Meanwhile, on the dark side of the moon, methodik has unleashed a new version of his, umm, what is this anyway? ...thingy, xBar.

I'm sure I've ran this in the past, but I'm going to copy/paste from the readme here, 'cause it doesn't look familiar.

“Welcome to xBar, a multi-functional, unique program designed for the purpose of giving you more control over your computer - both in it's appearance and it's functionality. This version adds the ability to utilize a GUI as well as the normal methods of using command line arguments, and scripting.”

Okay, that does not help. Perhaps the changelog can help here.

• “gui front end added with partial visual style compatibility

• ability to toggle commands added

• program launching includes shortcuts

• chevron tweaking added

• cd tray open / close added

• various ip functions added

• uptime function added

• desktop wallpaper switching added

• spy console removed, no need for it with gui.”

That should give you an idea. Or not.

It's rather hard to explain what this app does and posting a screenshot of it wouldn't help much either. The closest you can get is to say that this is an app that can help you tweak things.

You know, best thing to do is to just go grab this 50k download and see for yourself.

Bonus points to methodik for using an ascii image on his site. Penalty points for converting it from a regular image with a program. || craeonics | comments

WinCustomize reports version 3.10 of Xymantix' skinnable sysmeter, SysMetrix. According to the changelog though, it's already at 3.12:

“Version 3.12

• Added ability to revert to the previous theme by pressing the BackSpace key

• Added ability to report on Atmospheric Pressure in Hpa

• Fixed a problem where SysMetrix would force the desktop to show icons unecessarily

• Fixed a problem where the configuration screen would crash due to a missing shared library

Version 3.11

• Fixed a problem where the configuration screen could cause a crash if there wasn't any weather data

• Fixed a problem where the autoformat option wasn't working correctly with memory-based text objects

Version 3.10

• Added Gauges and Graphics to the theme modification moving

• Updated the GDI+ libraries

• Fixed another screen reservation problem

• Fixed a problem where drawn histograms could be drawn out of bounds

• Fixed a problem where the graphic image comboboxes wouldn't be populated correctly”

This five meg download can display dozens of different stats and has a ton of features, so there's enough in there to keep you occupied for a while (how's that for ‘vague’). || craeonics | comments

Week three of the GUI Olympics brought us the results for ‘Most Creative Visual Style’, ‘Best Themed Icon Package’, ‘Most Usable WinAmp Skin’ and ‘Best Themed Visual Style’ (are we there yet?), ‘Best Pseudo-OS Icon Package’ and ‘Best Power User WinAmp Skin’. *phew*

But that ain't all. This week also brought us some sore losers, the long awaited flame (no GUI Olympics is complete without a flame) and the probability of this being the last GUI Olympics under that name.

Let's deal with the winners first.

‘Most Creative Visual Style’ goes to Airlock by Team SkinPlant's MikeB314; followed by a tie between essorant's Pixel 8 and Gabriel's G-Pod. You'd figure that there wouldn't be no third place then, but there is. Again a tie, this time between Antares by treetog of the PixTudio Pirates and Sektor by danilloOC.

The man-mountain treetog also took home the prize for ‘Best Themed Icon Package’ with his Thunder Storm-set. This time followed by some new blood in the form of volter15's Smile 3 and farid nafar's HFN Sapphire.

‘Best Themed Visual Style’ went to (guess who?) Thunder Storm by treetog, with vf's Alloy Bezel 4 second and CareBear's 10pin fighting with EventHorizon's Mime over third place.

And what's this? No famous names winning the ‘Best Pseudo-OS Icon Package’-round? Miloszwl (whom Doreen happened to get interviewed the other day (no, that hasn't been published yet)) grabbed gold with his d3a, while Leothar took silver with Amdio, leaving Rokey with bronze for his The Last Order.

Those of you that have been around, know that there is no such thing as a community. Instead there are several independent scenes. The WinAmp scene is one of 'em, which is why you won't see any of the ‘big names’ here (which, ofcourse, all depends on what sites you frequent).

So, the ‘Most Usable WinAmp Skin’ turned out to be Andrew Mackowski's EMP 2; followed by Anemovatis' AR7 and kriptoner's D-Reliction.

EMP 2 also won ‘Best Power User WinAmp Skin’, leaving atomic's Impulse and Muniom Designs' Resurgence behind in the distance.

Apparently, some people weren't too happy with the judges' decisions, which let to some discussion (and some more) which took on somewhat flame-like proportions, when certain people on different sides of the fence suddenly shot into clique mode and found it necessary to throw mud at each other.

Now although emotions ran high, I wouldn't call this a flame, since I did recognise certain sad gits who were a) not involved; and b) display an incapability of shutting the fuck up when it is time to do so. Don't you just hate it when bystanders suddenly start to interfere?

At any rate, the frog was rather upset about it, presumably because he, being the vocal one, took all the shit. But pointing at the WinAmp crowd as the perpetrators wasn't completely accurate.

Remember what I said about there being no single community? Understand that and you'll understand this.

And speaking of bystanders, the frog also mentioned this:

“Speaking of traffic, no matter how you slice it, this will be the last GUI Olympics under that name. The US Olympic Commission has requested that we not use the name Olympics. Now, you can debate whether they have the right to trademark the name "Olympic" or not but we're not going to mess with it. So if there's another contest in the future like this, it'll be called something else.”

I would definitely debate if the US Olympic Commission can do this. But face it, they just did and with the somewhat blemished reputation this event has, perhaps it is for the best if the name was changed.

This is all so silly. Ofcourse I might have thought differently if I had entered or actively been involved with things, but still, whining about the judging? Come on!

More complaints next week. || craeonics | comments (14)

This is going to be the slimmest post ever. Perhaps it's nothing, but I see a lot of people asking “What's up with this?”.

The only thing I know is that this is the first sign of life we've seen of ModZine, the customisation ezine, in ages. Perhaps it'll finally get relaunched.

Makes you wonder though, why do all those people try to visit a site they know has been dead for months? || craeonics | comments (5)

“Back?”, you say. “Didn't it change its name to ArtUproar? Does this mean they changed their name again?” Yeah, they did and no, they didn't. From what I can tell (and because I couldn't log in with my ArtUproar password), LotsOfSkins and ArtUproar are seperate entities.

“After almost five months of work, and over 320 PHP scripts, lotsofskins.com is now bigger and better than ever! With a huge selection of new features that help a user customize the site exactly to their needs, and a faster compiling site, lotsofskins.com is truly at its best! Lotsofskins.com is devoted solely to the skinning community, and even allows an artist to get something in return with the ability to sell downloads of their skins!

Check out the site at http://www.lotsofskins.com”

Still playing with my settings (and with that not-quite-valid confirmation mail), so that's all I can tell at the moment. || craeonics | comments (6)

Interested in getting dirty and testing some apps? Then take heed of this blurb:

“We're looking for people who may be interested in testing and developing two free open-source applications currently in progress. The first one is icefire, a Deskbar-style application launcher based on the look of the BeOS Deskbar. Development on icefire is well advanced with a number of beta releases already available and a full release due very shortly.

The other application - eggShell - is the successor to our popular Cloud:9ine shell. Development on this application is less advanced than icefire, but - as both applications share a common environment, and both applications share the same plugin architecture, development on one indirectly helps the other!

If you'd like to find out more, visit k23productions.com or email me directly at "stan at k23productions dot com".

Many thanks

Stan”

Anti-spam measures courteousy of red. || craeonics | comments (2)

More results from the GUI Olympics. This week, the events were ‘Most Usable Visual Style’, ‘Most Original Icon Package’ and ‘Most Creative WinAmp Skin’.

It's probably no mystery who won the visual styles event, making the other two more interesting.

Winner in the ‘Most Usable Visual Style’ event was, ofcourse, Treetog/Pixtudio Pirates with his Fly OS, followed by b0se/DevArt with Vector-Cell and in third place Erik Holmer/Team SkinPlant with Luna - HoE.

Icons is an area where you won't find the mighty 'tog, which makes it more interesting. The madness that is MindlessPuppet/DM DesignZ with Dementæcon, followed by Miloszwl/DevArt with d3A and a tie between Megaton by vf/SkinPlant and The Last Order by Rokey/Chinaui Team.

And finally, WinAmp, where true creativity should reign. And it certainly does with the winner, Enkera by 883/BreedArt, the apparently rendered Machina by vrank (tight!) and the so-so Copter by UUL.

I found the WinAmp skins to be the most interesting (third time in a row I use this construct, bad crae!). Music players lend themselves well to skinning. The trouble with usable skins is that you just know you'll end up with blue skins *sigh*, while icons these days are usually well done, but more little graphics than real icons. I mean, let me see the 16x16 versions of those biggies, eh?

Anyhow, that means Pixtudio goes firmly in the lead (don't believe the GUI Olympics ranking, they couldn't count two years ago and they still haven't learned this year).

More results next week. || craeonics | comments (2)

Late April our server got hacked, but while we were back on our feet quickly, our fellow hostee VelocityArt remained dead in the water.

Until this afternoon, when I noticed admin and owner fed's message:

“Velociers,

Thanks for all the patiences. Sorry for the downtime, it was definitely unexpected. Once I had to reconfigure the site, I realized how horrible the code was, so now I've decided to completely redo the site, without any data loss of course. Hopefully it will be released in the next couple weeks, since I don't have much to do now that it's summer, but I'm not sure. I will keep all of you posted! If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me: doug@musicrefuge.com. Thanks for all your support!

— Doug aka federal”

fed's been promising to recode the site for quite some time now, but it seems it took drastic action to really get him moving. || craeonics | comments (2)

CutTheRedWire dug up this new program, Kapsules, which reminds me of a certain other app I just mentioned a number of times.

“Kapsules (version 0.7.1.1) is a freeware program that can create scripted ‘widgets’ that can do just about anything. This includes checking the weather, system information, and more.

Kapsules is a program similar in concept to Konfabulator. Widgets can be scripted for it to flexibly create mini-programs on your desktop. These widgets can then be used to do whatever the coder wants, and configured by the user. Any ActiveScripting language can be used, granted the ActiveScripting Engine for it is installed. Currently VBScript, JScript (javascript syntax), Python and Ruby have been confirmed to work with Kapsules.

Available Widgets:

• KapWeather

• KapVWM

• KapSysInfo

• KapDrives

• KapSlideshow

• KapUsers*

• BinaryClock*

*not included with installer

Requirements:

• Windows 2000, XP or 2003

• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1

• Microsoft Scripting 5.6

Links:

• Kapsules

• ScreenShots

• Download”

Check out the screenshots and you'll probably agree with me that this looks mighty impressive (I'm easily impressed by alpha channels). Add to that that it has support for my current favourite scripting language. Scriptability alone is enough to make me drool.

However, I soon arrived back on earth when I read the dreaded words ‘.NET Framework’. No way in hell that I'm going to download and install a gazillion megs of crud (alright, 24 megs) just to test an 800k app! So unfortunately, no Kapsules for me.

Damn! || craeonics | comments (5)

A word of warning, before you read this. I am incredibly biased when it comes to skinz.org. Need an example? Alright: skinz.org has been the single most important site in the history of skinning.

However, that was before it went to hell, came back, went to hell again, crawled back, etcetera. Nowadays I see this add ridden site as nothing more than a foul money making scheme. The only reason it's linked down on the left is nostalgia.

On that positive note, let's continue with the news.

Guess who've been working on a new version of the site?

Yup, iMike and gorman, the mad men behind DeskMod and ModBlog (and also our current host) have been hired by the current owner to cough up a new skinz.

After many moons of labour, it's almost done. But they need some final input from us. Or as the pacific one put it:

“So what's a community to do? Let us know what you want! We feel we have a pretty good idea what you all want in Skinz, but we want to be 100% sure that you get a wonderful happy good time here for all your patronage to the community. Want this? That? A puppy? We can see if we can get it in (except the puppy, they don't fit in phone lines very well)!”

So if you, unlike me, haven't given up on this site, hop on over and give 'em some feedback. || craeonics | comments (5)

Final post I steal from WinCustomize for today.

First of, StarDock has released two utilities for their window skinner WindowBlinds: WBExec 1.00 build 18 and WB Skin Randomizer.

MadIce's WBExec is a productivity tool that allows you to attach all kinds of system menu's to title bar buttons. It enables you to, for example, open up the start menu from a button on your title bar. Nifty.

PJ Powell's Skin Randomizer does what the name says: it changes your skin to a random other skin on a configurable interval.

Secondly, froggles has unleashed a barrage of advertorials.

It's more promotional material, than something newsworthy, but while I'm plundering the site, might as well take this along.

A short list:

• Brad's Friday Night Skinning Blog Entry — Froggy's tales of his battles with trolls all across the world.

• Doing cool things with your desktop easily — Couple of video's showcasing DesktopX

• Video Demos of the GUI Olympics results — Hmm, video's of someone dragging windows around?

You know what I'd like to see?

An evolving skin. A skin that gradually changes shape over time. As the hours progress, bits and pieces grow and wither on the skin, like a plant fast-forwarded.

That would be innovation. Random skins just don't cut it. Probably rock hard to implement though. || craeonics | comments (2)

And the third site, the DesktopX Project Forums, focuses on harnessing the power of StarDock's little work horse.

“DesktopX Project Forums are now up and running. We still need moderators and a website designer to create a website. The DX Project is a project aiming to create useful objects for Desktop X and make things super customizable. Come over and register and make requests. DesktopX has lots of power, this project is an attempt to unleash the power into useful objects.

Head over to [link] and see for yourself!”

It's a bit unclear to me who's behind this. All I see at the moment is a rather empty forum, with no explanation of things anywhere (other than the above news post you'll find on WinCustomize).

Then again, they're just getting started.

Oi? Hold up. It appears this post I found five minutes after writing this piece, appears to explain things. || craeonics | comments (2)

Then there was this new skin site, SkinArtisty.com. I've emphasized some of the more interesting words in their PR-blurb.

“We all know there are plenty of skin sites out there, but none so dedicated as those of WinCustomize, or namely Skinz.org, etcetera.

Alas, a new site as birthed: the one we call Skinartistry.

Skinartistry is a great place for skin authors of all kinds to come and show off there talents. Just some of the accepted categories include:

• Object Dock Icons

• DesktopX 2 Goodies

• Winstep

• Logon Studio

• Cursor XP

• Hoverdesk

• StyleXP

• Windowblinds

• Digit Skinnable Clock

• Sysmetrix

• Winamp

• Windows Media Player

• And all wallpapers of any sorts!

We have a very friendly community - and a forum filled with tons of tutorials, program links, and people who will kindly (attempt) help you with any problem you may have. There's a slight moderation system, but as long as you're not uploading porn or illegal stuff, you can guaruntee it's goin in Also, the easy-on-the-eyes interface will keep it simple and attractive when browsing the site.

So please, check us out. Granted we are still a young site, there are some great people here and a growing downloads section. Come - be a part of the community. Be a part of the Skinartistry”

Now ‘alas’, to my knowledge, is an expression of pity. Somehow I don't think that's what the author of the above piece had in mind. On the contrary, the frequent use of superlatives indicates that they're quite proud of their setup.

The section list with the big names indicates they intend to operate on the high end of Skindom, which is amusing since they appear to be running on the e107 site engine, originally written by jalist of ls2k fame (representant of the lower end of the scene).

One good thing about this site is that they have moderation. Moderation is good. It enforces quality. Don't know how far they'll go with that though.

Another good thing is that they seem to understand the fundamental nature of this niche of ours: to show off.

The more skin sites, the merrier. || craeonics | comments (3)

First in a batch of a lot of site news. wstaylor has been plugging his skinning forum for quite some time now. As the introductory text goes:

“This is a forum for Skinners, by Skinners, for Skinning! Many experienced skinners and programmers are always hanging around to help out with any problems. Got an idea for a skin but don’t quite know where to go from there? We can help.

The Forum at wstaylor.net features hosting by well known skinners from within The Community! These hosts provide detailed help and tutorials within their topics.”

I figured this would be a still-born baby, as he didn't seem to get much feedback and I myself have been cutting down on board visits a lot lately, due to time restraints.

But the world does not revolve around crae. 82 members, 379 members and 2593 posts tell me I was wrong. || craeonics | comments (2)

Just when I was slacking, froggy plugged Tek at WinCustomize.com:

“One website I regulraly visit that would be of interest to people who are into customizing their machines is Teknidermy. It's a journal that covers the day to day news of skinning in all its forms.

Check it out.”

Now I'm generally not one to toot my own horn (tapping yourself on the shoulder is so pretentious), but then I got this email:

“Well I saw that Wincustomize has put you on their site, Frogboy made a news post topic about how he always visits your site for skinning news and how it is a great resource. THat might be some good neqws. Anyways please put his news as submitted by UpsideDownGC and if oyu include a liunk link to [link]”

Hear that? We, the marginalised, bordering on the fringes of Skindom, are a great resource!

At first I thought he was saying I could repost news he posted on WinCustomize, but I was wrong:

“Oh, and no I did not submit the news I was just aying thayt you might want to put it in your news that you got listed.”

Well, I doubt this has any news value, but it does make a fine bridge onto the catching up I'm going to do now. || craeonics | comments (1)

As noted on WinCustomize, this month the judging for the GUI Olympics is done. This week, the awards for ‘Most Minimalistic Skin’ and ‘Best Power User Skin’ were presented.

Not surprisingly, the big boys dominated these events. For ‘Most Minimalistic Skin’, the prizes went to Kewk - HoE by Erik Holmer/SkinPlant, Opulence by b0se/DevArt and Mini OS by everyone's favourite muppet, the almighty Treetog/Pixtudio.

The awards for ‘Best Power User Skin’ went to Antares by (there he is again) Treetog/Pixtudio, Quasar by MikeB/SkinPlant and FM by Gabriel/SkinPlant.

That means SkinPlant goes firmly in the lead. Quite a surprise, 'cause I'd figured Pixtudio would waltz over everyone like a steam roller.

More results next week. || craeonics | comments (7)

When speaking of window skinners, apps that skin the windows of generic programs, there's the ominous WindowBlinds, a long black void and then you have minor players like ShellWM. Suffice to say that StarDock's flagship has the market cornered.

And now it has reached version 4.3. Tell us what's new, froggy:

“WindowBlinds 4.3 adds support for HyperConvert natively (enables it to import .msstyles files converted via SkinStudio). Now supports limited users, smarter detection of non-theme aware programs, uses less memory, per-pixel alpha blending support in title bar controls, transition morphing, and much more.”

Too bad it's shareware. I'd love to get my hand on this. || craeonics | comments (17)

And speaking of Rainlendar, version 0.19.3 was released yesterday (as reported on WinCustomize).

Don't see a changelog on the site, so let's steal Blizzle's post on it:

“Changes:

• Refreshing the calendar lost the OnDesktop state. Fixed.

• Rainlendar should work a bit better with Outlook 2000 now.

• Fixed a crash bug with All events dialog.

• Fixed a crash bug with Outlook sync.

• Fixed !RainlendarShow activate. It only works when it's executed with Rainlendar.exe though

• Litestep variables can be used in the colors.

• Rainlendar should now be able to access Outlook's appointments even if Outlook is not the default email client.

• The todo list wasn't read from the Todo.ini-file unless it was enabled. Fixed.

• Added DST calculations to Outlook dates, so they are not an hour off anymore (well, some still could be…).

• Rainlendar is only logged in to MAPI when it's updating the Outlook appointments. Use OutlookKeepAlive=1 to keep the connection always on.

• Fixed tooltip opening in wrong place.

• The message box opened with wrong size sometimes. Fixed.”

Rainy's been busy. Which reminds me that I still have his interview on the shelf. Better get busy myself. || craeonics | comments (4)

Customize.org is holding a contest to create a ‘Simple Summer Suite’. As the name of the contest implies, the aim is to create a vibrant skin suite that captures the feeling of summer time.

The contest will be over on June 14th, and the winner will be announced on June 21st, the first day of summer. Skinners can enter alone or collaborate in a team of two. Entries need to be placed under ‘Contest - Simple Summer’.

Required Apps to Skin:

• Wallpaper (1024x768 minimum resolution)

• XP Visual Style (must be completed)

• Winamp (Classic or Modern style, up to the contestant)

• Rainlendar

• Rainmeter

Prizes:

• First Place

  • Free copy of TGTSoft Stylebuilder

  • Free copy of TGTSoft StyleXP

  • Free Customize.org T-Shirt

  • Free Customize.org Sticker

• Second Place

  • Free copy of TGTSoft Stylebuilder

  • Free copy of TGTSoft StyleXP

• Third Place

  • Free Customize.org Sticker

For the rules and other kinds of information, head over to customize.org. || cuttheredwire | comments

More technology demo's from the boys over at Skinux. This time it's SkinLoupe, a skinnable screen capture utility with what appears to be zooming functionality for greater accuracy.

“Skinux releases Skin Loupe — a free skinable desktop magnification and screen capture utility for Windows XP and Windows 2000. Skin Loupe simulates a natural magnifying glass to give you pixel level control over your screen capture area. Try this program today and you will never want to use another screen capture utility. Download it today and examine image pixels in detail. All Skin Loupe skins are powered by Skinux and can be changed using the open Skinux XML format documented on the Skinux web site www.skinux.com.

If you have any questions about this program, please feel free to contact me at 919-461-8989.”

Perhaps that last line was meant for my eyes only.

As with their previous app, SkinCandle, this five meg download too is a mere demonstration of their XML driven skin engine.

On a completely unrelated note, my router just died on me again. And after a swift reset, it turns out my internet connection did as well. Again. Gonna take a long time before this news gets posted then.

Never buy a Sweex router, boys and girls. And if you ever move to Holland, don't use Casema/Wanadoo as your ISP. Trust me. || craeonics | comments

ShellWM skins other programs that aren't natively skinnable (even in 9x). It is still in the beta stage. A screenshot of the next beta is on the site, which now can skin context menu's.

Not huge news, but it is good to know ShellWM is under active development.

Details on how the context menu's were skinned weren't given, but based on the screenshot, they seem to use a method similar to grigri's ContextBG: a tiled image added to the menu's.

It is nice to have, easy on resources, but sometimes hard to skin because a lack of edges (save the top left corner). Great for tiles and designs though.

The original article includes a full-sized (though blurry) screenshot. See for yourself what ShellWM's future may hold. || cuttheredwire | comments (2)

Judging by the feedback we got on the question if people would be interested in Teknidermy t-shirts, we concluded that there were indeed people crazy enough to wear them. So Doreen went off and set things up.

And now it's about time get our little money making scheme on the road, throw out our fishing lines and see what kind of suckers loyal fans are willing to cough up the insane prices we ask for our teknigear.

We're gonna get filthy stinking rich!

All joking aside, we do not offer teknigear because we need the money. We do it because people wanted t-shirts. In fact, our price calculation has been rather simple: t-shirt printing costs + shipping costs + payment costs = t-shirt price (rounded up a bit to compensate for fluctuations).

'Sides, I expect we'll sell only a handfull of t-shirts. Although… various people in Doreen's surroundings have mentioned that they figured our t-shirts were ‘tight’, so who knows.

We're quite curious to see how this will fare. We opted for PayPal to handle the payment, simply because it's the biggest player out there, but we haven't tested any transaction ourself, so perhaps we're in for a big surprise.

At any rate, I can't wait 'till the IRS starts knocking on Doreen's door. || craeonics | comments (5)