Sput

Reply to Ideas for Dreams in Animated Wallpapers WinCustomize Forums

These ideas require programming to make dynamic content display but... ...How about a dream that dynamically displays the graphics from any installed BOINC projects running (i.e. Seti@home)? ...or something that animates/changes colours based on system info - so the main tint or the colour of particular elements could depend on the average CPU usage over the last say 30 secs etc...or the sun could rise/fall, a lamp could brighten/dim etc. In terms of an idea which just

Reply to The Big 100 in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

I haven't read the whole thread, but thought I'd chip in that I had an idea for a skin a few years ago which I've never had the time to go back to now that WB supports the alpha blending on most bits which the skin would require to work at all: [link="https://forums.wincustomize.com/?forumid=42&aid=39057"]"Is this worth starting a new skin?" (from 2004)[/link] It fits with the idea of having a 'special rich' look to it (like a Faberge egg) as I see it as gold and rich felt/fur

Reply to how do you like vista now? in Windows Vista WinCustomize Forums

I work in IT and I'm being seen as a heretic with my collegues for saying that I'm actually liking Vista. The "cool"/cynical view with most IT support staff I know is "anything MS do must by definition be awful and doomed to fail as only then can the true shining light of Linux emerge to lead us all into Nirvanna and the IT geeks can then dominate the world Mwhaa ha ha! (evil laugh)" ...but in reality, I'd say Vista is 'OK'. Looks much prettier generally then XP. Works pret

Reply to So just what will work with Windows Vista as far as games go in Games WinCustomize Forums

The only games I'm missing under Vista so far are some old DOS games I used to like going back to from time to time, but with a bit more effort with MS Virtual PC I'm confident they won't be a real issue. The other retro games (BBC emulated, Mame etc) have all been fine. I have found the graphics driver updates from nVidia a disappointment so far. I've had to stick with the driver from Feb as it runs everything quicker and more reliably, although I haven't tried the very latest update

Reply to Windows Experience Index Scores in Windows Vista WinCustomize Forums

Component Details Subscore Base score Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz 5.3 Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB 5.6 Graphics WinFast PX7950 GT(NVIDIA) 5.9 Gaming graphics 751 MB Total available graphics memory 5.8 Primary hard disk 208GB Free (298GB Total) 5.7 Windows Vista (TM) Ultimate 5.3 Determined by lowest subscore Although unfortunately the drivers currently don't seem to support per pixel alpha blending so Windows FX performance is worse

Reply to Blog: Will Windows Vista attract new skinners? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I would liken the situation to the early days of computer game writing. Back in the 80's, any enthusiastic (and talented) person could spend just a few weeks or months on a game and could release it to possible world aclaim. Now, it takes a team of many programers, graphic artists, musicians etc to produce a game that will actually impress people enough to shift boxes off shelves in any great number. ...but, that doesn't mean that free lit

Reply to A note to Hotmail members... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Reading the Hotmail help it says something to the effect of "new accounts won't support access through OE or Outlook", which fits with my experience as access to my account is still working through Outlook (I just checked again to be sure). I can understand Hotmail taking this step as the junk filters at work have seen an increase of mail originating from @hotmail.com addresses recently so it was obviously being abused. As for why I'm sticking with the hotmail account when I al

Reply to A note to Hotmail members... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I must be privilaged as Hotmail is working fine for me from Outlook still... I've not recieved any notice of it changing, and besides the comment here, I've seen nothing anywhere else about it. I guess I'll just keep using it and see if it dies, or if I can just avoid it stopping through guile and cunning <img s

Reply to What's left? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Maybe the future is in changing/extending the behaviour of objects rather than just the appearance? Also, making it possible to use alpha&vector graphics for everything with as little impact on perfomace as possible <img src="http://images.stardock.com/images/smiles/sb.gif" border=0 ALIGN="absmiddle" ALT="Powered by Skin

Reply to Best Windowsblinds skin ever? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

BTW - I found a magazine cover disk just the other day with WB 0.something on it which I think was where I first heard of it and tried it....I wonder what would happen to XP if I tried installing that version now?

Reply to Best Windowsblinds skin ever? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I agree that any "best ever" question is impossble to answer unless someone is omniscient of course, but then you knew I was going to say that didn't you? I change my vote to Antares too...it's a technical tour de force, but it's very usable too. It's the skin that has pushed what's possible the furthest to date, AFAIK and IMHO. As for the question about the first WB skin, Frogboy would pr

Reply to Best Windowsblinds skin ever? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Despite having made my own, Doublet is one I would go back to and would point people to as exemplary - not least because of the consistency across a whole scheme.

Reply to what is the deal with MAC people??? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Sput....the date of that ''''Press release'''' was April the Oneth.....somewhat significant.... D''oh! At least I said I hadn''t paid much notice.... /me skulks off to the shadows

Reply to what is the deal with MAC people??? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

This discussion is taking place on a site owned by a software company that only programs for Windows. ...odd, I thought I remembered a news article on the front page a few weeks back saying that something was being worked on for the Mac, but I can''t find mention of it now and I didn''t take much notice at the time....but this _may_ not be enti

Reply to Vertical taskbar... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

In the event this seems argumentative, it's not intended to be. Simply my opinion ...ditto for my joke about the vertical config calling it "silly". Good point on the auto hide...I get round the same issue by having 2 monitors, and all the extra toolbars go on the 2nd screen <img src="http://images.stardock.com/images/smiles/smile.gif" border=0

Reply to Vertical taskbar... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

....99% of the users doesn't use the vertical taskbar...but if you don't do it, the 1% will screem quicky. That %age just about fits my experience with users of Windows in general. I've never understood the wish to use it that way myself as the taskbar button text is horizontal, and so you either have to have it drastically truncated or

Reply to what is the deal with MAC people??? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

DesignCaddy - you ask why? My theory is that it's because they are a minority, and people in a minority tend to feel they have to defend their corner. It seems to be a human instinct thing. As for the debate, PC/Mac are both the same these days...they both crash, they both cost money, they both keep me in work More seriously - it used to be true that Macs were far superior for graphical d

Reply to An Invitation to The Truth in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

(actually the bbc origins board seems to have decended into a poor state at the moment. It's been 6 months or so since I posted there regularly....I started skining as a way to ween myself off it )

Reply to An Invitation to The Truth in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

jafo - does it count as (C) infringement on these boards when people copy and paste things wholesale like this? http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/short_history.html I used to debate evolution/made up pseudo-science with people on the BBC science boards, and this hit and run with a huge copy and paste (in an attempt to try and make people think they have a brain) was a very common tactic used by those anti-science evangeli

Reply to Message for Jafo... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Not to but in...but I noticed that the error report comes from a amil server on the domain bigpond.com where as jafo's account is at bigpond.net.au . Might be nothing, but it could be a clue Eddited - ignore this as it's solved anyhow now! [Message Edited]

Reply to latin4567 in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Thanks jafo...that clarifies things (and could well have been why the wall I had rejected ages ago was rejected then as I just included some vague statement because I couldn't remember the address they came from when it came to upload the result )

Reply to latin4567 in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

RE: astonomy object - ah well...if you don't fancy it as an exercise you could use to start learning scripting on, then maybe frogboy or someone might like to create some such object anyhow. There was some mention on the newsgroups that Stardock want to know what sort of things people would like for DX....

Reply to latin4567 in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

BTW - if stock photo ARE OK, then (for a small fee) you could try: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&text=landscape as a start...I've not checked their exact rules/agreement when you purchase an image, but it's an example of the sort of things out there....and other places are free as in beer as well as free as in speech *** edited as I checked the small print

Reply to latin4567 in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

latin4567 - what I meant about alpha blending is that if you use png or tga graphics, then you could use the same blending up used when you applied the graphics to the bliss image with the object on the desktop. That way, the image would show through the desktop wallpaper and blend with it. You'd still use states on the object to switch images, but each image would be semi-transparent. Try a web search for "stock photographs"...though, one wallpaper I created using stock photos was re

Reply to start bar help... in Stardock Software WinCustomize Forums

xan der - that does sound like the most practical way forward....much better than the convoluted kludge I came up with