Customizing Windows
I am a big fan of the Stardock programs. Right now I am using WindowBlinds, which customizes the toolbars and dialog boxes. This program allows you to make your PC toolbars look like Mac toolbars, down to the placement of the close window button and even the roll window behavior (where the Window is rolled up to show only the title and the Window management buttons when you double click on the title bar). Why would you want to do this?...Well, because it can be done. If you spend a lot of time on the computer, if you are a web designer or programmer like me, it gets boring looking at the same old boring desktop. A little variety is good.
WindowBlinds is the skinning application. I also use Object Dock, a very capable dock-type application for Windows. One of the things I really like about Macs is the dock. I like having all of my links in one easy to find place and I use the Quick Launch bar in Windows all the time to access my programs. But Object Dock is so much cooler. It even has the bouncing animation that lets you know a program is opening up.
The other program I really like in this suite is DesktopX. DesktopX is very similar to Konfabulator (originally only for the Mac but now a version for Windows has been released...I'll do a short review soon.) DesktopX consists of a series of widgets that appear on the desktop. They include memory, cpu and network monitors, calendars and some really nice looking analog clocks. The best thing is that it doesn't consume a lot of memory.
Right now I have WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, DesktopX and CursorXP (another Stardock application that allows you to have animated cursors) and my computer is running just fine with 512MB of RAM. All of these applications are highly customizable and some like DesktopX make it very easy to build your own widgets and objects.
Some of the applications in the suite, such as CursorXP and ObjectDock are available for free, while some are available in both free and paid (Enhanced) versions. All of the applications allow you to add objects from an extensive library created by other users. This library is available at www.wincustomize.com, where you will also find skins for many other applications such as mp3 players and the like.
I highly recommend the Stardock applications if you want to add some bling bling to your Windows desktop.
Link: Stardock Corporation
WindowBlinds is the skinning application. I also use Object Dock, a very capable dock-type application for Windows. One of the things I really like about Macs is the dock. I like having all of my links in one easy to find place and I use the Quick Launch bar in Windows all the time to access my programs. But Object Dock is so much cooler. It even has the bouncing animation that lets you know a program is opening up.
The other program I really like in this suite is DesktopX. DesktopX is very similar to Konfabulator (originally only for the Mac but now a version for Windows has been released...I'll do a short review soon.) DesktopX consists of a series of widgets that appear on the desktop. They include memory, cpu and network monitors, calendars and some really nice looking analog clocks. The best thing is that it doesn't consume a lot of memory.
Right now I have WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, DesktopX and CursorXP (another Stardock application that allows you to have animated cursors) and my computer is running just fine with 512MB of RAM. All of these applications are highly customizable and some like DesktopX make it very easy to build your own widgets and objects.
Some of the applications in the suite, such as CursorXP and ObjectDock are available for free, while some are available in both free and paid (Enhanced) versions. All of the applications allow you to add objects from an extensive library created by other users. This library is available at www.wincustomize.com, where you will also find skins for many other applications such as mp3 players and the like.
I highly recommend the Stardock applications if you want to add some bling bling to your Windows desktop.
Link: Stardock Corporation
posted by Luis Perez at 4:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home