Blog: Tired right clicking dude

Chewing food like a chump!

from JoeUser Forums

I'm tired. I mean really tired. We've hired a half-dozen or so people this past month and a lot of the people we're bringing in are taking over jobs that I used to do. I've always been lazy, but as I get older, I seem to get lazier!

You know you're lazy when you see someone on TV on a feeding tube and you think "and hear I am, chewing my own food like I'm some sort of chump!" Thank goodness for bed pans, that's all I can say.

For those of you using Object Desktop and have been wondering what the heck is going on with ObjectBar and ControlCenter, your ship has come in. We are now directly focused on development of those two things (they're being merged).  The first step in that has been getting RightClick finished.  RightClick is a program that allows you to replace your Windows desktop menu with one of your own creation. Very easy to use, very powerful.

So if you have Object Desktop, check out Stardock Central and you should see it there.

In fact, if you have Object Desktop, you've probably noticed that a lot of programs on it have started getting a lot of updates. That's because we're gearing towards Object Desktop 2005 which is scheduled to be released in the next couple of months. So WindowBlinds 4.5 beta and SkinStudio 4.5 betas showed up already. Theme Manager and WindowFX have been getting updated as well.

And meanwhile, the widget wars that people just love hearing about keeps going on. The next build of DesktopX is due out next week and it has a bunch of new features that should make it easier to use and allow users to customize widgets much easier.

Meanwhile next TUESDAY is the official launch of WinCustoize 2K5.  I won't be here though. I'll be in New York groveling to the various print magazines to cover our lowly stuff.  Somewhere I still have a picture of my mowing Nicholas Petreley's lawn (former editor of Infoworld).  You do what you gotta do.

At the same time I've been trying to grovel to Microsoft to start including us on their community outreach programs. Our 3 million unique visitors per month I hope is a persuasive argument that maybe Microsoft could help participate in events. I'd like to get a big chat event to help launch the new site. When I get back that would be a good thing to arrange. Then I can actively recruit for my World of Warcraft clan. Priorities you know.

12% of people in the poll like the current WinCustomize over the beta of the new site. The current WinCustomize runs at about 34% the speed of the new site, has fewer features, much larger pages, and is uglier. But I suppose it has its charm. Hopefully there won't be too much up an uproar when we move over.

4,650 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You say the new site is basically 3 times faster, but on my end it's much slower than the old site. Being stuck with a dial up connection, it's painfully obvious how much longer loading pages takes on the new site....... Maybe it's faster for you lucky folks with broadband, but not for me.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just out of curiosity, will the forum(messageboard) from the old version of WinCustomize and the new forum be merged? If not, will there still be access to all of the info in the old forums(messageboard)?
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

We plan to migrate the forum posts over.

Koasasiti, that really surprises me but once we turn on the bandwidth compression feature, dial-up users should be very VERY happy.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Will the compression help all users or just dial-up ones?

I like the new site more than the old one, I have to say. Wonder if I should re-do the smilies in blue though.......
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The compression sounds promising..... when will you turn that puppy on?



Wonder if I should re-do the smilies in blue


I think blue would look great.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My lastest gripe is the white background when viewing images, it detracts from what your looking at. A darker background would allow the images to stand out more. This is what I liked about the old site, you could see the images better without having to enlarge everything to see it. Other than that it's starting to grow on me. And the speed of loading has never been a problem for me.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The compression will help everyone but dial-up users will notice it the most.

There are 3 parts that determine if a website is fast:

  1. The efficiency of the backend (database, scripting). The current WInCustomize is very very slow in this regard.
  2. The amount of bandwidth available to the website. We're fine here. Lots of available bandwidth.
  3. The amount of bandwidth that the site uses on the visitor's computer (both sides are relatively fat in this regard).

If you read this post, you are reading 80K of HTML.  If the server has compression, that 80K becomes 8K. To a broadband user, 80k/8k both are nothing really. To a dial-up user, that's a big deal.

On the old WinCustomize.com, this same news item uses 97K of HTML.  It's not a subjective thing to say the new site is faster. It's a fact. It's HTML is smaller. And the new site has caching, the old site does not. And once the compression gets turned on, it'll really cook.

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think what makes the site appear slow is the response time from the server. I click on anything here and not much happens for ages (no network activity), then it 'wakes up' and the page suddenly loads real quick... Other sites load in the blink of an eye
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's fast on my end, but everthing is with cable. I like the green smileys!! Don't like the white, but most people would not like the dark gray that I like

Frogboy, I appreciate all of your efforts (even lawn mowing) for this site. I don't agree with everything (who does in life?), but this is one hell of a site.

Take Mr Gates out to lunch. He'll go along with your ideas. Oh wait. Gates. You might have to do more than buy lunch. Can't think of a way to bribe that guy.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Can't think of a way to bribe that guy


Give him a Mac G4 of course!
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Browsing this site with a tabbed browser is the way to go. Very hard to get lost (when you click on an item which is on sale at the store, the browser goes to the old version of WC and, unless you click the back button a bunch of times, you can't get back to where you were. Which brings me to my question:

Will this site be integrated into the SDC?

Wonderful work!!