Rainy's just released version 2.01 of his, not entirely free anymore, yet cross-platform, skinnable calendar, Rainlendar. This version seems to be mostly about bug fixes, so I'm not going to post the mile-long changelog.

“Rainlendar is a feature rich calendar application that is easy to use and doesn't take much space on your desktop. The application is platform independent so you can run it both on Windows and on Linux. The appearance can be customized with skins and you can even mix different skins together.”

Rainlendar comes in two flavours these days. The lite versions does just about everything you need, whilst the €15 pro version offers LookOut Outlook integration and advanced stuff like that. || craeonics | comments (3)

Continuing our quest through the land of shell enhancements, we stumble across the newly released WinStep Xtreme, sporting, guess what, a brand-spanking new dock, Nexus.

“Winstep Xtreme is a change in the direction of the Winstep 2000 Project, one where focus is more on the desktop environment as a whole rather than on individual applications. Although NextSTART and WorkShelf are - and will continue to be - individual applications that can be run independently of one another, they only make perfect sense when run together. The user experience provided by running NextSTART and WorkShelf together proves, without a doubt, that 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'.”

“NeXus is the new addition to the Winstep Xtreme suite of applications and is a multi-level dock system that nicely complements NextSTART and WorkShelf. NeXuS provides super fast access to your most frequently used applications, with flexible options allowing it to dock or float anywhere on the screen, providing a myriad of "On Demand" possibilities. From it's generous use of situational sensitive context menus to it's advanced Drag-n-Drop support, NeXuS is not only easy to use - it's a joy!”

Our fellow bunny brother, JcRabbit, deserves a pat on the back for keeping this up for all these years all by himself and a right good kicking for using superlatives and not posting a decent changelog.

WinStep Xtreme is shareware, $39.90, but the various components are also available separately.

/update/2006/11/30: Apparently I was wrong on some accounts. First of all, there is a changelog; and secondly according to Jorge: “you're wrong about the components being available separately — not anymore: Winstep Xtreme is now an integrated suite, although you can still choose to run one application but not the other (just like with MS Office)”. || craeonics | comments (6)

StarDock's ObjectDock has expanded quite a bit from a mere MacOSX dock emulator, to something that goes way beyond the original. This version adds quite a lot of stuff, but I can't really single out any milestones.

Quote the frog:

“Stardock has released ObjectDock 1.5. ObjectDock is a program that lets users add docks on their computer. These docks can host programs, running tasks, docklets, and more. They're a great way to organize your desktop and they're incredibly cool to use.”

“ObjectDock 1.5 has a ton..TON of new features in it. These features include Windows Vista compatibility, a new image searching feature, .DockZip support, a new algorithm for zoom docks, drag and drop support for items on docks, tabbed docks rotate automatically when docking them with a screen edge if necessary, a host of mouse-over activation features, and more.

ObjectDock is freeware. Stardock also makes a Plus version called ObjectDock Plus which adds tabbed docks, multiple concurrent dock support, system tray support, task grouping support and much more.”

The basic version is freeware, the plus version, with all the fancy features you see in all the screenshots, is $19.95. || craeonics | comments (6)