When I was your age...

DeviantArt opens its doors. Also the month where I stumbled in there, found the messageboard deserted and moved out again.

Quite the quiet months. Nothing happened. Although... this might be the month in which Teknidermy was created?

One of the "elder skinners", Bronze quits the scene and goes off to do more interesting things. But at the same time, Dangeruss, Treetog and D'mer merge into the Skindicate and release the Polymer suite. This is also the month where Russ' site went down due to hosting problems.

The first issue of Teknidermy goes online, featuring interviews with Shoggot and Dangeruss. Layout stinks beyond mentionment, but I've had my share in bitching about that and besides, it got better in issue two. Another ezine, Razorart, headed by names as Thredz and Tech13, also saw the light this month and released their first issue.

November was also the month of the infamous DevArt license agreement shenanigans, which caused a major row amongst skinners. Prime concern was the clause which would allow DevArt to reproduce the materials uploaded. Them skinners sure don't take such matters lightly.

And on a sad note, november marked the death of longtime skinner dethvader.

December kicked off with the release of PixelEffect's first issue and these guys were fast, seeing they released issue two just a forthnight later.

Pixeleffect did two more episodes in January and Teknidermy issue two was released, hoisting an interview with the madmen running DeviantArt.

That same DeviantArt saw its first growing pains as some members chose to follow the Way of the Sheep and act like idiots.

Deskmod finally released version two of the site, which was well worth the wait. And a new webring, the Desktop Enhancement Webring, was created by ScareBear as a substitute for the defunct skinners webring.

February was downtime month, during which Skinz.org as well as DevArt and LiteStep.net suffered from server issues. Matters got even worse when it became clear that Skinz had kicked the bucket (little did we know that it would return to haunt us all).

Meanwhile Customize.org (the site I never cared to visit) was resurrected... and is currently still in the process of ressurection.

Pixeleffect did issue five and Razorart released number two. DevArt added the priceless personal icon thingie and this was also the month of All your base are belong to us.

The March issue of Tek could have focussed on the Downfall of Skinz, but didn't (a missed opportunity if you ask me). Skinz got back up again and there were great plans. eFront was exposed, skinz went down again (or actually, there were DNS issues) and the soap continued, much to the dismay of the hard core of skinz.org regulars. Anyhow, this might have caused the rapid growth of DevArt which lead to yet more growing pains and more discussions on moderation and submission agreements.

Meanwhile, Scarebear moved the Desktop Enhancement Webring, changed some stuff and named it version two. Jake AKA iST took a (permanent) break from skinning and CommunitySKin 2 was released, featuring loads of similar skins by loads of people for loads of applications.

LiteStep.net came back and WinCustomize opened its doors under the guise of "the first skinning portal".

The good news in April was RazorArt #3, sickPuppy's true skinning portal sick4skins (as it had become clear that WinCustomize was a lot, but not a portal) and my birthday!

The bad news was the uproar about the Daily Deviations of DevArt, which reached such lows that Jark and henchmen removed it from the site entirely. The punishment lasted for only a day though and I have doubt whether or not it was effective.

Those Teknidermy dæmons had finally drafted me in the previous month. Argh, stupid crae! Tek issue #4 was released, finally toting that heavily edited article on the Demise of Skinz.org. One of the other mags howver, pixeleffect was put on halt, due to lack of inspiration.

Black clouds gathered above the scene once again, as Deskmod went down and lost most of its content. The losses where beyond repair and this meant the end for yet another of the big sites.

And to make things worse, many of the sites hosted by Deskmod, among which were 545studios and LowDimension, were lost as well, leaving the aspiring skinner without much of the apps.

LiteStep.net vanished again, while the Deskmod creators presented its follow-up, Kulao Networks (of which I still have no idea what it entails).

In order to pay for all the bandwidth consumed by the site, WinCustomize releases the WinCustomize cdrom, featuring well over 600M of skins and themes.

Again, more growing pains over at DevArt which leads to the introduction of the Karma system (though I'm uncertain whether or not that has actually been implemented).

A new portal is born, named Digitexturia and the skinners collective SkinWerks, who had previously created Windows Media Player skins for Microsoft, go commercial under the name Skins Factory.

Unfortunately, the bad luck streak continues as the upstart skin site LotsOfSKins.com, which had grown considerably in the last month, follows in the footsteps of DeskMod and loses its content as well...

Teknidermy issue five is released. And lo and behold, LotsOfSKins returns, stronger than ever. WinCustomize still struggles with its bandwidth, DevArt still has growing pains, SkinBase is still unknown to the big audience and I come to the conclusion that I haven't skinned a thing in over a year now. At least one of these things has got to change.