Stardock?

I´m all kinds of SD questions in my head now. I´ll have to mail frogboy. PArt curiousity, and part clarification.

Bok Bok Bok (okay so that never works) <BR>you should speak your minds and get this over and done w/ once and for all, it&acute;s a subject that keeps coming up over and over and over and over again. just be honest w/ yourselves and relax and discuss it if that helps??? <BR> <BR>Here&acute;s two facts... <BR> <BR>#1. Brad is a skinner <b>AND</b> a business man <BR> <BR>#2. Stardock & WC are both one in the same <b>(whether wc started out that way or not)</b> <BR> <BR>more of my personal feelings about this subject. (why not, I need to get busy but don&acute;t feel like it at the moment) <BR> <BR>This is Doreen&acute;s view on it and maybe no body sees it the same way, but so what I feel brave today! hehe <BR> <BR><b>Brub:</b> (when you say Stardock most think of Wincustomize) which was a site that was originally started to be a sorta new haven for the old time skinnerz but turned into an extension of stardock w/ alot of pay for this and pay for that which upset alot of ppl, that were expecting the site to resemble another site that went under which will never be replaced cuz each site has it&acute;s own flavor... <BR> <BR>bottom line is try to stay focused on what brings you enjoyment out of the skinning community if other things you see around begin to bother you on certain sites or certain ppl or certain things just try to avoid them so you can enjoy your hobby, it&acute;s like that all over in life you need to avoid the stuff that bugs you if possible. (that&acute;s why I work from home) hehe <BR> <BR>everybody has a motive and a goal some are not like yours and don&acute;t need to be... <BR> <BR>now the way I feel these days is I overlook some personal things that <b>used</b> to bug me and I think it is actually neat to see Brad and Stardock growing and having known him and this company when it was rather unknown... (at one time I did not feel this way I felt he took advantage of <b>certain ppl</b> but that&acute;s not my biz so I don&acute;t know why it bother me, since it was not me) <BR> <BR>He works hard at it that is his passion and it is paying off... <BR>The programmers he has under him and the skinners that skin those apps that encourage it&acute;s growth all have a mind of their own to know what they are doing, so that part is not our biz nor should it bother us right? <BR> <BR>bottom line if it does bother you, stay away for your own peace of mind and continue on enjoying skinning... <BR> <BR>/now I better get my butt in gear cuz I&acute;ve been a bad girl all week long!

/me takes off bell hat and puts on thinking cap... :) <BR> <BR>Words like &quot;dislike&quot;, or &quot;hate&quot; are subjective words, Brub. <BR>I mean, think about it: obviously the majority of people don&acute;t dislike Stardock. <BR>It&acute;s program &quot;Windowblinds&quot; alone is arguably the most well liked skinnable app on the web. (check our current poll). Even our beloved Chichi is a faithful user and skinner of WB. <BR>And the most ardent and faithful followers of Stardock products would shame most Cult members, or Am-Way salespeople... :) <BR> <BR>I think if you &acute;cut to the quick&acute; of things, it boils down not to the products themselves, but the marketing tactics used by Stardock. Stardock uses one of the most aggressive sales campaigns on the web, and that combined with free advertisement by virtually every major skin repository on the web assures its success in the market place. It&acute;s my personal opinion that these marketing strategies are what offend most of those that say they are dissatisfied in some way or another. And unfortunately, the most vocal opponents of Stardock tend to take a more emotional stance. This ends up with name calling and broad generalizations, rather than pointed arguments that should lead to, if nothing else, the simple, personal boycott of the product. <BR> <BR>After all, if you don&acute;t like it, no one is forcing you to use it or any other skinnable application. <BR>And skins and themes in general aren&acute;t a necessity - they are, in the long run, a luxury item like automotive leather seats and tilt steering wheels. <BR>{:p <BR> <BR>

I don&acute;t dislike Stardock..........although, I&acute;ll never purchase OD again..............I find most of the programs of little value to me, for one reason or another. Take Objectbar.......I thought it was great, until I tried to create an OB theme. It shouldn&acute;t be so damn complicated to start a bar from scratch. <BR>IconPackager......I use it maybe once a year, and the latest improvement was no improvement at all as far as I&acute;m concerned. <BR>I&acute;ll probably always use WindowBlinds, unless something comes along that is just as good.......... <BR> <BR>But back to your question.........I think the main reason Stardock is disliked so much, is Brad. I still remember the episode at skinz.org where he attacked CustomEyes ( a program I had high hopes for) He pretty much killed CE right there on the messageboard...........claiming CE&acute;s format was too close to the WB&acute;s format. <BR>Then a about a week later, on the same board he announced that WebBlinds would use the same format as Themebar. WTF!! It&acute;s ok if you do it Brad, but not anyone else?? This is but one of many examples of Brad throwing his weight around. <BR>Some folks think he is a great guy............I dunno........I see him otherwise. <BR>WinCustomize was started to replace skinz.org......it would be a skinning portal.....so he said. But it didn&acute;t take long to see WC would be NOTHING like skinz, and is no portal at all. Brad sets the rules there, and they&acute;re always in Stardocks favor. No HoverDesk section, because it competes with Stardock apps. What&acute;s wrong with competition? What kind of skinning portal is that? <BR>SO you see in my opinion, Brad is the problem, but Brad is Stardock......... <BR> <BR><end of rant/> <BR>/me <BR> <BR>I still hesitate to hit the submit button, as this post could be viewed as inflamatory........but I haven&acute;t said one thing that isn&acute;t true. Most of it is simply my opinion.

Ouch, Koasati. <BR> <BR>That Customeyes debate still gives me a pain. <BR>I spent days proving that CE&acute;s format was NOT compatible as was claimed. <BR>Most eventually agreed, but when the admin of the site said that basically it didn&acute;t matter because he was NOT going to open a section for it, what do you do? <BR> <BR>Well, you watch the author lose hope, and watch another app die... <BR> <BR>Just goes to show that you can win the battle, and still lose the war. <BR> <BR>:( <BR>

You guys are weird, What ever started this anyway ?

Well i&acute;m happy that some people told me a little more about it. I&acute;ve been in skinning over a year. Know alot of people. I saw Skinz go under. But not as a skinner, but a user. I used CustomEyes. Because it is available in french and I try to push for those apps first. I was there at the start of DeviantArt. So just to clear things out to some of you guys. I&acute;m not a newbie here. <BR> <BR>But to come back to the subject, My philosophy in business is....(and I own a business btw, well 10% of :) ) If you have something that others don&acute;t, better offer it quick because someone else will have it soon. But competition is healthy, it shows how good your product is. So after what I have heard from people I really look uo to in this community (Koa, Dor and Elwin) I do understand why some people, older skinners, can be offended by what happen. <BR> <BR>I personnaly wont post at WC, I really don,t like their way of choosing what&acute;s good and what&acute;s not. but, you already know about that ( http://www.skinbase.org/msgboard.php?topicid=455 ) I don&acute;t skin any of Stardock apps. since i&acute;m not paying for it ( i know who does anyway) but as soon as you mention Stardock, WinCusto or DevArt. You are certain to received alot of flaming, and I was wondering why?, that&acute;s how it started Sed :)

It seems the rating system here is not much of a problem, most everyone here seems to only rate once in a while but most of the time we don&acute;t use it all, and speaking for myself usually I try to rate for newbies and helpful comments.... but all in all I feel the rating system at any site can do more damage then good and removing it could get rid of a lot of anger and problems that it can cause. As I said earlier in this thread, aggravation, and I would walk away from wblinds if there was a competitive program, I have enough aggravation in my life and I don&acute;t need more, for me I&acute;m into skinnnig to keep my mind busy from pressures in my life, and of course for fun and meet new people and not to be treated unfairly.......

I&acute;m not sure the word &quot;hate&quot; is correct, I think just angry, a lot of little things can build to cause anger...... not hate :-)

I never ignore posts. I just don&acute;t always agree. ;)

&quot;Ratings are a fact of life&quot; <BR>The problem was always the bad ratings and the bad ratings here in SkinBase don&acute;t make the hard work of the authors invisible to the visitors and the most important are NOT ANONYMOUS! <BR>As a skinner I HATE ANONYMOUS RATINGS, but I respect any critique, if I know from where it is coming from. <BR> <BR>(I am sure Brad that you will ignore this post, but I will not hate you ;) )

Hmm. I don&acute;t recall ever make a post asking people if they want to keep the ratings or not. Ratings are a fact of life. In fact, Skinbase has them (you&acute;ve rated skins here in fact). I am not alone in how I feel about ratings. They have been discussed at length by the administrators at WinCustomize and the virtually unanimous view of the admins is that ratings, as they exist now, are fine. <BR> <BR>And note that no skin site is run more fully by skinners than WinCustomize (Who runs WC on a day to day basis? Treetog, Jafo, Alexandrie, Boxxi, DavidK, etc.) all 5 of them are in favor of the current rating system. <BR> <BR>In short: It&acute;s not fair to say that it&acute;s a matter of &quot;Frogboy&acute;s way or the highway.&quot; <BR> <BR>But that really is a totally different issue than what BruB is talking about. ;) <BR> <BR>BTW, glad to see that latest versions of WB are working better. The version that just want out on Friday was a major bug fix. Found a significant resource leak that had been in there since WB 2! <BR> <BR>

My last comment on the start menu @ the top transparent issue is from the last two wblind versions that picked up some fine traces of pixels, so I cleaned that up and is fine now........ touchie touchie, but that makes these last two upgrades of wblinds great, running smooth with no problems :-)

next... (and don&acute;t ask me to explain more cuz me wont) =)

Oh....... and to answer if I noticed in this last Wblind version, the bug fix for W98? Six months ago I bought a new computer with WXP, so I can not answer that fix........ But for WXP I did notice a bug fix for tansparencies for the thumb nail on the IE scrollbars :-) and looks great again, but still have the same transparent problem in the start menu on the top only..........

I think this has been a great discussion too....... but I do have one question for frogboy, I have noticed that when you put a thread on the message board to the skinners, asking for their opinions on how to solve the &quot;rating&quot; and comment problems on their skins, you don&acute;t follow through with the suggestions that were made, not even excepting the most agreed solution? Why put a thread like that out their when you have already made up your mind, its frogboys way only? <BR> <BR>Its not your product their asking to be changed, IMHO I feel the skinners have a say, its their skins, and it should be respected what they want, Majority rule......... when I read a thread like that, I always say to myself.... why in the hell did he post such a thread, and aggravate the skinners if its going to be the way frogboys wants it...... its just another let down :-)

Just a clarification of the last paragraph: The reason you don&acute;t see me defending Stardock nearly as much as I used to is because sometimes you just have to let people have their opinons whether you agree with them or not. <BR> <BR>There are cases when good hearted people simply see the same thing and come to different conclusions.

This is a great discussion. I hope someoen saves it since it&acute;s probably what? 50 pages of stuff now? ;) <BR> <BR>Just a couple of specific responses: <BR> <BR>1) Regarding giving out free copies: <BR> <BR>We send out several free copies of WindowBlinds every week. But it&acute;s done on an ad-hoc basis. That is, someone from Stardock sees a skin they like and makes sure that the author of it has, at least, a full version of WindowBlinds. Does that mean every person who makes a skin will get one? No, it&acute;s not any sort of scientific system. The GUI Olympics, however, provided a good opportunity for skin authors to get copies of Object Desktop since everyone who got any sort of honorable mention or above got a full version of that. <BR> <BR>2) Regarding freeware: <BR> <BR>It depends on how you define freeware. I saw a guy once claim that Stardock makes NO freeware because even our freeware includeslinks to Stardocks&acute; website which in turn sells software and therefore can&acute;t count. <BR> <BR>But softwaer that most people could consider to be freeware: <BR> <BR>a) LogonStudio <BR>b) PocketBlinds <BR>c) CursorXP <BR>d) Elves, Inc. (a game) <BR>e) XPBench <BR> <BR>(just because a &quot;pro&quot; or &quot;plus&quot; version exists doesn&acute;t make the regular verison not freeware. Quicktime is freeware but there is Quicktime pro) <BR> <BR>Then there is software that is effectively freeware: <BR>a) DesktopX (you can one title screen when you first start it) <BR>b) SkinStudio <BR> <BR>This isn&acute;t a ton of software, but consider how much of it is actively developed over a long period. <BR> <BR>That said, that doesn&acute;t change the fact that people have legitimate reasons for not liking Stardock. They certainly do because it&acute;s all based on ones perspective of what the skinning community is about. I subscribe to the view that there are multiple niches of the skinning community. I don&acute;t agree tha tone can say &quot;Stardock&acute;s best hope is to be an outsider&quot; because when you have sites like WinCustomize, we&acute;re part of the &quot;inside&quot; whether we want to be or not. ;) <BR> <BR>My friend Plastic, like I said earlier, understands things better than most and is much more articulate than I am so I will try to put things like he has explained them to me: <BR> <BR>One reason people don&acute;t like Stardock or me in particular is because in an open community like the skinning community people will have many different opinions. But many times it seems like I am not willing to let people be entitled to their opinions. That I and in turn Stardock seem intent on trying to make everyone conform to a singular vision of what skinning is and what it&acute;s all about. My massively long posts seem more designed to wear down those who may have thoughtful disagreements about our particular views on what skinning is about. They see what seems liek a small army of supporters that seem intent on defining what the community is about to the outside world without being sensitive or caring as to what other viewpoints may exist or allowing that there may be other ways of doing things. And this helps turn a certain percentage of people who are regularly exposed to this into being unhappy with Stardock. <BR> <BR>It&acute;s a very legitimate thing and it&acute;s taken me a long time to understand that. As an engineer, I tend to naturally view that any issue can only have a singular &quot;correct&quot; opinion and all others are wrong. Therefore, those with different opinions merely need to be explained to (at length) why they&acute;re wrong. Of course, this is a terrible way to go about things when you&acute;re dealing with people. Because sometimes there really are multiple correct opinions to a particular issue. That&acute;s why you don&acute;t see me on every topic on every site on every thread &quot;Defending the faith&quot;. <BR> <BR>All we can do is do the best we can. Try to write software as best we can and support users and skinners the best we can.

And yes I know there are a dozen typos in my posts...

Well, that&acute;s something I guess. I was morethinking a skinnable app an os could use, but I guess that is expecting too much.

It has LogonStudio, which is free (which I used to tweak my logon screens, &acute;cos I am way too lazy to reghack things). <BR> <BR>It&acute;s really pretty easy: people pick on the dominant player, be it deserved or not. Seeing Stardock is the Microsoft of skinning, they will catch the heat and seeing the frog is behind the steering wheel of the HMS DOck of Star, he&acute;ll be getting extra doses of tar and feathers. Which is why it is different nowadays, &acute;cos in the past things were more equal. <BR> <BR><b>/listen</b> <BR><b>*craeonics</b> is listening to: Aaliyah - More than a Woman

Speak the devils name and he shall appear, >;] <BR>Well, now I have to be cool and have a long post too. :P <BR> <BR>A lot of what frogboy said has merit from a business stand point, and ppl need to accept that SD is a business. Money is going to play a mojor roll in thier descions. You can _never_ forget that! A buisness without profit is out of business. (any one here ever actually read the ferengi rules of aquissition? -sp hehehe) SD is also in for a shock if it expect a community of free giving artists to accept a business as one of it&acute;s own. If I was SD, the best I would hope for is welcome outsider, and take it from their. With two such different groups working together, you are just begging for conflist... C&acute;est la vie. <BR> <BR>Bugz has got a point on the price. If I used WB and payed for those apps, I&acute;ld charge for any skin I made with them. That&acute;s all hypothetical though, and nothing really wrong with it. I would feel trapped to try and make up for the loss. However the skins made with these apps are free, and I feel that is taken for granted. Apreciated... but taken for granted. I will admit, from a business stand point, making this free is a bad idea. I&acute;m a skinner though. <BR> <BR>Good point on the freeware, and one that I illuded too (I need to learn to code better). I want to eventually take up some of these causes/apps. I&acute;ve got a long way to go, but I&acute;ll do what I can. <BR> <BR>One thing bothers me though. Stardock has no _true_ 100% freeware that I know of. It has free pro, demos, and stuff but I would think they could afford to have a single, _dedicated_ freeware app that was as good as it could be for free. (good as it could be as in no pay for better version). I also think from a business stand point, this would be great for PR. <BR> <BR>Doesn&acute;t really matter to me. <BR>Just observations really. <BR>Like I said, I&acute;m nuetral on SD.

Welp....I&acute;m a lot more calm now than I was when I flipped my lid with my first few posts on this subject....Plastic...I think I understood what you meant....and Why fight it....If ya can&acute;t beat em....walk the hell away and never look back....So in closing I doubt anything will change....and I won&acute;t HATE either...This has been a rather informative family conversation....It&acute;s very rare that I speak out on something the way I have...but I couldn&acute;t help it...So I quit....you win Brad!.... cya

There is so much love here at Skinbase it&acute;s so Cuuuuuute! if this thread would have been at DevArt. it would be 300 post of W00t, f**k off and lots of Bullshit. I love Skinbase

Man talk about dodging bullets.....I quit.... lol

nope don&acute;t see where to list e-mail addy here? what happened? here Elwin dor@adelphia.net cuz I never see you around LOS... <BR>and speak your mind about Stardock if it bugs you guys so much. what can SD do to you? as for me I told you guys I&acute;m done w/ that mess.

/me is not in a very good mood, so I&acute;ll not touch this thread with a ten foot pole right now ....... but I&acute;ll be back later to comment......... by the way /BruB: what is your opinion :-)

well, I have nothing against stardock. They have a good products that is too expensive for my taste. Hell i&acute;m like everyone else, I want everything free. But they do have a great part of the market and their softwares appeal easily to newbies. <BR> <BR>I&acute;m just wondering why this hatred?

Stardock?! Who&acute;s/what&acute;s that?! ;) ;) hehe.....

Brub I <b>think</b> the main issue w/ Stardock that the skinning community has some bad feelings about is the fact that the people/skinners feel that &quot;<b>they</b> (the skinners themselves) make the skins that make windowblinds & DX and other apps by Stardock which in turn <b>only</b> makes Stardock richer and <b>not</b> them. <BR> <BR>actually maybe there is alot of different reasons that there is some bad vibes floating around against SD but maybe that is the main issue? I stopped pondering all that stuff a while back, about who gets what & more out of the skinning scene cuz I found myself over the years getting more attached to the ppl behind the scene then the skins and the hobby and I almost left because of it, now I just try to enjoy the ppl and the hobby, but now the skins I make stay on my own machines (aren&acute;t ya lucky I spare you guys) hehe <BR>for diff reasons one being alot of sites go up and down and I&acute;m lazy to upload and accumulate comments only to have them lost when the sites go down... <BR>though these days the sites <b>seem</b> to be stabilizing out more =) <BR> <BR>at any rate, these days I also focus on the fact that if SD/WC was not there I would have lost contact w/ some really great ppl I enjoy being around and having access to and would not if when skinz.org went under wc did not stick the dingy boat out there to keep some of us from floating off the net. (for that I appreciate regardless if there was other motives behind it) I could care less about ppls motives anymore, which is the only reason I&acute;m still around. <BR> <BR>IF you stop thinking about other ppl&acute;s motives and enjoy your own it&acute;s easy to have fun!

and I see mr. Jingle bells is back in the house! Hi Elwin =) <BR>chichigirl was on the hunt for you when you dissapeared, and I was wondering if you were ever gonna come back too! you were missed!

Who&acute;s Elwin?!

Do I dare post what I have typed up? I duuno.........maybe, after I think about it. <BR>I will say this............I don&acute;t dislike Stardock...but ..........

LOL <BR>Oh, no - not me. <BR>No how - no way, am I gonna touch this thread. <BR> <BR>But maybe Doreen can do one of those hard hitting, 60 Minute type interviews and get it all sorted out. <BR> <BR>Yeah, right. <BR>Tell me another story, Grandma - I ain&acute;t sleepy yet... <BR>{:p

OK, so I touched it. <BR>But that&acute;s all... <BR>{:p

come on elwin, let us hear what&acute;s on your mind!

nah I told ya I&acute;m done thinking too hard on Stardock these days buttttt let me get <b>&quot;you&quot;</b> Elwin for my next hard hitting 60 min type interview??? <BR>wanna do one in two weeks or so? I&acute;d rather get you... <BR> <BR>lemme know if you care to and have the time okay? I did not see an e-mail listed for you here when I looked last time I mentioned this, (but you may have thought I was kidding) <BR> <BR>/me goes to update mine here for you, (Contact me if you care to do this) =)

alright what am I missing here, I don&acute;t see that field anymore, there was one before... <BR>anyways, Elwin I&acute;m on file at LOS okay? thanks!

What also gets me is alot of the products aren&acute;t worth the money due to compatibility issues...I think they&acute;re pockets are getting fat, and we&acute;re getting a middle finger...but maybe I&acute;m wrong....that&acute;s just my opinion...

Dor: do I WANT to? <BR>My ego ain&acute;t &acute;that&acute; big... <BR>LOL <BR> <BR>On the other hand if you ever want to talk to me you can contact me at: <BR>elwin@skinbase.org <BR>I&acute;ll answer any questions you want. <BR>Course, you may not wanna hear my answers - rember, I am Evil... <BR>:P

Ok.....so I feel slightly foolish because most of you are holding back your comments about stardock and I&acute;m curious as to what they are... and I must say in response to Doreen...I don&acute;t wanna get paid for skinning anything.... <BR> <BR>I&acute;d rather be recogniized in a way that says &acute;hey thanx for bringing your ideas to stardock...and here ya go, a free copy of our software because we appreciate your desgins as much as the community does....Granted I&acute;ve only completed 1 window blind design, It&acute;s been uploaded to 7 or 8 sites and has more than 10,000 downloads...and now blind number 2 is almost ready to post but I don&acute;t really wanna release it...seems my mind is at a stand off....cus I really wanted to deck this thing out....but I don&acute;t think they want me to...anyhow....phuck it...who cares....bugzOut

then evil_dor will ask evil_elwin evil_questions? hehe <BR>okayyyy but if you change your mind, come get me. <BR> <BR>the interviews are fun and help get more of the ppl in the skinning community alittle more acquainted w/ each other. <BR> <BR>bugz no not all skinners want to get paid for their skins, but some get upset at the fact that the only one getting anything out of skinning for stardock apps <b>IS</b> Stardock and the skinners don&acute;t even get a free reg code... <BR> <BR> (but that is the way it is w/ most skinnable apps) cept a few pocket pc skinnable apps (cuz I&acute;ve had a few thrown to me for my skins from some generous programers, which was enough to make me happy when I never even asked for it) <BR> <BR>you either skin cuz you enjoy it and some share it to get even more enjoyment... when you go past that and think about the programmers profit and run along those lines of thought, it all becomes unfun (atleast for me) <BR>

Bugz: Do what you want to do, and don&acute;t let others opinions influence you. <BR>Some here are speaking &quot;tongue in cheek&quot;. <BR>{:p

Oh, and especially don&acute;t listen to anything Chichi has to say. She should be cutting wood for the fire, and fluffing Hob&acute;s pillows anyway... <BR> <BR> :devil

it&acute;s kinda funny how people hold back their commetns like Bugz noticed. I see so much SD bashing on other sites without any good reason. But I forgot I was on Skinbase where everyone is nice, even Elwin.

That&acute;s enough to help make up my mind.............I shall refrain from posting my little rant.........for now anyway...... LOL muwhahhaahahaahahahahhahahahahaahaahaa cough...wheeze

Let me ask you /brub: Are we talking strickly Stardock here? If so I have nothing against Stardock its self...... It is a company and that is what companies are supposed to do....make money.... I give them all the credit they deserve for creating the programs they sell.... Look at it this way... Nabisco makes ice cream cones, not the icecream, would I buy just the cone with noooo ice cream???? Hardly.... But if I was making my own ice cream I would ..... So its not Stardock.... They are advertising their products on the Stardock Site... and don&acute;t even have a message board..... Now if you are talking about Wincustomize...... Then that is another story... I reserve any further comments until you clarify your meaning here. :)

Why the hell is EVERYONE affraid of speaking their true feelings....... AFFRAID of what? No one should ever be flammed for what they feel or like/dislikes. No one puts anyone down here for what they think about any one topic........ oh I see, some can dish it out but can&acute;t take the heat themselves? <BR> <BR>I&acute;m not saying anything right now myself, do to my personal situation at the moment, I&acute;m not in a good frame of mind and I know it will come out hard and not the way I want it too............. so whats your excuse?

My thoughts exactly ChiChi. And WinCustomize is part of stardock right? so yes i&acute;m talking about WC also.

uh oh! hehe <BR>okay my <b>true</b> thoughts... <BR> <BR>The <b>Only</b> part that has ever bothered me truely has been me &quot;assuming&quot; that people were being used and taken advantage of for profit. (that was about it for me) but stupid things tick me off that are <b>not</b> my biz, that&acute;s why I stopped thinking past having fun.