Friday is finally here, and the second best thing about that is that it's time for This Week in Skinning.  TWiS is some of the featured picks from the various galleries here on WinCustomize.  Sometimes you might have missed a submission to the gallery, so here you can get a nice recap of what you might not have seen.

The week is over!  It's Friday so as usual, it's time for This Week in Skinning.  We have a good collection of skins to feature this week, but be sure to browse through all the galleries and see what you might have missed. Now for this weeks picks!   Bluster for CursorFX by Libardo There are so many blue skins that this CursorFX theme would fit nicely with.  Great job!   SD Micro Clock in DesktopX Widgets by V...

Everyone has a different taste when it comes to their desktop.  Some like extravagant setups and some like a very minimal look.  For me personally, I like desktops and skins with a nature based theme.  Maybe it's because I spent most of my time indoors, but who knows.  I have taken notice of a member here at WinCustomize who does some outstanding photography, and uploads some of it in the form of logons for Vista. That would be OutdoorPictures. John also has a great...

CCleaner was updated today.  This is one of the best cleaning utilities out there.  Thanks to Hankers for the tip! Improved Opera 9.5 support to fix cache cleaning Improved interface for Startup tool Changed memory management routines to reduce footprint Fixed rare 64-bit performance issues Added splitter bar to interface Fixed repaint issues with certain themes Fixed Spybot cleaning detection Internal code optimizations Updated installer engine to fix icon bug Minor GUI tw...

Today is a great day for the 2nd Amendment and America.  The Supreme Court has struck down the DC gun ban and upholds the right for Americans to bear arms. " WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history. The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights unde...

Even though it's technically summer, it's still hot out there, so this theme for MyColors should fit right into the warmer season.  It has a beautiful theme, wallpaper, icons, and weather gadget.  Read through the full tour to see some more detailed screenshots.

Although Summer is here, you can still put some Spring into  your desktop, and this MyColors theme fits right in to the much warmer weather going on.  This is a theme designed for MyColors, and to find more information about MyColors, you can read through a walkthrough or view a screencast with more information.  Visual Style and Wallpaper The Spring theme has a vibrant colors that reflects pretty much everywhere.  I have been running some darker skins lately, and t...

With the boxed version of Sins being released in the UK recently, gameSlave takes a detailed look at Sins of a Solar Empire. Using their very own Iron Forge engine, the rookie developer hasmanaged to re-define 'space strategy' by using a delicate combinationof control, innovation and sheer scale. Trying to make the physics of a game feel as real and as plausible as possible, whilst stillmaking it fun to play, is a delicate balancing act - yet Ironclad doesit oh so well. Go ch...

This video from Network World takes a look at the Toshiba Qosmio laptop.  Now it might look like an ordinary laptop, but watch the video and see how it uses hand gestures.  Is this where Windows 7 is headed? Thanks to ShelbyGT for the tip!

Summer is always a fun time, and like all the season I like to customize my desktop with that seasonal "feel".  I found a bunch while looking through the galleries today, so here are just some that I found.

HTML clipboard This time I wanted to take a look at what was "hot" in the Logons category here on WinCustomize.  These are logons for LogonStudio XP.  I found some really great ones that I will probably start using again.  It just shows you some of the terrific skins you can find just by browsing the galleries from years past. Today, lets go back to around late 2005 and see what we find. ...

I was talking with a colleague the other day, and the topic of working at home came up.  Working from home is something I’m sure many people would love to do, but I’m not sure if many people could actually do it effectively.  I work from my home office, and I absolutely love it, but it’s not as easy as some people would imagine.  The first thing you need is a strong initiative.  Working at home you don’t have someone directly looking over your shoulder, so the opportunity to ...

I just went and picked up copy of Battlefield: Bad Company.  There is a bad storm coming through so I only got to play a bit of the single player.  It seemed pretty good, although I am really wanting to go head on into the multiplayer aspect of it.

Every once and a while I like to do this, as it gives a fun look at what people are doing throughout the day.  So stop what you are doing, take a quick screenshot of your desktop showing what you are doing.  Keep it clean people!

Community member Wulfn1 has been doing a superb job lately of featuring and reviewing desktops.  She has put together some really good looking desktops to show this week, and although she's going to post the reviews every two weeks during the summer, I still look forward to the coming posts.  Click the article links to view the latest review.