This Fall I’m starting to get back into skinning.  For the past 8 months or so, I’ve been the interim Project Manager on Elemental: War of Magic to get that game ready for release – which I failed spectacularly at. Sometimes, the answer is not to “work harder”. But I digress. The problem I’m seeing with skinning is business vs. passion.  That is, Windows XP users still represent a near majority of the people using our skinning programs. The problem is, Windows XP is dead as a tech...

One of the things that amazes me is when programs lack even 128x128 icons.  WindowBlinds and DeskScapes had this boo boo which we are fixing for an update in the next couple weeks.

But Apple’s programs? Really? Shame on Apple for that.

One of the new features of Object Desktop 2009 is the rewrite of Theme Manager. Here are some screenshots:

The bad news is that Google's recently released web browser, Google Chrome doesn't play well with WindowBlinds. It works but it's visually messed up looking. The good news is that we have it it working internally but are working through some remaining issues.  I love the new browser though I'm not sure I'm in love with their coding implementation. The upcoming WindowBlinds 6.3 will support Google Chrome. Right now, changing skins while it's loaded still has to be...

For those of you interested in what my desktop looks like, I'm running Aero Frost with the "Think Green" weather gadget.

  Rafael from WithinWindows visited us this past week and took some great pictures. I'm stealing this from his site . . Rafael is best known as the world's leading expert on uxtheme patching (XP and Vista).  But he's not just a great developer, he's a great guy too.   The wetlands on the Stardock property. Bee hives     inside the hives     Outside the Stardock ...

Jeff Schader, the CEO of his home-based art contracting company "The Skins Factory" has decided to write about me (again).  Now, normally I try not to get involved in this kind of thing. Life is short and all that.  But what Jeff is doing is obnoxious enough that I've decided to do the one thing that I think will stop it: Write about it. Here's the deal, Jeff will write some post or comment about me that's incredibly vile. When people naturally become outraged about what he's writte...

When it comes to skinning the OS, I'm a fanatic. I've been into changing the look and feel of the OS for nearly 15 years now.  From Object Desktop on OS/2 to working on the very first GUI skinning program on Windows, skinning is a passion of mine. Over the years, I've seen a lot of programs, companies, and ideas come and go.  On the software side, there's been great programs like eFX and Chroma (to name two) along with the ubiquitous WindowBlinds .  On the content side, ther...

 

Take Windows to the next level

A look at how to completely transform your Windows experience.

  

After a full year of effort, Stardock has officially launched MyColors to the general public.

MyColors Theme Manager in action.

Skinning first started getting popular around 1999. Back then, it was mostly about skinning Winamp and WindowBlinds.  Today, people expect to be able to customize virtually every aspect of their PC experience. From the moment someone boots to the time they shut down, everything a user sees they now anticipate the ability to personalize somehow if they choose to. In the beginning, the content came from the community. The software itself was developed within the community as well. A given ...

       

Aura was a WindowBlinds skin originally created for WindowBlinds 5 on Windows XP awhile back. It was actually one of the first skins that Stardock itself actually was involved in the design. Until recently, Stardock focused strictly on the software. It made WindowBlinds and left it to skin authors to make skins.  The the feature set of WindowBlinds became more rich, it became increasingly difficult for skin authors to make full use of all the new features. Moreover, Stardock wanted t...