name. No contact information. No email address. Just his name.

So I got this back today:

The reason my name appears on JoeUser is because I created a blog with my name as part of the blog? Then my name should appear on the blog itself only, nowhere else. The blog has been deleted, but my name still remains on several JoeUser pages. Why do you think Google would return invalid search results or link to URLs that no longer exist? All I'm asking you to do is remove my name from every page on JoeUser.com and remove it from a search engine, nothing else. That is not "a considerable amount of work". If someone took your name, put it on the Web 194 times without your permission and refused to take it off when requested, would you be mad? Without compensation? I have a good reason to be angry with you and JoeUser, you don't need nor deserve compensation of any kind. Have you actually removed my name from your pages and just have Google to deal with or are you not doing anything about it? I respectfully suggest you find a solution to this mess.

Talk about incredible. It's as if someone just woke up, got out of their cave and jumped on the Internet one day without having even the most basic understanding of it and created a blog. His blog is gone. It's not on our pages. But he doesn't seem to understand how search engines work. They make a copy of everything that's on the net and search that. Once you're on the Internet in some way, your name is going to be somewhere.  If I write the words "Altarian Cream Boogers", sure enough, in a few days, Google will find this page if you type in Altarian Cream Boogers in quotes. And it'll likely be there for a long time, possibly forever, even if I remove the page.  Type in "Brad Wardell" into Google and you'll get pages and pages of websites that I'm mentioned on without having given them permission necessarily. That is the nature of the Internet.

But I don't mind explaining that to someone. What I do mind is the attitude. Look at what that guy wrote. He demands that I go and do a bunch of work for him at the same time saying how he has every right to be angry with me. For what? What did I do? Because I let stupid kooks on the site? We don't have a stupid kook filter unfortunately.

And how I don't need or deserve compensation? He's asking me to do him a favor. I'm not saying that he should have to pay for that, but that there's only so much free time I have available to help him. If he was a "Customer" (i.e. someone paying for a service) then he would have more of a point. But he doesn't. He's just some guy who came on to use our blog not understanding how the Internet works and now wants to be a royal pain.

I wrote him back saying that since he's going to be rude he can just go away. I've been through this over the years so many times that I know that the next email is going to have the legal threat. It'll go something like this: "If you don't do what I respectfully request I will have to get in touch with my attorney."  The legal threat. Which I promptly just forward on to the legal people. We have lots of lawyers. And we have insurance. So bring it on, buddy. Of course, he hasn't done that yet. But it's inevitable. People like this are pretty predictable.

But now you have a taste of why so many sites end up being pay sites. I'm thinking we may be able to prevent that by putting together a community support system where people who get stuck can write in a support forum and other people can help them out. We have something like that for Object Desktop and users helping users has helped keep what would otherwise be a $89.95 product (what we used to have to sell it for on OS/2) down to $49.95 instead.

In the meantime, people need to realize that this site is something we're basically doing for fun. It doesn't make money. The little google ad on the right pays something like $6 per day. That doesn't even pay for the bandwidth let alone the other stuff.  We can do it indefinitely as long as it doesn't become a financial burden. But when people start demanding unreasonable things, it sucks the fun out and creates a great deal of overhead.

The GUI Olympics is only a few days away. $10,000 in cash and prizes will be going out to winners.

Three contests: Visual Styles. Icon Packages. and Winamp 5 skins.

The visual styles will have the most events.  And the tool to use is SkinStudio which came out with v4.1. 

The best way to get a handle on it if you've never used it is to check out the newly completed documenation. If you are a graphics designer or just want to try your hand at skinning, now's the time to do it.

Don't think you don't have a chance. Often times in contests like this not as many people enter as one might think and with $10,000  to $15,000 in cash and prizes being distributed amongst the top 5 people in each event, there's a reasonable chance of winning something.

This Monday, the GUI Olympics 2004 will begin. It's a contest to see who can create the world's best visual styles, icons, and Winamp 5 skins.  Sponsors include Stardock, Nullsoft, ATI, nVidia, and others.  Microsoft is also providing prizes to the contest.  In total, over $10,000 (closer to $15,000) in cash and prizes will be given out including ATI video cards, an Xbox, tons of software and probably some surprises.

You will be able to enter skins individually or as part of a team.  The top teams will get a big bonus prize.  Anyone can form a team and there are no restrictions on the size of team (though obviously the bigger the team, the bigger the split in the prize money). You could have a Team MyfavoriteWebsite or a Team "l33t". It's up to whoever starts the team (on Monday there will be a mechanism on www.guiolympics.com to create your own team).

The rules are fairly straight forward. You have to enter submissions that are NEW. They can't be things that already exist.  They also have to be in WindowBlinds visual style format. But if you've ever made a .msstyles visual style, it's pretty easy to make a WindowBlinds one and SkinStudio can convert a .msstyles file to WindowBlinds visual style format. And then from there add the missing features to make it competitive.

The contest begins on March 1 but JUDGING won't begin until April 5 so you'll have over a month to actually put together your stuff. And judging goes on during the entire month so you may potentially have nearly 2 months depending on what events you're concentrating on.

Here is the schedule of events:

April 5: Most minimalist visual style, Most creative Winamp skin, Most original icon package
April 8: Best Power user visual style, Most useable Winamp skin
April 12: Most usable visual style, Best power user Winamp skin, Best "themed" (icons go together the best) icon package
April 15: Most creative visual style
April 19: Best themed* visual style*, Best themed* Winamp skin, Best pseudo-OS icon package
April 22: Best Pseudo-OS visual style
April 26: Best overall visual style, Best overall Winamp skin, Best overall icon package
April 27: Top Team/Individual: WindowBlinds, Top Team/Individual: Winamp, Top Team/Individual: Icons
April 29: User's Choice: Best visual style, User's Choice: Best Winamp skin: User's Choice: Best icon package

*themed skin as in the whole skin keeps to a particular theme.

16 Events. Over $10,000 in cash and prizes. Anyone can enter.

The judges will be admins/employees from Stardock, Neowin, deviantART, and Nullsoft.

So there you have it.  WB visual styles, icon packages, and Winamp 5. For $10k to $15k in cash and prizes spread among 16 main events.

[Message Edited]

Skinplant and Stardock have released a series of premium "Mini Suites".  $5 suites that include the visual style, the icons, and the wallpapers. Just the basics -- done in a professional manner.

Check them out for yourself.

If you have Object Desktop, WindowFX 2.2 is in beta and boy does it have some cool stuff.

The main new feature is window scaling. See the main screenshot along with this one here:
https://www.stardock.com/products/windowfx/wfx-feb04a.jpg

Window scaling is where you take a regular window and have it be any size you want on the screen. If you hold down the shift key when you minimize a window, WindowFX will turn it into a tile. You can then use the Ctrl key to resize the tiled window to any size you want and optionally interact with it.

The tiled window isn't just some snapshot or some other hack its live. With real-time window updating. This can be quite useful for those of you have multiple chat windows open at once and want to keep track of them at once. You can also optionally set the tiled windows to stay on top so that it's easy to go back and forth to a group of windows you're working on.

If you don't have Object Desktop, you can get it at www.objectdesktop.com. It's a suite of desktop enhancements that includes WindowBlinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, Theme Manager, ObjectBar, Keyboard LaunchPad, and more.