This years GUI Champs was huge, and icon packs definitely took center stage, but there was also an incredible showing in the WindowBlinds category as well.  We saw entries from veteran skinners, and saw plenty of new faces.  Hopefully, these users will stick around and start submitting over to WinCustomize.com as well. With that being said, lets take a closer look at some of the beautiful WindowBlinds skins submitted to the 2008 GUI Championships.  These skins also are the ...

Voodoo Extreme has another vote going on for the 2008 Game of the Year.  There is quite list of games on there, but once again, Sins of a Solar Empire has been nominated and now it’s time to vote! Link: VE3D Game of the Year Voting

The hunt for Stardog begins at 12pm EST today.  Hunt down Stardog throughout our  various sites for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to the Impulse Store.  There will be a winner each day! How to play: Entrants must register for an Impulse account in order to play. If you already have an Impulse account, you don't need to do anything else before the contest begins. Each day during the contest there will be a new scavenger hunt with a different winner for every ...

The hunt for Stardog begins at 12pm EST today.  Hunt down Stardog throughout our  various sites for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to the Impulse Store.  There will be a winner each day! How to play: Entrants must register for an Impulse account in order to play. If you already have an Impulse account, you don't need to do anything else before the contest begins. Each day during the contest there will be a new scavenger hunt with a different winner for ...

This is it folks, the last stage of user voting in the 2008 GUI Championships!   Competition this year has been tough as we've seen some of the best icons in years, terrific WB skins and some great Dreams to boot! For the last few weeks you've been making your picks for the most usable & original icons, skins and animated wallpapers.  Today you get to vote on the best overall entries in each category! The judges votes have been tallied and we have our finalists for Best Ov...

When I read this piece from the AP , I didn’t know whether it was a real story or a propaganda piece from Al Gore. “WASHINGTON -- When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid. Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred...

In the latest edition of the Demigod blog on IGN.com, we have Shana Markham from the Demigod design team, sharing though on tuning and balancing in the game. “Around the time the three of us arrived on the project, we set up definitions for what tuning is and what balancing is. Tuning is about making sure an aspect of the game is working and making sure the base mechanics of it are fun and interesting. Deep Freeze is a great example of how tuning changes the game. It used to be a stun ...

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!  The holidays are getting closer and closer but that certainly  hasn’t stopped anyone from getting some fantastic skins in.  Lets have a look at some of my favorites from the weekend!  

A few days ago we announced the “Find the Stardog” contest, where someone will have the chance  to win a $100 gift certificate to the Impulse Store each day next week.  You can get all the details here: https://www.stardock.com/stardog/ Contest starts tomorrow, December 15th, at 12pm EST.  Make sure you are ready by getting your Impulse account setup now .  

You have seen me talk about SnagIt from TechSmith several time, and my latest article was how to use SnagIt to get more from your screenshots.  You can read that article here .   This past week, TechSmith released SnagIt 9.1, which is a free update to SnagIt 9 users. Some of the new features in SnagIt 9.1: Mini Toolbar Live Preview Auto-store export Stamps TechSmith is one our partners in this years GUI Championships, and some category winners w...

There is just over a day left in voting for the Most Usable and Most Original WindowBlinds skin and Icon packs in the 2008 GUI Champs.  You can get a closer look at the nominated icon packs here . Head over as cast your vote, and download some of these really great skins.   

We have seen some extraordinary icon packs come out of this years GUI  Championships.  Voting is now open for the Most Usable and Most Original icon packs, and we put together an overview of these icon packs, which represent the best icon sets of 2008. Link: https://www.wincustomize.com/Articles.aspx?aid=332512

I’m hearing from a lot of people who are receiving snow a little earlier than usual, so what a better time than to spread some winter cheer than with a winter inspired desktop.  It’s still a bit warm here, but nothing puts me in the winter season mood than a really nice winter wallpaper. Check out some of my favorites.

Among Windows 7's features, the taskbar overhaul is probably the feature in Microsoft's upcoming OS that has aroused the most interest. So you've seen all those videos of the new Windows 7 Beta taskbar and you can't help but wish that the new "Superbar" was also available for Vista and XP? Well, you won't have to wait for Windows 7 anymore... Winstep Xtreme 8.11 has just been released, and brings with it the most interesting features of the new Windows 7 taskbar into the XP and Vista world! ...

Everyone likes a sale, right?  Well from December 11th to December  14th we have a HUGE sale going on in the Impulse Store ! Project Aftermath - $9.99 Galactic Civilizations I: Ultimate - $3.99 Political Machine 2008 - $3.99 Space Rangers 2 Complete - $3.99 Supreme Commander - $9.99 Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords - $9.99 MyColors: Winter Wonderland - $9.99 World of Goo - $19.95 It’s a chance to pickup some great games and software at ...