Hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday(s) this year!

Who sucked the joy out of the error pages???

No more cute little anecdotes as to why we can't reach a page! Now we get the formal "we're sorry" message accompanied by an advertizement for a mac product (what's up with THAT?)

Recently I downloaded two seperate iconpackages, by two different people. When I tried to install I got a message telling me that the packages could not be loaded in the version of IconPackager I have, that they were designed for a "newer" version. I dutifully checked my impulse to see if there was a newer version available, and was surprised to see that there wasn't. my current version is

4.10.172 (x86)

so what gives? any one have any idea why this keeps coming up?

This week, with the GUI Championships upon us, I wanted to find something special.

I didn't have to look very far. The very first page had a great blind  that stood out and , really I think should have been entered. (But I'm glad it wasn't!).

Azul HI-def in 3d by the AVMAN is a brilliant skin with features you won't see in other blinds. For one, the start menu gives the illusion of being offset and made of something more solid than a bitmap. The colors are blended in a way that is really easy on the eyes.

The menus of this skin are outstandingly skinned. The individual sections for each menu item makes it much easier to find what I am looking for in a long list of stuff. One of the nicer parts of this skin is the min/max/close buttons are situated on the left. Being a lefty I have to enjoy that.

CursorFX theme is Prototype 01 by J. Aroche I adjusted the hue slightly to bring out the deeper blue tones.

Slider by SkinHit , recolored to blue  is the IconPackage I used .The slight tilt to the icons worked well with the blind's look. I had to recolor Firefox Midnight by Mirsguy again for this one. And I recolored and converted Thunderbird 2005 icons by Jairo Boudewyn from Object Dock pngs.

 My Dreaming Night by PhoeniXLegends is a great wall, with three different styles and three different sizes. This setup looked great with each of the styles, but because it's october I thought maybe something a bit darker was in order.

for my ObjectDocks , first I chose a single dock again with the Stardock ODNT icons all from some Hazard icons by David Brelo , really a detailed group of icons, unfortunately he did them one at a time!

The second Dock, is BlackRose Tabbed and Side docks by WebGizmos with the blue hue allowed for each tab, just slightly different blue.

I tossed in Mini Calendar by Vad_M just because I could. Blue of course.

Right click is BlackBlue by Cavan1. It's a great skin and the coloring is spot on.

This week, I concentrated on simplicity and decided not to have too many things on my desktop. I found this is a good thing, as I have to look up each of the icons I chose for Object Dock+.

I used the WindowBlind October by NighTrain. I thought it was fitting. This blind is a warm pumpkin color with stylish window frames. It really does say October!

I decided to use Element by skinhit for my IconPackage. There are quite a few orange hued icon sets, but the backlighting of this set really looks sharp against the startmenu.

The wall is Orange Blossom by AzDude I edited it in my PaintShopPro 7 program to reverse the pattern and flip it. I didn't like the way the graphic was hidden by the start menu and placing it to the upper right made all the difference.

CursorFX theme is  Silex by the AVMaN. I have used this theme in the past , in my reviews,but I felt it was the right cursor for this grouping.

Now, for the docks.

I recently had to redownload all of my docks and icons, and I made the tragic mistake of not saving each link I downloaded from for the reviews. Now I am paying for that , and am having to hunt down each icon all over again to capture the link. It's unfortunate that the icons don't all have titles which would make it easy for me to find them. But I will do my best to list all of them today. If I missed someone's icon, please post the link in comments for those who might like to download it.

The first dock ,is TransBrass by Cavan1 I used the tray file from this dock and because it's a side dock it changed the whole look of the dock. If you prefer you can alter the look to show properly within properties by clicking "stretch background proportionally. I like the way it resembles a display you might see in a store so I left it as is.

I really don't care for the Wincustomize icon that is standard with the program, so I changed it to WinCustomize Chameleon by Bandit4edu.

I hope someone soon makes a calendar docklet to replace the current one. It's boring and the blue color isn't all that flattering for most groupings.

The Power docklet is 2d battery meter docklet 2006 by Havell. You would think something this clean and pretty would be standard on the objectdock package but the one that comes with it is rather plain and the colors are harsh. I really like  the three dimensional look of this one.

I used the pccube icon from the WhiteFire2 Dock Icons by basj to make a flyout menu for my computer items.  I didnt' show it because I  have two flyouts this week and the Stardock flyout is really prettier.

Speaking of the Stardock flyout menu,.. This dock I chose to be a single dock. I wanted my Stardock programs available at a single click , on the desktop. A flyout menu was the best way to obtain that goal. I chose a dock from my menu called sglass tile. I can't find the link to this one, so if anyone knows , please tell me so I can post it.

The icons are  Cosmos by PixelPirate (thanks so much to Winstar4 for helping find these!!!) These icons are bright, clean and professional and I am really enjoying using them.

The Stardock Logo icon is part of a Liquidox set, Which is a premium suite and can be found here Liquidox Theme

The tabbed dock at the top , is alegnA by Messiah1 I had set it to accept color in configuration , and that brought the hues closer to the orange I've used here.

[img]http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/798/iconsfp8.png[/img]

If you know who made these icons, or where to find the link to these icons please post here for me?

I can't publish my article till I can identify the creator of  these stardock product icons.

[e digicons]:wulf:[/e]

Hoping this is a possibility for the future.

In config, the dropdown menu for backgrounds cuts half the background name out, and if a person downloads a considerable number of backgrounds (like me) the list is so long as to be disorienting and endless. Is it possible to create a config section for the background (and or the icons ) similar to IP or WB?

It is more than a bit frustrating finding just the right background at the moment, the way the thing is designed.

[e digicons]:wulf:[/e]

Hoping this is a possibility for the future.

In config, the dropdown menu for backgrounds cuts half the background name out, and if a person downloads a considerable number of backgrounds (like me) the list is so long as to be disorienting and endless. Is it possible to create a config section for the background (and or the icons ) similar to IP or WB?

It is more than a bit frustrating finding just the right background at the moment, the way the thing is designed.

[e digicons]:wulf:[/e]

This week I thought I'd say good bye to summer, with one last fling.

So, before we start seeing oranges browns and skeletons, I thought I'd bring some summer color to the screen.

To begin with I chose a perfectly summery windowblind skin, in the form of Watermelon by Imzadi. This is a cutsie skin, without being sappy sweet. Refreshing, like a real watermelon. I enjoyed the way the programs menu and other submenus have a gradient shaded theme, starting with lightest up by accessories , and darkest at the end of the list.  The combination of reds and greens I thought were going to be too christmasy, but I was pleased to see they worked well together and didn't remind me of christmas at all.

I paired the blind with the wall Ocast by eamejia . The relic in the corner, and the summer wheat reminded me of the view out my window(yes complete with relic) in the mid summer here. I really love this wall and have used it several times in the past.

To compliment the blind, I chose Win3D Summer XP by JamesT. I know I had to travel a little in the way back machine , but it was worth it. This set's watermelon pink and green shaded icons play nicely with the watermelon/ summer theme of my grouping here. and it's a very extensive set I might add. The only thing I had to adjust was the firefox icon, which is the same one as last week, but recolored in icondeveloper to match the Iconpackage.

I moved my fences around a bit and reduced their size to show the desktop off to it's best advantage .

For the CursorFX theme, I used Buzz by PuterDudeJim. A bumble buzzing around my screen just seemed appropriate. I was surprised to see the cursor is actually a bee with the stinger as the pointer, as the screenshot suggested it was just a striped arrow. I like the bee better .

I decided not to go too elaborate this week for my DesktopX objects. So I just used a simple weather widget which does a lot more if fully opened. Combined II by Richard Mohler, is light, simple and contains a weather widget,calendar ,music player, color picker and mouse tracker all in one. It can be minimized to show weather only, or fully opened to totally enjoy all the features.

I decided to have a little fun with this one, and used Sun Clock by Jaramia. The clock fit nicely over the palest spot of the wall, where the sun was just barely shining through.

I added Mystic Stalk by tippytonail just because no true field is without one or two stalks of last season's crop here and there.

Lastly I found an older widget that really worked for me. It's probably going to be on my desktop often, so look for it and remember this link DesktopX Helper v2 by Randahl. I think it is prettier and less in your face than the dx helper that comes standard.

Well, That's it for this week's look. I guess it's time to put away the pretty greens and pinks and get ready for the fall lineup. Hope you all are ready, I know I'm not. I love summer but I will do my best to provide the look of the season!

Have a good one,

Wulf

Just  a simple request, don't know if it's feasible.

There are several threads that are extensive. I know you can click the blue button to go to the last post read, but if you haven't read from that thread in eons,.. you end up very far away from the most recent posts.  the "last" page button  is helpful but only gives you the option of going to the last page  which can be limited and involves navigating past pages to bring yourself up to date.

I know some sites have an archive feature that creates an archive of the last month's posts so you only have a month's worth of posts at one time, and if you want to go further back you click the link for the month you want to browse.

I imagine this might take up valuable server space, so I understand if it's not possible, but if it is, it would be refreshing for posts like the nothing thread, or jokes thread or even finish the sentence.

( if there is already an archive feature that I just haven't found yet, I apologise and will blushingly hide under a rock till this post vanishes)