The 4th of July is not typically a big skinning holiday, but there are a few skins out there that you decorate your desktop with.  I took a quick browse through the galleries and here are some that I found.

If you've tried to visit SkinArtistry.com in the last day or so, you've found yourself staring at the following notice:

"Skinartistry.com is now officially closed due to hackers installing a series of php scripts, to send out spam, and other various malware. I am sorry that it had to come to this, but they say the third time is the charm. To all those that made SA what it is today, I thank you. Especially all Admins, thanks for your hard work! I will be talking to some that may want to revive the site, but for now, SA is Closed for business."

SA was one of the older skinning sites out there, with the domain registered all the way back in 2004.  Along with sites like Skinning.net, SkinBase and Skinz.org, it made up a large chunk of the skinning community beyond the walls of sites like WinCustomize and DeviantArt.

The shutdown of SA is a blow to skinning, and to the overall community.  Any time a site goes down, we lose not only the skins and artwork hosted there, but we also lose a unique voice and perspective on the hobby and community we've all come to know and love over the years.  It's especially frustrating when we lose a site not because the owner moves on, or for not being able to pay for the site, but because a bunch of punks with nothing better to do decide to tear down something that others put years of hard work into.  Some in the community lost their virtual home because some losers sitting in their parents basements wanted to send out spam.

To the skinners, moderators and administators of SkinArtistry, and on behalf of everyone here at Stardock/WinCustomize, I'm sorry it had to come to this.  Please let me know if there's anything we at WC can do to help salvage what's left and possibly get things going again.

Last month I decided to make the monthly screenshot thread a little bit more interesting by giving away a WinCustomize subscription to the person who posted, what I thought was, the best screenshot.  The only particular rule I had in place was that I would only look at the user's first submitted screenshot in the thread, so folks who posted half a dozen or more only qualified with their first submission.  Sadly there were some great screenshots I wanted to list off here that were 2nd or 3rd postings from a user, so they didn't qualify.

So after sorting through the thread, here are my six finalists...

CarGuy 1	Leo the Lion	cplair
Bilbo1930	Ooberman	Basj

Overall, I tend to like clean and relatively simple GUIs, so that's what I found myself picking out as I sifted through the thread.  Each of these screenshots show off skins, icons, gadgets and wallpapers in a way that doesn't confuse the eye or overload the viewer with too many little bits and bobs.  And for me, a solid wallpaper pulls the whole thing together, so picking a great wallpaper to compliment the rest of the UI was a big bonus.

In the end, simplicity and appealing colors won out.  The winner for the June Screenshot Contest is Ooberman with his citrus styled screenshot...

It's a very simple, clean screenshot that goes for the minimalist approach first and foremost.  The colors make the screen easy to "read".  Just about anyone walking by a monitor with that on the screen would surely stop a moment to check it out and ask how Ooberman did that.  So for his effort, Ooberman gets a free 1 year WinCustomize subscription.  Congrats!

Island Dog is back with yet another helpful and informative screencast.  This time he's showing off how to change windows explorer backgrounds with WindowBlinds 6.

It's a quick video, clocking in at nearly 4 minutes, but it covers virtually every feature related to the background changing features.  So if you wanted to see exactly how to change out your explorer backgrounds, give the video a look.

On a side note, ID recorded this screencast using his brand new Samson C01U USB Microphone.

It's the 1st of July, so it's time for a new Monthly Desktop Screenshot thread on the forums!

Snowman kicks things off with a JJ Ying skin and a killer car wallpaper

Share your desktop shots with the community!

As June is now over, it's time for Island Dog to go through the vast number of Dreams uploaded to WinCustomize and pick out some of the best to feature in his monthly video montage.  June had some terrific Dreams to choose from.  This month we have Dreams from G47, Agustsigurdsson, Muckyman, CarGuy, Seabass, and TheMasterBaron.

Hit the link to check out the video and links.

Welcome to Monday folks!  If you're in the US, this is a nice short week for you with the Independence Day holiday on Friday.  So to get the week started, I'm back after a week off with my picks for some of the best content uploaded to the site over the weekend.  Enjoy!

Yeah, that last one is a CoolPlayer skin...

We have made it to Episode 11.  This episode is a short one, just under 10 minutes, and features myself going solo this week.  No problems though, as this episode re-caps some news on WinCustomize, a member spotlight, and a small bit about the GUI Champs with a community questions at the end.

Episode 11 - The Ramblings of ID


Download MP3

Show notes:

• SiteChecker
• OutdoorPictures
• Summer skins
• WinCustomize on Twitter

• 100% real time preview Skin Editor
• pack a skin using Skin Editor zip feature
• drag and drop a zip or rar file over CD Art Display to install a skin
• custom picture slideshow when player is stopped or not running
• full screen skin
• screensaver module

RomanDA is well known here on WinCustomize for the remarkable gadgets he has created with DesktopX.  One of my favorite desktop gadgets was SiteChecker which shows you status of a given website.  Very useful for anyone who manages a website, and just as useful to see if your favorite site is working correctly. 

I was very happy to hear that RomanDA has created his first Sidebar Gadget for Vista, and it was a re-make of SiteChecker.  Not only did we get a Vista Sidebar gadget, but we also got a new desktop version as well.  Go check it out!

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.

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 collection on photographs on his Flickr page, and many of them would make great wallpapers as well.  If you have LogonStudio Vista, head over to his WinCustomize gallery and grab some of the those logons.  I hope one day he expands his work to other galleries.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To help improve customer support and interaction with our customers, the support team has created the Panic Button newsletter which gives up to date information on the latest support issues going on at that time.  It might answer some questions or possibly solve some issues before having to contact support.

This issue includes topics about Impulse, IconPackager 4, The Political Machine 2008, WindowBlinds 6, and more.  Click the link below to read the newsletter.

Monday.....yay!  It's always a fun start of the week, but if you were outside on the grill, or just a couple of days of relaxation, you might have missed some submissions over the weekend.  No worries, as I labored all morning to find some skins from the weekend that will "brighten" your Monday morning.

Episode 10 is now up, and we have now hit the double digit number of podcasts!  This week Mike & I sit down with Seabass, from which many of you might recognize from the forums.  Last week was all about the release of Impulse, so Seabass shared his views of Impulse, and was kind enough to give a few support tips that might make your Impulse experience a bit better.

The second half of the show we talked about Seabass and his design skills, including a new upcoming suite.  If you are a .dream maker, or at least wanting to be, you especially want to listen as he gives some great advice on creating .dreams. 

Episode 10 - We hooked Seabass


Download MP3

Show notes:

• Seabass
• Impulse

Tekzilla, a weekly vidcast from Revision3, staring Veronica Belmont & Patrick Norton put out Episode 38 today, where they show off ObjectDock.  ObjectDock is their featured Freebie Download of the Week and they show off how you can use it to jazz up your Windows desktop.  They show a number of shots of the dock in action, and you will probably recognize a few of the wallpapers, dock backgrounds, icons and maybe even a certain website in the video.

The Freebie of the Week segment starts at around the 6:50 point in the video.

Wow, it's been a busy week around these parts!  On top of Impulse and The Political Machine, there's been a ton of great skins posted to the site over the last few days.  To help wrap up the busy week, Island Dog once again comes up with his picks for some of the best work submitted over the week.  It's a fantastic selection this week too; DX Theme, Dream, icons, a RightClick skin, phenominal wallpapers and two top-notch WindowBlinds skins.

Click through to the full article and get to downloading!  You have a lot to choose from this week.

Sometimes we spot an artist here on WinCustomize that shows a ridiculous amount of promise.  There are a lot of digital artists that post work here every single day, but now and then one comes up that does such terrific work that you just sit back and go "Wow!"  And it's even more satisfying when you can see how the artist has grown in talent over their time on the site.

Today, I was browsing through the newest skins list and hit upon just such an artist; Libardo (lgp85).  What specifically caught my eye was his Iron Man folder icon for ObjectDock

That helmet?  Drawn and colored from scratch in Photoshop.  That's one of the best individual icons I've seen in some time here.

He's also done some great CursorFX themes recently:

But like I said, what makes his recent work even more impressive, is going back through his gallery to see some of his original work.  Way back in early 2005, Libardo joined us primarily as a cursor skinner.  Here are his very first uploads to the site:

Judging by his latest icon, and how far he's come since starting in skinning, I think Libardo is one of those skinners everyone should keep an eye on, I bet we'll be seeing big things from him in the future!