Andy Hutchinson

Reply to Is it time for Stardock to hire a PR firm? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

"Flagellating one's own ego and personal failings in the guise of 'expert' GUI Customization editorial on a publicly distributed medium is unprofessional at best. The 'power' of position is not something to be abused through personal prejudice and myopic thought." That's brilliant Jafo, I'll have to print it out and get it mounted in a nice frame. Not entirely sure what it means, but then English is clearly your second language so we'll cut

Reply to Is it time for Stardock to hire a PR firm? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

I think you'll find a lot of the bad feeling towards Stardock is down almost completely to its founder - Brad Wardell. I've been a desktop customisation advocate for about five years now - writing countless columns, features and articles on the subject for a wide variety of magazines in the UK and abroad. About 18 months ago, Brad Wardell took it upon himself to directly email the editor of a magazine I was working for, accusing me of being biased towa

Reply to MSStyles=clones, clones and more clones? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

I made the switch completely to Windowblinds about nine months ago for the reasons you've mentioned. However I do find the vast majority of Windowblinds skins to be unuseable monstrosities. I quite liked the Christmas theme, I could certainly appreciate the skill and effort that had gone into it, but it's a novelty skin and should be rated as such - it's not a classic that you'd keep on your PC for months on end. The Neowin crowd do suffer from band-wa

Reply to Widget Wars: The battle for your Windows desktop! in Beginners JoeUser Forums

Never thought I'd find myself in the position of defending Frogboy (this is Dokt, incidentally), but the article didn't strike me as being particularly biased one way or the other. It gave a good run-down of the widget-like apps that are out there, getting the plus and minus points pretty much correct. Regarding proof-reading, it's just a blog, not a work of literature - yes a quick spell-check would have been nice, but get over it - he's not Tolstoy.<

Reply to WindowBlinds, DesktopX for MacOS X announced in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

lol Actually pretty funny. I'll put my hand up and admit you had me going for a while there.

Reply to Editiorial: Are skinners abandoning originality in exchange for popularity? in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Are skinners abandoning originality for popularity? Of course they're not. There are several things going on here. Firstly, you added a feature to Skinstudio which made it possible to port over .msstyle skins to WB. Since the vast majority of skins created in .msstyle format are 'minimalistic' and since WB users clearly want to use them, they got ported over. Secondly, the skinning scene has matured to the point where skinners and end-users alike have grown weary of nasty novelty skins. People j