The Best of 2008 lists keep rolling in, and Sins of a Solar Empire makes it into the Top 5 PC Games list from Gamasutra. “One of the year's great success stories was this space strategy title from Vancouver-based Ironclad Games, which put the small developer on the map and scored another hit for its increasingly influential publisher Stardock. Ostensibly a member of the "4X" genre of domination-oriented titles, Sins of a Solar Empire, with its explicit focus on battles and it...

 The new year is nearly upon us, and although there aren’t a bunch of New Years skins in the galleries, there are a few that I wanted to feature.  If you know of any I missed, please share the links. Everyone have a safe and Happy New Year!

My wife got me an Acer Aspire One netbook this year for Christmas, and so far I’m loving it.  A Netbook is basically a mini-laptop that is meant for web use, messaging, and document tasks.  The one I got has a 8GB SSD drive and an 8GB SDHC card.  It’s running Windows XP, and has 1GB of RAM.  The biggest concern I had was the keyboard, which is roughly 90% of a normal sized keyboard, but the keyboard on the Acer is well designed, and is fine after a short adjustment period. ...

Softpedia.com has named Sins of a Solar Empire RTS of the year!  “In a way, it’s unfair to compare Sins of a Solar Empire, from Ironclad Games and Stardock, with the biggest real time strategy title released this year, Red Alert 3, from Electronic Arts and its Los Angeles Studios. They are very different games, with far apart settings, and target audiences that rarely mix. But Sins of a Solar Empire has something that the third installment of the Red Alert spin off from the Tiber...

This is one of my favorite “sweet” recipes, and I usually only make it around the holiday season.  I saw the recipe on the Food Network, which came from Paula Deen. It really isn’t too difficult to make, and everyone who has tried it has absolutely loved it.  The link to the recipe is below. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-gooey-butter-cakes-recipe/index.html

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday, and are getting ready to start the new year off right!  I wanted  to drop in and feature some of the skins that have come in over the last week.  I don’t have an ETA yet for when the upload system will be up and running, but hopefully it won’t take too long. Here are some of my latest picks from the WinCustomize gallery.

ObjectDock is one of my personal favorite applications from Stardock.  It is the best way to organize your desktop, and have quick access to applications.  ObjectDock Plus adds to that the ability to have tabs which can make organizing shortcuts into different section even easier. Here is my current ObjectDock Plus setup on my laptop. Stardock tab: Pretty much all Stardock applications Office:   Microsoft Office 2007 applications, Expression Web, Live Writ...

On behalf of everyone here at WinCustomize and Stardock, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  Have a great day and thanks for all your support over the past year!

Day 3 of the Impulse Gift Guide is taking a look at Desktop Enhancements.  These are applications designed to let you change the complete look and feel of either Windows XP, or Vista, to a style that is all your own.  Remember that sending gifts to people with Impulse is easy, and you don’t even have to wait for delivery.  Check out the Impulse Holiday Gift Giving Guide. Day 3 – Desktop Enhancements

The holiday season is here again, and it’s time for the 2008 Holiday Gift Guide.  One of the great things about Impulse is the ability to purchase gifts for other people, and they will be able to download them without having to wait for a package to arrive through the mail. Day 3 we are going to go right into desktop enhancements, most of which will be applications to help you customize and organize your desktop. WindowBlinds 6 There is no better way to change th...

Next up we have some Christmas and winter holiday logons for Windows XP.  The LogonStudio XP gallery has a bunch of holiday logons, and the ones below are some of my favorites.  If you see a good one that I missed, please post it so others can enjoy. To use these logons you will need to install LogonStudio XP (free).   Link: LogonStudio XP

If you ever worry about losing your data from a corrupted document, or from a power outage, KeepSafe is the ideal solution for real-time data backup.  KeepSafe has an easy to use interface and setup wizard, which will get your data protected in no time.  You can select which types of documents to backup, and there are a wide variety of options for maintaining those backups. To see a more detailed review, check out one of my walkthroughs. Keep Your Data Safe with KeepSaf...

Over the past couple of months, there has been quite a bit of speculation that Obama’s birth certificate holds a secret, one of which that he is not a natural born citizen therefore not eligible to be President of the United States.  Several petitions have been filed, and the SCOTUS has review and denied most that have come in.  I’m not really sure what to believe, as I have haven’t seen evidence either way to indicate whether Obama is or isn’t qualified to be President. However, ...

GameStop now has open voting for the Best PC game of 2008, and Sins of a Solar Empire is a nominee!  Sins is also up for Strategy Game of the year as well.  Head over now and cast your vote for GOTY ‘08 at GameSpot. Link: GameSpot Game of the Year Voting Link: GameSpot Strategy Game of the Year Voting

This is our Christmas Tree for this year.  It’s around a 6-7ft. Fraser Fir.  The lights are LED, with various ornaments.