FULL impulse power restored
Wednesday, December 3, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
The restoration of the skin archives is nearly complete. You'll notice that about 95% of the skins, themes, and wallpapers are now back. We'll be posting a list of people who helped us out with our thanks!
We are still left with a few minor challenges.
1) We are missing a few files still that we will hopefully be able to get back.
2) We are down 2 high speed servers. Some of this is on warranty so we'll be able to get them back. Technically, it's amazing we're ven up right now. But clearly more redundancy is needed.
Issue #2 really should be discussed as a community issue. Let me talk numbers: In January 2003 this site got just over a milliion visitors per month. Last month, despite the libraries being down for a couple of days this site still got over 2 million unique visitors. In short, we doubled our size and continue to grow at a huge rate.
This is good. Except it does means we need more hardware. So in a few days, we're going to start a subscription drive with the goal of getting 500 new subscriptions (500 people out of 2 million uniques) by the end of the year. If you've already purchased a subscription, you've done your part and you have our thanks. But of the 1.998 million who haven't, hopefully some of them will be willing to help us out. WIth 500 new subscriptions we'll be able to bring in 2 new servers and provide instant redundancy so that future disasters can be averted.
We will also display on the site how close we are to meeting that goal. So all subscriptions starting tonight at 10pm EST and on will be counted towards the subscription drive. A WinCustomize subscription lasts TWO years and is only $20. That's less than $1 per month. It gets you all kinds of extra software goodies, unlimited bandwidth use, a couple of premium suites and helps the site.
Thanks for all your help. We'll keep you posted! If you see any missing skins or themes at this point, if you have them please consider submitting them (screenshot will still be needed too).
We'd like to thank Pat (T-Man) and Kris (Nakor) and Nate Mook (owner of Betanews.com who is also our IT god in LA) for all their hard work in getting things back in order.
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Reply #22 Thursday, December 4, 2003 3:13 PM
WinCustomize costs well over $100,000 per year to run. That's not equipment. That's purely bandwidth, IT costs, and support. If it weren't for volunteer moderators like Jafo and the gang, WinCustomize would be impossible to have at all.
Stardock pays 100% of the IT costs for WinCustomize. WinCustomize subscriptions are expected to pay for 50% of the bandwidth and new equipment.
BTW, we're at 16 subscriptions now. 484 to go.
Reply #23 Thursday, December 4, 2003 8:42 PM
Come on people! It is worth every penny! (or whatever one Cent is called in your country 
)
Reply #26 Friday, December 5, 2003 7:47 AM
Just another thought....have Stardock offer a trial subscription at time of purchase at a reduced rate when someone buys ODNT, say like $1.99 for three months.
By the way, this is one great site. From the obvious hard work and dedication from the folks that operate it and the folks that provide the quality material for all of us to use, to the help and support from the general community on the message boards, anyone should be able to see that a 2-year subscription is a steal at $20. That's year-round, 24-7 access to tons and tons and tons of great stuff for less than 20¢ a week. Can't think of much that is cheaper than that. Hell, it costs more to fart in church on a Sunday and blame it on the old guy sitting in the next pew. People....just subscribe, make it a Christmas gift to yourself or get someone else to cough up the money for you, doesn't matter, we all benefit from it in the end.
Reply #27 Friday, December 5, 2003 8:33 AM
Could anybody help by clarify the following questions please?
1) does using window blinds take up any CPU time once the blind has been applied?
2) do applications as well as the operating system windows take on the theme? i.e. a consistent look and feel?
3) what stardock apps would I need to: replace the windows start button and have a longhorn sytle sidebar to match the window blind?
Many thanks
Reply #28 Friday, December 5, 2003 11:39 AM
2. Yes, most all applications skin with a few exceptions such as: DOS/cmd prompt (protected by the OS), 16 bit programs (if anyone still uses them?), and a few other programs here and there. You can exclude applications from being skinned in your WB settings if needed.
Why don't you look through the screenshot section here, you can see how other applications skin. https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=13
3. Object Bar. There are some sweet longhorn bars out.
Reply #29 Friday, December 5, 2003 12:10 PM
Reply #30 Friday, December 5, 2003 12:21 PM
Thanks
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Reply #21 Thursday, December 4, 2003 2:55 PM
Stardock sells these products. And without Wincustomize to distribute all the stuff to go with them they would be useless. So how much "financial support" is or has Stardock given to Wincustomize during this issue? I'm not asking to know a number, just whether or not Stardock has helped.