Now here's a curious one. Under the motto “a shot not fired will always miss”, Microsoft has applied for a patent on a ‘virtual desktop manager’.

From the abstract:

“A method for a user to preview multiple virtual desktops in a graphical user interface is described. The method comprises receiving an indication from a user to preview the multiple virtual desktops and displaying multiple panes on the display. Each pane contains a scaled virtual desktop having dimensions that are proportionally less than the dimensions of a corresponding full-size virtual desktop. Each scaled virtual desktop displays with one or more scaled application windows as shadows if the corresponding full-size virtual desktop has one or more corresponding application windows that are active.”

Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought it would.

See, the problem is, 1) things like this have been around since the dark ages; and 2) patents can only be granted to innovations, things that have not been publicised before the date the patent was applied for (April 5, 2002 (hmm, that's my birthday)).

Since the first collides with the second, there's no way this patent can be granted, I'd say. Then again, I'm not familiar with the US patent system. If you can patent software in the US, why would things like ‘innovation’ be a hurdle?

The really juicy part here though, is that the applicant is former LiteStep module developer MrJukes. Some view that as, shall we say, a stab in the back. Though others hurry to point out that this is not the case, and that:

“Companies like Microsoft have rules that anything that can be patented should be. It is a part of the employees job to apply for these patents.”

Perhaps this is what we Dutch call “a storm in a glass of water”, much ado about nothing, ergo nothing to worry about. But it's definitely an interesting development. || craeonics | comments (10)

Still working on #13, so I'll just point you to some of the things that popped up these last few days.

Far too much stuff that I've failed to mention these past two months.

21:01 | First up, a British skin site called SkinZone, is holding a competition.

“We will also be running a competition shortly with a usefull prize. what you have to do. submit anything to the site, whether it be a wallpaper, software download, news story, or even a post on the forum. So what´s the prize?

The best overal contribution to the site will win a domain name with free hosting included.”

This rather empty site appears to get even less traffic than we do, so a competition might help them out.

Ofcourse, not running *Nuke seems to do miracles as well (trust me).

21:09 | Someone who's supposed to be retired noted that new versions have been released of freeform skinnable audio player XMPlay (3.0), ‘skinnable’ IE front-end MyIE2 (0.9.17) and browser of choice Mozilla (1.7 alpha).

Or actually, Firebirdfox is my browser of choice these days, but since that's just a modified Mozilla, it doesn't really matter.

Looking in my crystal ball, I can predict that 1.7 beta will be out in the third week of March, while 1.8 will go into alpha halfway through March.

Roadmaps tend to ruin the surprise of releases.

21:36 | On the StarDock front, in the past days, we've seen new versions of their highly flexible desktop enhancer DesktopX (2.1), their freeware boot screen skinner BootSkin (1.01), some kind of WindowBlinds skin creator called SkinStudio and the obligatory oddball, The Desktop Aquarium:

“It's a stand alone program that turns your desktop into an aquarium full of fish swimming around.”

21:44 | Other stuff you might find interesting is a new version of the ultimate system meter, Samurize (1.25) and the long awaited new release of minimalist *nix inspired shell BlackBox for Windows (0.0.90).

But I just stumbled across something that warrants a full news post, even though I don't have time for that. || craeonics | comments (2)

I'm trying to wrap up #13 of this here ezine before fungus starts growing on its remains, so I'll be cutting the news posting a tad short until then.

I might even resort to the tried and proven tactic of quoting others.

In this case, our victim is moshiさん.

“a great skinnable application i found recently is SystemMeter by binary-mechanics.

this freeware allows you to display various system stats as CPU or time for example in a beautiful way. it has support for per-pixel alpha-transparency (a must in 2004) and also for bitmap meters for the time (what only few apps do).

the class of the average skin is also pretty high, as you can see on their site.”

I'll just have to believe the mosh man on this, for the skins section doesn't really show up in Mozilla.

Download is 2.6 megs (!), probably because it packs gdiplus.dll (1.6 megs), which you don't need when you're on XP, plus a load of plugins.

The app is mostly in Japanese, but that won't hold any true skinner back.

So far I haven't seen any per pixel alpha though. The default skin consists of plain bitmaps.

This version is dated february 24, so we're ahead of time for a change. Feels good. || craeonics | comments (1)

Final Fantasy X-2 was finally released in Europe this week (and about bloody damn time too, it's been out in Japan and the US for ages), so I grabbed myself a copy and am going to waste my weekend on it.

Meanwhile though, I got some emails you might want to see.

First up, this one (labelled ‘spam’ by Thunderbird, though I think it was wrong on this):

“hey i will just begin with this topic for starters.

I'm just fond of you and am suitably in favour. To see such literiture valued as a context to visuals. I hope to see you all.

— Raymond Fu”

Don't know what I did to deserve such praise, but my ego ain't complaining. You know what to do ya'll!

And another one salvaged from that over eager spam filter in my mail app:

“Hi,

Maybe you can add TPlayer (http://www.flicenr.ca) to your news or download library.

Regards,

flic enr”

One quick looks tells me this is a not-quite skinnable audio player. Will have to look into that later.

And finally one from our very own editor:

“Hi Crae,

Just got off IM with Val Moya (the cat who invented colorpad). He finally got COdepad up to a working version. check it out: http://turnip.theubergeeks.net/

it is 8 am here, so I am foggy but once I have a chance to relaly play wiht this, I will do an article.

peace

kKenray”

Ken (who, like many others, has never learned that my name is written in complete lowercase) obviously was very foggy, 'cause three seconds later he sent me this:

[subject: from Kenray - oops link]

“hehehe

http://turnip.theubergeeks.net/

Kenray”

Yep, that's the exact same address as in his first email.

CodePad, for those who do not know, was one of the first truly skinnable text editors in development. An alpha was released, but it wasn't very functional. Unfortunately, one day Val vanished without a trace. Now he's back it seems, so I'll have to add this to my ‘apps to check out’ list as well.

/me hops off to play games || craeonics | comments (2)

So you've been running Windows 2000 or XP and have tweaked your logon screen by means of an app like LogonStudio or by hand (the hard way), but by now have reached a point where you think: “All this static stuff is so last week. Why can't we just use flash and have some snassy animations instead?”.

Turns out you can.

The app in question is called FrontMotion Login and currently carries the unwieldy version number 1.0.157.37d. It allows you to run .swf's as your logon screen. It also hooks into your log out, locking and shutdown screens (which is logical, since the normal logon screen also does that).

The default skin for it is nothing to write home about, nor is the alternative one (though way better). But they both show that quite a lot is possible.

In short, since it uses plain old flash movies (version 5 and up) as its interface, you can use anything you can do in flash. Which is a lot. You do need to have some understanding of ActionScript in order to make these though (the skins/themes use fscommand() and special label and variable names in order to function).

And it's also wise to update your flash player to the latest version before you install this, or else you're in for a nasty surprise (as I found out the hard way, as usual). For the enlightened ones among us who do not use IE, that means installing the flash player for IE, not your alternative browser.

I tried it and it seems to do its job perfectly. Though there were three things that stopped me from using this as my default logon.

First of all, there's no support for auto-logon yet. As I am the only one who uses this machine, I do not wish to have to log in every damn time I flick on the machine.

Secondly, it ties into the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence. Whereas I would normally get the taskmanager upon hitting this, I would now get the logon screen and would have to select ‘task manager’ from there. As I use the task manager quite a lot, that's way too many steps for me.

Thirdly, skins are installed into a themes folder in your system32 directory, which is an ultimate no-no for me. Programs should keep their fingers out of my system if there's no need for it.

All in all highly recommended though. If those three things are solved and this app remains freeware, I'm sold. || craeonics | comments (5)

In one very long and detailed post, froggy has filled in the some of the blanks on this upcoming event, which will kick off somewhere in March.

After a discussion on how skinning has gone mainstream and all sites have gained popularity, except a certain site which had its ranking slashed, some of the juice is spilled.

This time around, it will not be a site-based event, but rather a team-based one. Anyone can form their own team and compete in one of the three categories: Visual Styles (read: WindowBlinds), Icon Packages (read: IconPackager) and the mysterious to-be-named MP3-player..

There will be six judges, four picked by organiser StarDock (one of 'em being iconist Paul ‘Mormegil’ Boyer) and two by whoever gets picked as sponsor for the MP3-player category, plus three moderators that get to weed out the crap.

You will be able to compete in twelve following categories, the winner of each will receive $500.

• Visual Styles:

  • Best OS-like skin

  • Most creative skin

  • Most minimalistic skin

  • Best power user skin

  • Best overall skin

  
  

• Icon Packages:

  • Best OS-like icons

  • Most original icons

  • Best overall icons

  
  

• the special guest MP3 player:

  • Most creative skin

  • Best power user skin

  • Best overal skin

Plus three extra prizes:

• Best overal submission

• Most valuable player

• Winning team

Official announcements on the duration and what not still have to be made, but one thing's certain:

I don't have the freakin' time to enter! || craeonics | comments (24)

StarDock released version 2.1 of their highly advanced desktop enhancer, DesktopX, yesterday.

Since this is shareware ($19.95) and I loathe shareware, I have never ever ran this app, so let me quote the frog on some of its features:

“It can enhance your existing Windows desktop by making desktop icons have shadows, be sized independently from the rest of the system (i.e. have big icons just on the desktop), respond to mouse events (such as grow and shrink when the mouse is over them), play a sound when the mouse is clicked on them, and much more.”

Though I don't use icons on my desktop, the ability to respond to mouse events opens up the path to countless experiments.

“It allows for additional functionality to be added to the desktop. DesktopX objects can do virtually anything. DesktopX objects include clocks, calendars, stock tickers, news monitors, IRC clients, video games, fish, simulators, color grabbers, timers, CPU meters, network monitors, MP3 players, radio station players, PVR interfaces, and much more.”

…which is quite slick. If I'm not mistaken, you can use JavaScript or its depraved cousin to make your objects do things and even have them communicating with each other.

This means that the potential of this app is enormous. Froggy ain't exaggerating here. You can theoretically do ‘anything’. Wonder if the average DesktopX-er will take advantage of this. Probably not.

Perhaps I should set aside my prejudice for once and give it a spin somewhere in the future. || craeonics | comments (3)

This has been everywhere already, but just for those living under a rock: new versions of my favourite mail app and browser have been released.

Curiously, Mozilla Firebird was renamed to FireFox, since the name ‘firebird’ was already used by an open source database. The weird thing here is that it was originally called ‘Phoenix’, which got them in trouble with a certain BIOS producer. Firefox is supposed to be the ‘permanent’ name, but I don't think it's that original, so I wonder what version 0.9 will be called.

Since these are and have been my favourite mailer/browser for many moons now, I could easily fill this article with all their redeeming qualities.

Being negative is more fun though.

Firebirdfox and Thunderbird are supposed to be stand-alone, bloat free version of parts of the Mozilla suite, which consists of the browser, the mail app and an editor, Composer, which I have never ever used, even back when Netscape was bundled with its predecessor. The win32 version of the Mozilla package is 12 megs, Firefox weighs 6.2 MB and Thunderbird carries 7.5 megs around. Furthermore, Firefox currently sucks up about 40 megs of ram, with two tabs open, while Thunderbird peaks at 22 megs of memory.

Bloat free? Ha!

Pales in comparison with Explorer ofcourse, which can go well beyond all memory boundaries for no apparent reason.

One might wonder why one would want to run both of these apps instead of Mozilla then. Even more when you consider that the exact same engine gets loaded twice if you run them both. Would probably save you quite some resources.

That said though, I do run them both instead of Mozilla, even though I like some features of the Mozilla browser better than Firefox (there's no competition for Thunderbird). Must be a mental thing.

Or is it that cute new icon? || craeonics | comments (7)

The front page was getting a little bit crowded. Crowded implies sluggish and I don't like sluggish sites. So I figured it was time to move some of the older news to the archive.

Yup, new section, old content. || craeonics | comments (7)

I knew it! One player updates and not long after that, so do all the others. It's a conspiracy I tell you.

Or there are just way too many media players around.

Still no word of this on the front page, which made me wonder where sryo got his news from. One peek in WinAmp's forums provided the answer.

That same thread also gives you the changelog and download info, so head on over there for more details.

Saves me the hassle of copying things. || craeonics | comments (2)

According to a fellow Tek staffer, monitoring your system is typical male behaviour. If so, you can't go wrong with Serious Samurize.

This sysmetering app allows you to craft your very own montoring tool with the built-in editor, allowing you to keep track of thousands of things, run scripts, get your mail auto-checked and have it do the dishes.

Don't believe me? Try adding a PerfMon or WMI meter and be amased at the sheer amount of (mostly pointless) statistics there is on offer. If XP keeps track of all that, no wonder it sucks up so much resources.

What's the use? Umm, well… It looks good?

I think it's time for a changelog.

“Bugfixes:

• fixed PNG Meter image path bug
• ‘Track Resolution Changes’ option removed (it wasn't helping)

Improvements:

• Updated media plugins (kudos to Tropics)
• Improved vertical taskbar support
• Default tab size increased
• WindowsXP Look & Feel for Config Editor
• Improved readme/installer
• Multiple server instances allowed with different output settings
• Configs can be organized in subfolders of the Samurize/Configs folder

New Features:

• Choose-Your-Own Tray Icon
• Play sounds/perform commands on alert conditions
• Line graphic object
• Peaks for most meter types
• Alert conditions for PNG Image Meters
• Snap to screen edge option for Client
• Word wrapping for Text meters”

This be the place for me to plug my own setup, to give you an idea of the possibilities. Although most people will probably not stack things on top of each other.

From left to right: clock, cpu/memory usage, up/down networking, cpu/board temperature; below that uptime and my wireless network status. On the right the cumulative amount of bandwidth shoved back and forth, plus the up and down speeds. And in the back a graph of my network status.

Okay, so I don't have it running all the time.

Be warned though. Tinkering with this can be highly addictive.

Men: check it out, if you haven't already.

Women: your man will be staying up all night tweaking his Samurize setup. Please don't yell at him for that. He can't help himself. Please try to understand. || craeonics | comments (2)

Something I find far more interesting, but definitely isn't for the masses, are things like foo_looks. foo_looks being a plugin for foobar2000 that allows you to create a free floating skinnable interface to it.

Why is this interesting?

Firstly because it's for my current favourite player (what do you mean ‘biased’?) and secondly, it has all the ingredients to make it interesting for me. Layered skinning, scripting and (partial) alpha support (devs are working on that). This ain't bitmap and .ini-ville no more.

Why isn't it for the masses?

In line with most other foobar plugins, foo_looks comes packed with zero documentation. Not even a readme. Hell, even I had trouble getting this to run. The way foobar development works is that almost all communication runs through their forums. In order to stay up to date you'll have to track those.

Furthermore, if you thought WinAmp skins had become complex over the years, you haven't seen the format for this thing yet. It's a good thing I code sites for a living and thus am quite used to the sight of code, else I'd fled beyond the horizon by now.

Luckily they didn't reinvent the wheel here and did not introduce a new scripting language. Rather, they included an existing one, called Lua. On the other hand, few have probably ever heard of said language. But at least that's documented.

Thirdly, it's a work in progress, so quite buggy.

Did I mention that the default skin is hideous? Hence why I picked a better one for the screenshot.

So it's not completely stable (sometimes flickers like hell), probably drains my resources, you need to be a coder in order to understand and create ski— oh excuse me, looks (they figured ‘skin’ was too mundane), there aren't many skins for it yet (if ever) and documentation is sparse (although people are working on that).

It is hostile.

But it is innovative. And therefore I am getting that underground vibe. Skin tingling. I love it. || craeonics | comments (5)

Media players always hunt in packs. When one is updated, the others rarely lack behind. Maybe because there are so many of them.

BSPlayer (interesting acronym: Babya System Player?)…

“…is a Windows ® player that plays back all kinds of media files (avi/mpg/asf/wmv/wav/mp3) and specialises in video and divx playback.”

It has a lot of features that don't really mean much to me, since I'm not really into video, so repeating them is pointless. Read the list on the site for more info on that.

What I do know, is that there are plenty of skins available for it. None too adventurous though. What's the point in turning dozens of DVD-player pics into ‘skins’?

By the way, amazing how much media player skins tend to resemble car radio's. Or is it the other way around?

You'll have to register and agree with the license in order to download it (come on, eh), so once again: I haven't ran it, just looked at the pictures. || craeonics | comments

Panda spotted this one, as I would have never strolled upon it. This mp3 player look remarkably like WinAmp.

It supports a number of popular file formats (except the one I use ofcourse), has dsp-effects, is skinnable (duh) and supports plugins. Don't really see much plugins nor skins at the site so I can't really tell what it can look like.

Interesting claim:

“Uses low system resources. (Aldough Mp3CoolPlay-X is written in Visual Basic it's blazing fast, it can run on any computer with a processor above 300 Mhz)”

In my book, an app uses ‘low’ system resources if it runs smoothly on my p75. If I need a 300MHz, I consider it high-end.

Its skinning system consists of a set of fixed name bitmaps and a text file to configure the font colours, etcetera and, strange enough, a compressor. Don't really see the need for this. I mean, come on, unzipping a file ain't that hard.

Can't say that this all seems particularly enticing to me (an app has got to be damn innovative to get me excited these days), but it seems to have gotten good ratings at various file download sites. So it might be worth a shot.

And no, I didn't run it. I just looked at the pictures.|| craeonics | comments (2)