I've been into customizing my computer since Windows 3.0. Back then I was hacking my video drivers to change the buttons on the title bar. It would not be an idle boast to say that when it comes to skinning, I've been there from the start. And with that in mind, I really think we're entering into a new golden age for skinning. For those of you who haven't been looking through what's been getting created this summer, check out some of the top authors. Carlitus in particular repre...
A preview version of the WinCustomize skin browser is now publicly available for all users. It is fully functional other than having a subset of the skins, themes, icons available for download. Check it out at Betanews at: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail.php3?fid=1030146489
65% of our users who responded to the OS in use poll answered that they use Windows XP. 16% said Windows 2000 giving the two a combined total of 81%! Given that these two OSes are only in use by a minority of users in the general public, it is safe to assume that people who are into customizing their computers are much more likely to have Windows XP. Now, what is the reason for this? I can think of two basic reasons: 1) People into customization simply tend to have the latest...
This article at WebmasterMac comopares MacOS X and Windows XP. The conclusions you can largely ignore since many of matters of taste and the pro-Mac bias is considerable. But it is useful to see the two compared head to head in features and usability. What do you think?
One of the nice things about that little Hitbox thingy at the bottom of the pages is that it is able to use cookies to determine how many unique visitors this site receives as opposed to the more generic and inflated "user sessions". In August, WinCustomize climbed to over 1 million unique visitors for the first time. Think about that a MILLION different people visited the site. It's still a far cry from say Yahoo that gets something like 30 million unique people on per month. But...
Basically here's the problem: Apple is a very innovative company but they are stuck with the Motorola PowerPC. Motorola can't afford to keep up with AMD/Intel in the CPU speed wars because the quantity sold is so vastly different. So now the latest Macs are stuck with CPUs that run at half or less the clock speed of new Pentium IV's. Steven Den Beste has some articles that touch on this: Mac's Free Ride (http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/07/MacsFreeRide.shtml) Mac the Ha...
You gotta check these out, they're hilarious!
I've been writing a series of articles for Avault (www.avault.com) about how do websites make money in the post dot-com world. I was curious as to what you guys think websites can or should do. Here's what I've found so far: Ways websites can make money: 1) Advertising. The tried and true way just doesn't pay enough anymore. Even if you put a bunch of annoying pop-up ads, they'll not likely pay for your site unless your bandwidth use is miniscule and it's run by volunteers. 2) Dona...
The reason users are here does not necessarily coincide with what's available here. That is, even with heavy moderation (only the best of the best wallpapers are allowed) there are more wallpapers here than any other library. But only 11% of users said they are here primarily for the wallpapers. Contract that with 30% of users being here for WindowBlinds skins. Hardly anyone comes here mainly for the message boards which is a bit of a shame since there are so many good discussions on...
LogonStudio RC 6 is now available. It's a program that lets you apply and create your own logon screens for Windows XP. It uses the .logonXP format and can import logonui.exe files. .logonxp files are both smaller and safer (it's amazing that someone who wouldn't click on a .exe attachment in their email will happily replace their logonui.exe with one downloaded off the Internet). Best of all - it's free! (www.logonstudio.com).
A new version of IconPackager is available. IconPackager is a program that allows you to apply a "package" of icons to change all of standard Windows icons to something new. The new version of IconPackager includes an icon explorer for finding icons in DLLs, EXEs, and ICLs as well as fixes a host of problems that were in the shareware version.
This is always a very tough issue for the moderators of WinCustomize because no one enjoys rejecting the hard work of graphics designers and other artists. But we want to make sure the site stays focused as a skin site first and doesn't end up flooded with wallpaper. So we're starting to become increasingly pickier on what wallpapers end up on the site. We generally focus on wallpapers that work as wallpapers (as opposed to just being artistically nice). On top of that, unique-ness helps...
Hopefully some people have noticed that WinCustomize is considerably faster this week than previously. We added another 10 megabits of bandwidth to the site. A special thanks to those of you who have purchased WinCustomize subscriptions for it was they that made it possible to afford the additional bandwidth. Give yourselves a pat on the back.
I'm in the process of writing a series of articles for my other life as a game developer over at Avault. This latest series though actually touches on how website in the post-dot com world are trying to generate income. The new article deals with subscriptions and how to go about them. Visit: http://www.avault.com/developer/getarticle.asp?name=bwardell12 to read it.
Even science fictions writers would have been hard pressed to come up with such a sensational story. 4 airliners, hijacked to be flown into buildings. Two of them into the World Trade Center. The WTC was 2 buildings that typically had 50,000 people in them at once. Think about that for a moment. How many people live in the city you live in? The town I grew up in only had 5,000 people in it total. Those two buildings usually had 50,000 people in them and could comfortably fit more t...