Jeffrey Bombard

Reply to Is skinning a community or a market? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote]I dont consider the entitlement crowd potential customers.Their minds are pretty much made up on the subject and not likely to change.[/quote] I can't speak for the "entitlement" crowd at large, and I actually don't really consider myself to be "entitled" to anything. When I first bought OD way back when, the community produced all the skins I could hope for. These days it is rarer and rarer that I find something to my tastes. I *think* I understand Stardock's menta

Reply to Is skinning a community or a market? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote]Me so poor I cant afford a car...I have to ride a freakin' bycycle to the grocery store.(I'm 48 and partially disabled...I look like an idiot) So when I hear the entitlement crowd WHINING about the Masterskins program,I wanna beat their WHINY little butts. [/quote] Here we go again with the whining. Not sure if those ALL CAPS were pointed at my comment about the word "WHINE" being one of my pet peeves, but I'll bite. The only here that sound like they are whining is yo

Reply to Is skinning a community or a market? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote]I think we can do the same thing here when someone doesn't like their car. They mod it, aftermarket. It's not free though. If you buy from the car manufacturer, you pay a lot more. We miss that option here. [/quote] I really don't think most people are talking about that level of customization, when you talk about casual users I think most people would just like a different color to choose from, maybe with some racing stripes. Not that the car comparison, or any other is a

Reply to Is skinning a community or a market? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Frogboy, I do not envy the decisions you have to make. [quote]I can easily see a day where WindowBlinds 7 is a $39.95 product but it comes with a dozen high quality skins plus a year subscription to Stardock Design where they get new skins as they're made for free. [/quote] That would be dirt cheap even without the subscription. It would be nice to see it on the shelves next to Windows though, as customization becomes more main stream you start opening up to more and more casual

Reply to Is skinning a community or a market? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote]To put it in collection, WinRar, which is most commonly (let's be honest here) used to compress pirated software, is about $40 all by itself.[/quote] Okay, let's be honest here. That is not a great comparison. There are plenty of great free options for file compression, personally I use IZARC. [quote]I wish you luck finding comparable software when you go elsewhere[/quote] I agree that when you do a value comparison, WB is tough to beat. That said, when many of us

Reply to The Next 25 Years in Tech in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Good stuff goo. Not so sure about the light speed stuff, tough to tell if debris or shielding would be an issue as human understanding of this is still very limited, but folding space does seem the way to go. I think I read somewhere or other that while teleportation is viable, that reading the DNA to the level needed to duplicate it would result in the destruction of the original DNA. So we better hope they have fixed the blue screen of death in Windows 2500.(wouldn't wanna crash

Reply to Windows Vista Turns 1 in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I don't think Vista is necessarily bad. However it does have much higher hardware requirements than XP. I use both XP and Vista among others at work, Vista definately take some getting used to and UAC is a pain. However I don't really feel Vista brings much to the table. Especially for a utility junkie like myself who has their PC running like a smoothly oiled machine. At home, my PC is for work and play, and since I do play games on my PC my spec is more than high enough to handl

Reply to I'm not your bro and I am going to taze you! in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote]A customer is someone who has traded money for some good or service. They are due what the two parties agreed upon. It is not a relationship of master and supplicant but a relationship of equals who enter into a voluntary trade.[/quote] I agree with that definition, but would you say that the availablility of quality skins free of charge is implied or not? And really who gives a crap about the legality of it anyway. It is not about what you can get away with, it should be about

Reply to I'm not your bro and I am going to taze you! in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Ahh, frogboy's on a rant... First of all I agree that caustic remarks concerning a skin are a disservice to the community as a whole. However negative comments are not necessarily caustic, there needs to be a distinction because negative comments are needed so long as they are contructive in nature. That said, business is not all about greed and making money all the time. Sometimes losing money in one area of your business can generate gains in another, you have to look at

Reply to Windows XP Sucks! I'll Never Leave 2k! in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Really it is quite different, and I think people saying it's the same for Vista as it was back then either weren't using computers back then or have forgotten. At the office it may have been somewhat similar but then again people using 2000 at the office probabably didn't upgrade from 2000 to xp. The client upgrades at the office I saw back then were 95/98 to XP. Regardless XP was big with the home users, there were lines to get XP when it was released, I got mine the day of release there was

Reply to What will the impact of animated wallpaper be? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote] Is it really that insane? Wallpaper is a mainstream feature because everyone has access to it. While I hardly believe that everyone will be running XP forever, there just is no reason for the average Joe to upgrade to Vista. Many people may just choose to skip it like ME, it's too early to say one way or the other. The point being: People aren't going to stick with XP forever. Therefore, your earlier argument fails: "Until Dreams

Reply to What will the impact of animated wallpaper be? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Is it really that insane? Wallpaper is a mainstream feature because everyone has access to it. While I hardly believe that everyone will be running XP forever, there just is no reason for the average Joe to upgrade to Vista. Many people may just choose to skip it like ME, it's too early to say one way or the other. Another possiblity is that you may see more of a shift to some linux flavor or mac, it seems a pretty good number of casual users are buying macs these days. If I had to recommen

Reply to What will the impact of animated wallpaper be? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

The thing that standard wallpapers have is cross platform compatibility and standard formats. Also the fact that on just about any platform you don't need special software to change the wallpaper is a huge factor. The thing hurting Dreams in the short term is the fact that it is limited to Vista. Vista currently has nothing exceptional to offer the majority of users, and it's higher hardware requirements often mean that you need a full system replacement just to run it properly. IF

Reply to WC Charity/Sub Drive - Day 1 in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

For anyone who would like to contribute to Child's Play without buying a subscription the link is here [link="http://www.childsplaycharity.org/"]WWW Link[/link]

Reply to WinCustomize Through The Years: WindowBlinds (Part 1) in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

Awesome stuff, looking forward to the next article. Not exactly WindowBlinds but ObjectDesktop predates this even further on OS2. I seem to remember a really cool wireframe window shatter effect when closing windows, could be my memory playing tricks on me though.

Reply to New Free Skin from Stardock Design: Solarion in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

[quote]When it comes time to reevaluate, what has to happen between now and then for you to resubscribe? [/quote] If the product continues to evolve, and there is a continuous influx of new free content that meets my tastes and also takes advantage of the product's new features then I will resubscribe. It is the amount of free content that meets my tastes as of late that has me worried. [quote]It took you 19 paragraphs to make that completely obvious point? I don't thi

Reply to New Free Skin from Stardock Design: Solarion in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I'm not saying anyone is under mind control, just that the incentive for them to produce master skins is greater than that of free skins and thus the balance has changed. It is people stretching my words with comments like "mind control" that really make me appreciate posters with an understanding open minded tone like Philly0381 and Zubaz. You can disagree but I would appreciate it if people didn't put words in my mouth. As far as irony is concerned... it is not about the number of s

Reply to New Free Skin from Stardock Design: Solarion in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

bobbyhundreds, not kidding, maybe it's just temporary but right now all of the latest and greatest skins in my opinion are the master skins. There are some really good alternatives, but the master stuff has more appeal to me. I haven't used a new blind in months and that is rare for me. Even after downloading v6 I'm back to an old blind. In my opinion and peoples will vary, Optix would be a high 9 this is a 6-7ish. I feel Optix has a much nicer feel to it, once again my opinion. No

Reply to New Free Skin from Stardock Design: Solarion in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

What I do for a living I get paid for, what I do for a hobby I do because I enjoy it, if other people get enjoyment from my hobbies then that pleases me. Don't get me wrong if the skinners are doing this for a living then so be it. I am very thankful to all of the wonderful skinners that have GIVEN so much to the community. However when I first joined OD many years ago their were no master skiners, only artists with passion. I am not upset with skinners because as Philly0381

Reply to New Free Skin from Stardock Design: Solarion in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I was always afraid of what Master skins would do to the quality of free stuff and here's a great example. Mike's Optix master skin is fricken awesome, yet when it comes to time for the free stuff we get something that looks like a transparent version of an OS from the 80s. Yeah I know it's supposed to be retro, but the difference in quality here is obvious. How about the free Molten skin they included with 6.0, great ideas poor execution. It probably serves as a good technical exa

Reply to My two cents on Stardock............. in Animated Wallpapers WinCustomize Forums

"Stardock has explained that Dreams will not be developed for XP because it does not have WDDM technology/accelerated graphics capabilities of Vista" I have heard this too, the difference is that I find it a little hard to believe. I might believe it if they said the cost of development would outweigh any potential profits and thus they will not do it. I wouldn't necessarily agree, but it is more believable. I bet if Stardock developed their own "Dreams" program that ran on XP and Vi

Reply to My two cents on Stardock............. in Animated Wallpapers WinCustomize Forums

If you are running Vista Ultimate then slowdown is probably coming from all of the Microsoft bloat. My biggest complaint about Stardock is that their good software makes Microsoft even lazier than they already are. As far as I'm concerned Dreams are the only reason to run Vista let alone "Ultimate". If Stardock could come out with a way to play Dreams on XP, there wouldn't be a reason to buy Vista and I think even more people would be interested in Dreams. The reason they don't IMHO is not b

Reply to 5 Coolest Things On-Line 2007 -- so far in Personal Computing WinCustomize Forums

Top 3 okay sounds cool. 4 while cool, the fact that you need Windows Vista Ultimate(and this is really the only reason to get Ultimate or Vista for that matter) is very very uncool. 5 just sounds like you guys are getting a little too comfy with MS. I mean we are talking about buying a server to replace all the functionality of a USB hard drive. Granted it saves you some leg work around home, but we are talking about buying a server to do this. I'm actually surprised you guy

Reply to Premium Content in Community WinCustomize Forums

I already paid for Windowblinds, now I have to pay for content? You won't see me buying any. Well theres enough good free content, so no worries really, and if it has the desired effect we should end up with more good free content. However I have serious doubts about this, I think you will see the master skinners put out there really good stuff as master skins and that will leave only mediocre or crippled/unfinished versions for free. If this happens it could really have the opposite resu

Reply to A Guided Tour of Stardock DeskScapes in DeskScapes WinCustomize Forums

meh, Dreams are awesome but Vista is crap, without a port of this for XP I just can't see it going anywhere soon. Unless the only thing you do on your PC is customize your desktop, then going Vista just doesn't make sense. I have used it in the office and the performance is terrible, and with Window Blinds on XP my PC looks just as good if not better and runs alot smoother on a similarly specced machine. So then the only thing Vista offers is Dreams??? And pretty much everyone that didn't bu