I've been having a ball with ObjectDock Plus. I've got 4 different docks going on my desktop but you can barely tell because I have itty bitty tabs  on 3 of them.  The 4th dock I don't have docked to an edge but instead I have it activate when I put my mouse to the very bottom. The biggest glitch I've run into with it is that I can't drag and drop links to a dock (well I can but they don't work).  What I want to do is have my "favorite" websites as a series of tiny tabs over on the left edge of my screen.  I mostly use Keyboard LaunchPad for getting around my sites (Ctrl-Alt-1 for WinCustomize, 2 for Joeuser.com, 3 for Stardock, 4 for Neowin, and so forth).  But what I want to use the docks for is more "temporary" favorite websites. Ones that I want to check out later when I have more time but know I'll forget but don't want to have permanently in my "favorites" list.

BTW, if you've got a particularly clever ObjectDock Plus setup, take a screenshot and upload it and I'll try to feature some of them in my next WC blog. 

One thing that ObjectDock Plus's availability has brought forward is an issue that affects most shareware developers and that is pricing.  Go to a shareware conference or just hang out with other shareware authors and the topic is sure to come up: Why does the same guy who happily pays $8 to watch "White Chicks" and spend $4 on pop corn or $18 on two pizzas turn around and bitch about paying $15 to $20 for a software product that took an immense amount of effort to create that they'll be able to make use of for years?

What bugged me the most was the idea that because we have had ObjectDock (freeware) available that we somehow have no right to make a plus version.  That somehow we're the greedy ones for wanting to be compensated for years of effort.  Rather than being thankful that we make a free program like ObjectDock used by hundreds of thousands of people, one that we continue to update for free, we get guff for putting out a Plus version.

There were also the people who felt ObjectDock should be part of Object Desktop. I could at least, philosophically, understand where they were coming from. I'm not sure at what point Object Desktop came to equal "All of Stardock's stuff in a single package for $50".  But my view is, anyone who's paid us $50 for Object Desktop is a customer and we're going to listen to their view point a lot more seriously than the kid who's never contributed anything back but feels entitled to call us greedy for making ObjectDock Plus. 

The reason ObjectDock Plus isn't part of Object Desktop is very straight forward: Economics.   Object Desktop has something like a dozen and a half programs in it. For $50. And most of these programs are really quite powerful.. I could go on for hours about how DesktopX should be a $100 product on its own given the things it can do for corporations but we target power users and consumers instead so we have to price it appropriately.  The bottom line is that Object Desktop is a really really good deal.  And it's such a good deal that it's very tough to sustain it even as is at the price it is. 

Personally, and correct me if I'm mistaken, I think half the coolness of Object Desktop is that many of the components get very frequent updates.  If you bought Object Desktop in say 1999, the main components in it have continually been updated in it year after year after year with more components being added over time.  I don't want to name specific products but I suggest checking out other desktop enhancement programs that have come out during that time and note how often they've been updated (or heck, when the last time they were updated).  Meanwhile, we've been cranking on DesktopX, WindowBlinds, WindowFX, IconPackager, and other pieces on a regular basis year after year after year. Heck, wait till you see ObjectBar 2.  And we're working on some other cool new things too. Point being, this coolness is only possible as long as Object Desktop is economically viable. It's not like we're driving around in Porsches or something. Things that don't remain viable end up fading away.

I think at the end of the day the question is simply are people glad we made ObjectDock Plus? Based on the reaction we're seeing, we think yes. If it hadn't been released the way it is, it would never have been made.

Speaking of new stuff, later this Fall we hope to finally come out with the beta of ThinkDesk. This is an entirely new suite of products. Where Object Desktop is about extending your desktop, ThinkDesk is about managing your information.  Pricing will be the same as Object Desktop (though unlike Object Desktop the price will probably go up once it leaves beta). It'll be XP only and we'll be focusing a lot of energy on .NET features.

Meanwhile in Italy, UK, and US where the distributed DesktopX team works, version 2.2 is nearly done.  I think a new beta of it showed up on Object Desktop tonight along with IconX which is now separate (but if you have both installed, the IconX tab will show up in DesktopX). We learned from that WinCustomize poll that lots of people had no idea what IconX was. That needs to change as it's (in my biased opinion) one of the coolest programs on Windows.

So that's all for now. Gotta re-setup my crashed laptop. It's running plain Luna right now! Eeew!