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WinCustomize 2005! |
Adventures in Skinning: January |
January Skinning
Highlights |
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CursorXP 1.31 |
Object Desktop 2004 in
review |
WindowBlinds 4.5 Preview |
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Orthodox Unorthodox |
The Top Skins of 2004 |
Personal Pages, where's
yours? |
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ObjectDock 1.1! |
Natural Desktop 1.2 Released |
Some Top Lists of 2004 |
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WinCustomize was whipped out in
about a month or two back in the beginning of 2001 when a bunch
of the major customization sites (skin sites) went down
suddenly. And from there it grew and grew and grew..
We are pleased to announce
WinCustomize 2005. Completely rewritten and redesigned with tons
of new features!
Come Visit the all new
WinCustomize.com!
www.wincustomize.com
One change we've made to
WinCustomize Magazine - we're not linking to images anymore.
Many email programs don't load up images by default for security
reasons and we don't want WC Mag to look bad by default.
Besides, this makes it smaller and cleaner to read. But
feel free to let us know what you think on the forums on
WinCustomize. |
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Stardock CursorXP is a
freeware program that enables users to have spectacular
mouse cursors. Unlike the basic Windows mouse cursors, CursorXP
mouse cursors can be both alpha blended and fully animated at
the same time. It's also incredibly easy to make your own mouse
cursors with CursorXP as the different cursor states are just
"bit strip" in PNG format (every frame of animation stored in a
single .PNG file).
Stardock also makes CursorXP Plus which adds additional features
to CursorXP such as color changing and changing the size of the
cursor on the fly. There are hundreds of Stardock CursorXP
mouse cursors available on most customization websites
(including WinCustomize, deviantART, Skinbase, and elsewhere).
You can download it at
www.cursorxp.com.
New in version 1.31: Various
performance tweaks along with support for 64bit Windows (for
those of you with the AMD64).
Visit www.cursorxp.com
to download... |
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Last
month we released SkinPlant's Unorthodox skin pack. It was a
collection of 5 skins that took on totally unique ideas on how
the Windows GUI might be done. It's been a hit with users. But
many users loved the designs so much that they requested that we
provide them with "normal" styles as well. That is, ones with
the standard Windows configuration.
So this month, Unorthodox has
been updated to include Orthodox skins. If you already have
Unorthodox, just go here and put in
your email address and it'll send you a link to the updated
pack.
[Get Unorthodox Now!] |
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ObjectDock & ObjectDock Plus 1.1 are now available! ObjectDock
is a freeware program launcher and task manager that is highly
configurable in how they look and feel. ObjectDock Plus adds
tabbed docks, multiple docks, fly-out menus and other features.
New in ObjectDock / ObjectDock
Plus 1.1:
- Zooming tabbed docks
(icons in tabbed docks can now zoom).
- You can now always resize
tabbed docks from corners
- Can now run on limited
user accounts
- Supports WinKey+D now
(show desktop no longer hides ObjectDock if it's set to
always on bottom or top)
- Unicode support
- Multiple language support
(see files in \lang directory)
- Standard docks adjust
themselves properly on screen resolution change.
- Auto-hide sensitivity
options added for standard docks
- Folder menu items with
&'s in them now supported
- Many other minor tweaks
[Get ObjectDock] |
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Adventures in Skinning: January 2005 |
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Object Desktop: 2004 in review... |
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If you want to get the most out
of Windows, especially Windows XP, then you need Object Desktop.
So much cool stuff happened to this premiere suite of Windows
enhancement utilities last year. And here's an article that
walks us through it:
[Article: Object Desktop 2004 in review] |
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The First annual top skins awards
-- "The Skinnies" have been announced. Check out this past
year's winners for the best skins of the year.
[Top Skins of 2004] |
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Natural Desktop is a program that gives your desktop a natural
look, feel, and sound to it. First, it changes the wallpaper on
your desktop based on the time of day and time of year. The
wallpapers were created by Ryan Bliss, founder of Digital
Blasphemy. Mason Fischer created nearly a half hour sound track
that is based on the time of day. Morning doves in the morning,
crickets at night, rain when it's storming. And finally, the
most advanced weather visuals available created by Matt Crockett
(Tiggz) are displayed. With tons of settings and the ability to
customize the wallpapers and sounds to your liking, Natural
Desktop has become one of the most popular programs Stardock
makes. Version 1.2 fixes
some bugs users have reported such as saving default sounds,
toggling the 12/24 clock, rain and thunderstorm sound effects
being in sync with your current weather, quick mute not working,
and some animation looping at midnight addressed.
If you already have Natural
Desktop, use Stardock Central (www.sdcentral.net)
to update to the latest version. If you don't have Natural
Desktop, check it out!
[
www.naturaldesktop.com ] |
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January Skinning Highlights.. |
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Here is a sampling of cool skins
and themes and icons and wallpapers that have come out
recently..
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WindowBlinds 4.5 Preview.. |
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After months of work, the next significant version of
WindowBlinds is nearly ready for release - version 4.5 which has
a host of cool new features that should make skinners and users
alike pleased. Check out
the full article to get a fairly detailed wrap up and a quick
demo of some of the new features in action.
[WindowBlinds
4.5 Preview] |
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Personal Pages: Where's yours? |
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One of the big new features of
WinCustomize 2005 is that subscribers and Object Desktop users
can now create personal pages.
These pages allow you to write
articles, store your favorite skins and themes made by others,
manage your skins and themes you've made, and much more!
If you don't have Object
Desktop get it at
www.objectdesktop.com. Or you can get a WinCustomize Premium
subscription by going
HERE.
In the meantime, check out the
personal pages:
[Personal
Pages on WinCustomize] |
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A word from our
Sponsor... |
| |
Object Desktop
Get WindowBlinds, DesktopX,
IconPackager, ObjectBar,
Keyboard Launchpad and more all
in a single package! Plus get
everything that's created or
updated in it for an entire year
after! |
$49.95 |
[Purchase] |
|
|
Object Desktop Renew
Renew your access for an
additional year to new Object
Desktop updates and new
programs. |
$34.95 |
[Purchase] |
|
|
Object Desktop Upgrade
Upgrade from one of the programs
of Object Desktop. |
$34.95 |
[Purchase] |
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About WinCustomize Magazine |
|
WinCustomize Magazine is a monthly
magazine that is sent to WinCustomize users. If for some reason
you do not want to continue receiving this magazine, visit
http://www.wincustomize.com and in your account settings
uncheck the "Receive WinCustomize Magazine" option. |
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JoeUser.com |
