WinStyles has been a major project at Stardock for over 2 years now. Originally dubbed "Convergence", this program was designed to put it all together. In the upcoming Object Desktop 2002, it's installed with the label "Object Desktop Theme Manager (WinStyles)". The new version of WinStyles that comes with Object Desktop 2002 will shortly be available on its own as WinStyles 1.2. It's a pretty significant update providing a heavily revamped user interface that will make it much more appealing to users than previous versions:

Screenshot: https://www.stardock.com/temp/wcmag4.jpg

WinStyles is designed to try to hide the complexity of Windows customization and instead deal with it as a single unified whole. Casual users who found it difficult to wonder what exactly the difference is between WindowBlinds and IconPackager and Beatnik and DesktopX no longer have to even worry about what these programs are and do. And that, along with its distributed file format called .SUITE which allows a user to apply a theme in which the parts are downloaded from various locations on the fly, has made WinStyles somewhat controversal. And with some reason.

A typical WinStyles theme might include a WindowBlinds skin, an icon package (IconPackager), a DesktopX theme, an ObjectBar bar, a Winamp skin, and an ICQPlus skin. But the casual user won't know that necessarily. They simply download a theme that, for example, makes Windows look like the user interface of their favorite video game. WinStyles talks to the various programs for the user and applies their individual parts. And if the user is missing a program it needs, it will ask them if it wants it to download and install it for them. The result is that the user may be totally unaware of what goes into actually making a theme. Considering the amount of work that went into creating things like DesktopX and WindowBlinds and Winamp, you can see how some users, particularly skin authors, may see WinStyles as something that makes skinning just a little too accessible.

The other side of the argument actually agrees -- that's the whole point of WinStyles, to make Windows customization friendly and available to casual users. A casual user doesn't want to have to fish around the net looking for a half dozen programs to download, install, configure and then to go out and download and install a half dozen skins for that half dozen programs to make their desktop look different. With WinStyles, they download one program and one theme and apply it and it takes care of the rest.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

There's an interesting thread over at Neowin about WinCustomize's new bandwidth system.

Let me outline how it works:
After you've downloaded over 50 megabytes of content, you are asked to tie your WinCustomize account to your Stardock customer account. In effect, the site begins to check to see if you're a Stardock customer in some way. This only happens to those who are Citizen access, anyone else won't see it.

At 100 megabytes of downloaded content, the new system is activated. If you are a user with Citizen access and have downloaded >100 megabytes and have not registered any of your SD software nor have purchased an account you are required to do one of those things in order to continue downloading from the site.

So in effect, if you're using the shareware version of WindowBlinds and have been silently downloading skins for months, at some point you now actually have to register your software if you want to keep using the site's bandwidth.

One user in that discussion commented "You knew the risks of piracy when you guys opened the site..." to which the obvious response seems to be collectively: "Yes, we knew the risks and here is our solution which you apparently don't like."

I just can't seem to grasp how anyone can possibly argue that the people who register their software or purchase Object Desktop should somehow pay for those who are pirating the software to be able to download an unlimited number of skins.

As it is, 100 megs is a LOT of stuff.

This week's new poll deals with perception. Is it your perception that Windows customization is on the rise? At its peak? Or on the decline?

Post your thoughts here on the matter.

There are generally two kinds of people who debate the economics of the Internet. There are the guys who just visit websites and think that making big money on the Internet is easy and then there are the people who actually run websites who know that just paying for bandwidth is a daunting task.

The popular media site, kuro5hin.org is trying something new to generate revenue. They've done the shirts and ads and subscriptions, their new attempt to generate the needed revenue to pay the bills is a fund raising drive. An overt "Help support our site by donating money."

They hope to raise $70,000 in the fund drive to pay the site's upkeep during the coming year. Can they do it? What are your thoughts on this?

My wife and 2 kids went to Disney World. We went with my long time friend Kurt (who developed the original OS/2 version of Object Desktop, his wife and 2 sons.

We had a great time. If you're thinking about going, here are some tips based on what I saw:

It is hot in the summer
Duh. But it's hard to believe just how hot it can be. And how this can affect small children. The best time to go is apparently in October/November. Now, that might mean pulling kids out of school for a few days but I know next time we go, we'll do that. Missing a week of grade school won't kill them.

Fast Past
DW has a really good idea - Fast Pass. Everyone gets them. What you can do is reserve a spot on a ride and then it gives you a time you have to be back there by. You can only use it once every 2 hours. We used this very smartly and saved many hours of waiting in line.

How to avoid lines
Fast pass is part of an overall strategy. If you want to avoid lines, get there early. That means when the park opens. If you wait until 10am, you're going to experience pain. Get there right at 9am and know where you want to go and go there. Then use fast pass to go to your secondary ride choices.

Places of interest
Bear in mind that my oldest child is 5 years old which limits the rides we went on (i.e. no space mountain). Here are some of the cooler places

Magic Kingdom
My kids really loved Aladin's carpet. It's a pretty basic ride but it was a blast for the kids and not too painful for the adults. Magic Kingdom is a little run down these days. Pirates of the Carribean is still really great though. I actually enjoyed Buzz Lightyear's ride, it's part video game, part ride. Fast pass saved us an hour of waiting.

Peter Pan's ride was also pretty neat though not worth waiting in long lines for. The one ride that you have to go on is It's a small world. It's not a good ride but it epitomizes why some non-Americans don't like Americans.

Epcot Center
I liked Epcot center but not necessarily for the right reasons. The entire park is out of The Simpsons. You see, the rides are corporate sponsered which is just hilarious if you look at it the right way.

Monsanto has a really good genetically altered foods show there. It screamed Simpsons satire though "I have a crazy friend who says genetically altered food is bad. Is she crazy?" "No Billy, not crazy, just ignorant.."

Of course, seeing Ellen pimping Exon's Energy ride was both entertaining and hilarious. "Fossil Fuels are cleaner than ever and we're always finding new sources of them to last us as far as the eye can see..." (ironically this is said when the room is pitch black...) I recommend the ride though, it is funny and has cool dinosaurs which have nothing to do with the message.

They did have my beloved Segways there but you coudl only look, not touch! Dammit!

They also have restraunts from around the world there. The muscles in my feet have long since atrophied so I couldn't go to them (need that Segway! I'm not disabled, just LAZY).

As a little offensive side note: FAT PEOPLE, you know who you are. Wheel Chairs are for disabled people. Being obese is not a disability. Freaking fat people running me over all week in their wheel chairs when they aren't even disabled (they manage to get up to get food and drinks constantly!) Until you go to Disney World or some other wildly popular place, the amount of obesity in the United States is just a statistic. But at DW it was pretty clear that the US is full of fat lazy people. I know that it's offensive to say that but freaking nearly lost my foot from being run over so many times by fat people in wheel chairs! And they always allow those wheel chairs but not strollers (a 35 pound kid is a lot to carry around when you're as out of shape as I am -- next time I'm getting a wheel chair or Segway).

Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom was really good but seemed even hotter than the other places. I really didn't want to go to the Lion King thing they had but it is definitely worth it.

Which on a positive note - the people who work at Disney World are incredibly nice and professional. It was unreal actually how people who must have been miserably hot and tired could be incredibly pleasant and kind and enthusiastic. I can't say enough nice things about the people who work at Disney World and the various resorts.

The Safari tour is very good too but you have to make sure you go to it right away in the morning or else you won't see animals and the lines get ridiculously long very quickly. We ran directly to it and still waited about 15 minutes that morning. But it was worth it.

The Dinosaur play area for kids was quite impressive and the 3D Bugs life show can't be missed really liked that.

MGM
This was probably my favorite place there. I wish I had more time to check out more things.

My favorite part was the 3D Muppet show. It was very impressive and funny too. The Indiana Jones show was incredible. It's not only really entertaining but it's funny too. It's hard to believe that they do these shows day in and day out.

That's one of the things that struck me about all the shows I saw, you'd think that they were doing it one time ever and we were the focus of their entire effort. There was a Play House Disney show with Bear in the Big Blue house and the other characters. Live snging and dancing, etc. It's hard to believe they do these things over and over each day because they came across so fresh and enthusiastic.

Lodging
We stayed in the Wilderness Lodge. It's a 7 story lodge that's just huge but incredibly neat. We could take the boat to DW. I do not recommend camping. The people we talked to who camped were most definitely not having as good of a time as us. I can't imagine going to a camp ground after spending the day in 100+ degree (300% humidity!) weather walking the parks. The Wilderness Lodge folks were incredibly friendly and kind. Plus they had a really nice pool.

Other Notes
There are some water parks, Sea World and other things near by that we didn't get to go to this time. That's okay since with a 5 year old and a 1 year old it wouldn't have been terribly fun I suspect for them.

We're planning on going back in a few years when they're a bit older and I can take the older one on the big rides and spend time at the water park.

All in all, I had a really good time, I can't think of anything negative to say (other than the fat people who use wheel chairs because they can't stand walking all day and that's really just nitpicking). Best vacation I can recall ever having.

If you go, do it right though. Don't do it on the cheap. If you're finding you have to drive 2 days to get there or are planning to camp, don't do it unless you consider the drive and camping to be bonus good things to do (I hate driving and not going to camp in hot weather).

Hope this helps!

A few people in the media who have seen WindowFX 2 in action have commented that this might be Stardock's Killer App of 2002. WindowFX 2 integrates Direct3D into the Windows desktop seamlessly to give users special effects that make what's on MacOS X look easy.

Check out the rough draft of the media guide.

In a recent poll of active users on WinCustomize, 87% of the respondants were men. Which leads the to question, did they find out about WinCustomize by typing "skins" into a search engine?

Ok guys and gals, I'm outta here for a week. Taking the wife/kids to Disneyworld. Try not to burn the place down while I'm gone!

Have a subscription to WinCustomize? Get the latest version of the SkinBrowser here: https://www.stardock.com/support

Don't have a WinCustomize subscription?
https://www.wincustomize.com/index.asp?cmd=subscription

Here are some screenshots:
https://www.stardock.com/products/skinbrowser/sb-1.jpg
https://www.stardock.com/products/skinbrowser/sb-2.jpg
https://www.stardock.com/products/skinbrowser/sb-3.jpg
https://www.stardock.com/products/skinbrowser/sb-4.jpg
https://www.stardock.com/products/skinbrowser/sb-5.jpg

During the interview, Microsoft was asked point blank about whether they'd be making more visual styles for Windows XP. Their answer was essentially to use WindowBlinds.

That said, Microsoft is working hard to make the next version of Windows have all sorts of cool extensions (which I cannot publicly comment on except to say they're cool). Those of you with Object Desktop and have the WindowFX 2 alpha already have seen the benefits of some of the extensions to Windows Microsoft has been putting in and has opened up to third parties.

The trend we've seen in Microsoft has been for them to focus on making Windows solid, reliable, and more open and allow third parties "like Stardock" to then extend it to suit specific needs. So rather than throwing in everything but the kitchen skin, Windows (which we've seen with XP) has gone the direction of having hooks in for others to exend. WindowBlinds 3.3, which is Microsoft Windows XP certified, basically turns WindowBlinds skins into a new visual style format by hooking into Microsoft's visual style architecture.

This bodes well for the customization community who want to be able to customize their PCs to match their particular ways of using them without having to suffer from loss of performance, instability and other problems (as a side note, compare how Stardock's Object Desktop functions on say Windows 95 compared to how it functions on Windows XP! The seamlessness gets better and better largely thanks to Microsoft making it easier for third parties to integrate as part of the operating system).

Of course, this isn't necessarily good news for Linux advocates as many Windows ISVs now get to have their cake and eat it too - they can extend Windows and Microsoft seems to look at developers much more like partners than potential competitors.

While the next version of Windows is years away, Windows XP is proving to be a really fantastic desktop OS for most people and the philosphy behind Longhorn/Blackcomb sounds very exciting.

What do you think?