Customers who own an existing ATI graphics board or are about to buy a new ATI product, and then purchase Windows XP on or after October 25, 2001, will be able to download Windows XP drivers from http://www.ati.com and immediately enjoy the benefits an XP-enabled ATI graphics board will provide. For a complete list of products visit www.ati.com. “The significant digital media, Internet communications and personal productivity advances associated with Windows XP will be further enhanced by AT...

Stardock has licensed ICQ Plus to use the WindowBlinds skinning language for ICQ Plus Version 3.1. Now users of ICQ Plus will be able to use WindowBlinds skins to transform the look of their favorite Internet contact tool. ICQ Plus is a third-party program that allows users to change the appearance of ICQ. It integrates with ICQ to add a menu item to the main menu. Choosing this menu item brings up a dialog which lets you configure ICQ's appearance in several ways. You can apply a predefined ...

Trillian is a great program for managing all your instant messaging needs. It supports IRC, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. Trillian has an extensive feature list and now supports file transfers.

NVIDIA has announced that they will be releasing new drivers for their graphics cards tomorrow December 3, 2001. They are expected to be available for download from http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=drivers The 23.11 release of the Detonator XP drivers were developed to maximize 2D as well as 3D performance, and to take advantage of the new API's in Windows XP. These same API's are used in WindowBlinds. How good is your video performance and what difference will driver support make? Why ...

WindowBlinds offers the most comprehensive way you'll find to bend Windows to your will. You can customize your operating system in every way imaginable, from the look of buttons and check boxes, to color schemes, 3D effects, icons and far more. It's skinnable, with many skins available, and you can also build skins of your own. DesktopX, from the same author as WindowBlinds, goes beyond that program and lets you add special objects to your desktop, such as a calendar or MP3 player. These obj...

A new virus variant has surfaced in the skin community. The Badtrans (W32/Badtrans@MM) is a variant on the password stealing trojans. AVERT has raised the Risk Assessment on the Badtrans.b variant to Medium On Watch. As always, DON'T open email attachments from strangers and exercise caution in opening any attachments. If you don't have any anti-virus program, you can follow the links to the McAfee site.

Happy Passover and a Joyous Easter to all! Please forgive me, my friends, for not posting this earlier. I must confess that the recent events in the Middle East have left me a little depressed. But please let me wish all a happy holiday and say "Shalom" (Peace) to everyone.

“The Official Xbox skin for Windows Media Player is a perfect example of how The Skins Factory can take a company’s brand and create a marketing tool that the end-user will readily embrace.” said Jeff Schader, President and Founder of The Skins Factory, Inc. “This type of personalized marketing can be applied to other areas with strong fan-bases including music artists, movies, televisions or businesses.” “For Microsoft’s Xbox skin, we strove to create a look that really emphasized the Xbox b...

If you are not familiar with the PCWeenies.com website (http://www.pcweenies.com) it is a site dedicated to technology humor. Each week they have a contest offering prizes for the person who provides the funniest caption for a cartoon. One of this week's prizes is a free copy of DesktopX!

More information can be found at the Trillian website: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com

Combat Missions is the new TV show from Mark Burnett, the producer of "Survivor." It features the most grueling physical and mental team competitions ever staged. By using the free CombatPhace browser you can theme your whole Internet experience with the combat missions look and feel. The CombatPhace browser lets you: Plan your strategy with enhanced Team and Player Dossiers. Access loads of Combat, Special Forces, Military and Warfare links. See Exclusive combatMissions logos, images and...

ACDZip™ is a zipping and unzipping program that gives you the power to compress image, audio, video and document files. It includes fast image previews and is ideal for opening zip files, backing up files, saving hard disk space, preparing files for distribution and protecting them with encryption and passwords. Preview images quickly as thumbnails or at full size during and after creating archives. Modify archives without extracting. Create 8 archive types, including ZIP and CAB. Share your ...

Fans of the great game Stronghold, from Take Two and Godgames can now download the Stronghold Desktop theme. The Stronghold Desktop was designed by Paxx (Patric Fontaine) and includes a WindowBlinds skin and wallpaper. Stronghold was developed by Firefly Studios and is a great medieval strategy. You can player in either single player mode or go on-line for head-to-head action! If you are not familiar with the game, please visit http://stronghold.godgames.com/index2.html Get medi...

Stardock has been accepted into the Microsoft Certified Partner program as the ISV responsible for developing WindowBlinds! "WindowBlinds is the world's best-selling product to customize the Windows Graphical User Interface. It is the only Microsoft Certified product for adding new visual styles to Windows XP."

Treetog and Alexandrie have created some wonderful desktop themes for Nintendo of Europe. They have posted new screenshots at the Pixtudio site. Only people who buy and register a Nintendo game or console in Europe have been able to download these wonderful themes, so it is a bit of a "tease." But it does show how skinning can be an integral part of a successful marketing campaign. Special thanks to Pedro Sanudo of Nintendo for his permissions!