AccessFolders is a program that lets you quickly jump to any directory from the standard Windows file/save dialog.

A new beta for the popular MP3 player, WinAmp is now available at Nullsoft's site.

Now if you have some WinAmp 3 skins, upload 'em!

The Windows replacement shell geOshell has been updated to 4.8.2.9.

The file:
http://www.geoshellx.com/beta/geoshell_4.8.2.9.zip

The docs:
http://www.geoshellx.com/beta/geoshell_4.8.2.8[full]with_docs.zip

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/GingertheScooter/1.asp

First some technical details:

Windows XP comes with a logon program called logonui.exe. This contains the nice looking logon screen when you bootup. Very soon after release, technical proficient users discovered they could use a resource hacker and make their own logons. These replacement logonui's have become quite popular. But because they it requires using a resource hacker, most casual users and artists have not really been comfortable using it.

The result has been that mcuh of the logonui's floating around us other people's graphics (rips). I.e. some author's wallpapers are taken by someone else and turned into a logonui without permission.

Moreover, since you're replacing the actual logonui, if something goes wrong, very bad things can happen.

That's where LogonXP comes into play. When you install LogonXP, it works like most other skinnable programs, your logons are in sub-directories. Those subdirectories contain no EXE's but instead contain a collection of bitmaps and a text file describing where they go. So it's very easy to make your own. LogonXP then talks to the LogonUI and applies it. No additional overhead or resources are required to do it this way.

LogonXP also has several safety features - if you somehow "hose up" things it lets you restore to the default Windows XP logon and ensures that you can always recover via the Ctrl-Alt-Del logon pop up.

LogonXP also can import Logonui.exe and save them in its format (there is no logonui.exe format as it's Microsoft's .exe afterall). So you can take your logonui.exe's you've downloaded and import them very easily (and reliably) into LogonXP.

LogonXP is going to be freeware.

If are interested in creating your own XP logons and would like to try it to either make your own XP logons or convert your logonui.exe's, email [email protected] to get a private build.

For those of you who have been asking for a CursorEx section, here it is - CursorXP, the successor to CursorEx is now available. have fun!

CursorXP 1.0 is the successor to Ricciosoft's CursorEx. Alberto Riccio has been on the Stardock team for the past 2 years on DesktopX. CursorXP represents months of new development to streamline the core code to be faster.

Customers of CursorEx will automatically be added to the database and be able to download CursorXP Plus.

CursorXP is free, Stardock also provides CursorXP Plus for $10 which adds additional special effects and features.

How skinnable is XP? Very. Why? Because unlike Windows 95/98/ME, XP isn't trapped with that evil 128K GDI limit which absolutely was poison to skinning.

But there is no one particular solution to customizing XP. There are a host of first party and third party ways of doing it.

Breaking XP into its parts you have:

1) The GUI
2) The Start bar
3) The logon screen
4) The desktop
5) The icons

So what does XP bring to the table in these areas?

With the GUI, you have 3 different skin types you can now use (all of which require a third party program to utilize). You've got .msstyles skins. The good thing about msstyles is that they cost nothing to use and they're fairly fast. The bad news is that they aren't very flexible. Can't move the buttons, very limited in the size of borders, etc. The second format is UIS2 which is what 99% of WindowBlinds skins are made with (and a host of third party programs have licensed it as well - Download accelerator, ACDSEE, ICQPlus, etc.). UIS2 is very powerful, you can do animations, move buttons anywhere (even to the bottom left hand corner of a window if you wanted). Every border can be any size you want. The downside is performance and reliability. That kind of flexibility means that skin authors can go hog wild and many do and the result is that many skins are slower than they should be and there is also the issue that windows are actuallys lightly larger than they visually appear because of the independent border sizes. For most people, these are minor and the most popular skins aren't crazy and newer skins are quite fast (as fast as an msstyle).

The third skin type for XP is called UIS1 and it will become widely available with WindowBlinds 3.1. During the beta of XP (last year), there was a lot of discussion over whether msstyles was partially based off of UIS1 because they are so similar. The problem with the original UIS1 was that it couldn't handle any transparancies so most skin authors didn't use it. The new UIS1 coming out with WB 3.1 allows for transparancies. It's basically the same as an msstyle except you can move the buttons anywhere you want. The advantage of UIS1 though isn't in its flexibility but in its performance - it's twice as fast as an msstyle (literally). And of course UIS1/UIS2 can work on any version of Windows.

Anyway, you have 3 different skin formats on XP to choose from and they all work pretty well.

Then you have the logons. There is a program called LogonUI that makes it so that you can change your start up. There are other logon programs in the making as well that will let you do that in different ways.

You then have the icons. Windows XP is the first Windows OS to support alpha blending in the icons which is a big deal. It means icons can be blended into the background. it's hard to go back to a standard type of icon after seeing that.

Then you have the Start bar. There are quite a few programs that can enhance or replace the XP Start bar. There's Hoverdesk (www.hoverdesk.net), NeXTStart (www.winstep.net) and now there's ObjectBar (www.stardock.com/products/objectbar).

And last there's the desktop itself. There are basically two programs that handle that fully (other than Litestep but I haven't tried it on XP). There's Talisman (don't have the URL handy) which is a full blown environment and then there's DesktopX (www.desktopx.net) that uses the new alpha blending features in XP to a huge extent (full animated alpha blended objects on the desktop on the fly).

Looking for a free fun holiday game to play? Check out Elves, Inc. A game in which you can play either single player or multiplayer.

I was thinking about something last night while going through some of my game posting archives.

The issue isn't so much about free vs. non-free. It's really an issue of time vs. no time.

Much of the arguments on both sides boil down to very different perspectives on the value of time.

When you're a kid (i.e. a teen) you have all the time in the world. You may not think you do when you're a teen but you really do. I remember even in college thinking I was "swamped" but I did, afterall, write a commercial software product that went on to bring in millions of dollars between working 3 other jobs and taking Electrical Engineering classes full time. In essence, I had time.

Now, being "old" (just turned 30), time is more important to me than money.

To use an unrelated example:
Most strategy games come with "packs" that contain extra maps and sell for $20. These packs get flamed by some people like crazy because one can find plenty of good maps for free if they dig for them.

But that is exactly the point. Someone like me is not willing to "dig". If I can get all the maps I might want for a favorite game for just $20 instantly, then I'm set.

Convenience, short for time savings, outstrips the value of saving some nominal cost.

That's where the paid skin debates come in. There are lots of excellent free skins out there. There are some excellent free suites out there as well. But for someone who's really busy and wants to have a complete, unified look, $10 is nothing and to get a complete unified suite of 20 different skins is an incredible bargain.

This extends to software as well. Sure, you can hunt for a good freeware alternative but when I need something done, I'm going ot go with whatever I find first that works well. We paid $500 for Webtrends even though there are plenty of free log analysers out there. We just didn't feel like fooling with them. Same for our mail server. We paid for one even though there are lots of free ones. This is one reason why Linux has failed as a desktop. Because the bulk of users out there aren't teens with massive time on their hands. THey just want to sit down and get the thing to work with minimum effort and time.

So I think much of the debates on "Freeware" vs "payware" is really a debate of which you value - time or money. For most adults, $10 or $20 is so nominal that it is effectively free AS LONG AS IT'S CONVENIENT TO PAY.

But when you're a teen, it's hard to imagine that change. And hence, they think that the difference is based on principle rather than lack of time.