Recently in Windows Customization Category

Wincustomize is seven years old today. It certainly doesn't seem like it's been quite that long but as they say, time flies...

I wasn't even aware that it was the site's birthday until I happened to head over and saw this post by Zoomba. It is a smattering of skins that were available in March of 2001. Holy cow, one of mine is there. A Desktop Object for my Ganymede theme. It's just a junky little analog clock that I used in my port from the Enlightenment theme by the same name.

It's been a long time since I did anything even remotely related to skinning and I miss it. Not that I'm not into desktop customization anymore, I am just more of an end user and the folks that are really good artists over at WC never let me down with their innovative designs.

With Christmas a couple of weeks off the number of skins for Christmas and Wintertime in general is starting to increase exponentially. Here is a sampling of some of the different skins you can find around the net:

These Twinkling Christmas Wreaths by Amethystm00n are animated DesktopX objects that can be used for shortcuts or just plain old eye candy.

   

These three sets of skins by Fairyy (find all three at the link) are for DesktopX, Rainlendar and RightClick and will complement the Candy Cane Lane Windowblinds style by Jazzymjr pictured below.

Crystal Snow is a wallpaper you can use to decorate your Christmas desktop.

Crystal Snow is by HeirofSlytherin and you can find more skins by him at the link.

Peaceful is another nice wallpaper by Vangoughs you can find over at Wincustomize.

A Christmas Ornament is a screen saver by HOTRODLED that will give you that Christmas feeling all year 'round.

These are just a sampling of some of the Christmas skins you can find over at Wincustomize to jazz up your desktop with the holiday feeling. Screen Savers and Wallpaper can be used as is. The skins for other programs require each respective program. I have provided links to those as well. There are literally hundreds of other Christmas skins you can find over at Wincustomize. This link will take you to all of the skins and screenshots with the Christmas tag over at WC.

I am currently running the preview for Slider, a Windowblinds skins by I.R.Brainiac. His designs are some of my favorites, although I don't normally run them on a daily basis because the title bars and borders are usually so huge that even at 1280x1024 they look huge on my monitor.

The skin isn't complete yet but it's pretty darn sharp so far and I am looking forward to it's release.

Stardock and Alienware have teamed up to offer a contest to win a PC worth up to $3,000 or up to $1,000 in cash! If you are using Windows Vista Ultimate, chances are that you are familiar with Microsoft DreamScene and possibly even Stardock's DeskScapes which brings 2D and 3D animations to life as wallpaper. It's pretty cool stuff. I think I posted a video of it here a few months back and pretty soon Stardock is going to make DreamScene 2.0 available as well.

If you are an animator go check out the Create Your Alienware® Dream competition being held at Wincustomize and sponsored by Alienware®

Here's a listing of the prizes:

• Grand Prize - Alienware® Area-51 7500 Desktop PC
• 2nd Place - $1,000 Cash
• 3rd Place - $500 Cash

The competition is on until New Years Eve at 11:59pm so start cracking and get those Dreams uploaded. The winners will be selected during the first week of January!

I posted about the forthcoming suite for Object Desktop subscribers called Magic back in the middle of the month and I just realized that I had not posted anything else. It was released and I switched from my spooky desktop to Magic immediately. I really like the skin. It's bright without being too bright and all of the fonts show up great, which was an issue in the dark Halloween skin I was using at the time. Here's what it looks like on my desktop.

Island Dog has posted a nice tour of the basics in the latest Windowblinds release for those of you interested in what it has to offer. Go check out the User Interface Walkthrough if you have the time and want to know what Windowblinds can do now.

If you haven't had the chance to try Next of Skin and you run Windowblinds or

any of the other apps that are skinned by this community theme, head on over to Wincustomize and get it now.

Next of Skin is a skin for the community by the community. Some of the participating authors include IR Brainiac, KittyMalone, Pictoratus and SK Originals not to mention quite a few others.

Currently there are skins for Windowblinds, several widgets, a logon screen and boot screen. The list will be updated as more parts are added.

If you are any good at Photoshop, The Gimp, or Paint Shop Pro you might even want to get involved yourself.

Frogboy posted a bit of news over at Wincustomize related to how the Magic Suite is going. If you don't know what Magic is, here's a screenshots from Frogboy.

You can view the full sized image in the article over at Wincustomize. Magic is a premium suite that will be available soon for Object Desktop Users who have renewed their subscriptions past January 2009 as I have. I am really looking forward to this cool looking set of skins. One of my favorite themes of all time is probably Toon and this reminds me of it quite a bit. I may end up relinquishing this one to the wife and girls though, as they love this kind of stuff as much as I do.

Stardock has updated TweakVista, at least the version on Object Desktop anyway. TweakVista is a Windows enhancement application that lets you configure Windows Vista to your hearts content by improving performance and really letting you turn your PC into a scream machine.

According to the TweakVista web site:

Unlike other power tools for Windows, TweakVista automatically prompts enhancement recommendations, offering easy “one click” updates to otherwise complex configuration changes. TweakVista is also safe to use. By utilizing Microsoft’s system-restore technology any changes you make can easily be rolled back. You can freely experiment with different settings without disabling your computer

I have been using TweakVista since the first beta became available on OD and I really like it.

Happy Halloween!! Well, almost. It certainly feels like it with my current desktop. Stardock has updated their R.I.P. desktop with the newest features from the skinned components included in the theme and release it for free for Wincustomize subscribers as well as with any purchase of a premium skin from the store. Most of the premium skins run less than $10 so you are getting two for the price of one. Here's what mine looks like right now.

This is one kick-ass theme. The little ghost on top of the start menu is animated and moves back and forth from the tombstone to the right edge.

There are more screen-shots at Wincustomize to look at as well. As you can see I finally changed my user icon in Windows to match the avatar I've been using on most of my web sites as well.

 

Some of the goodies included in the theme are:

• WB6 Animated skin for Vista & XP
• Icon Package for Vista & XP
• Wallpaper in 3 Resolutions
• Clock Gadget
• Calendar Gadget
• Weather Gadget

 

One more thing that they have done is to release a Dream as well. Dream Scenes are animated desktops that work under Windows Vista Ultimate. It's the same background, only animated. You can download it for free here if you have Vista Ultimate Extras installed. It's one of the very few extras that Microsoft has actually released since May and is very cool particularly when it is extended with Stardock's Deskcapes