WinCustomize integration into Stardock Central

Friday, March 26, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

What pays for this site? Two things: 1) Sales of software from this site and 2) WinCustomize subscriptions.

And if you have a WinCustomize subscription, you can use Stardock Central to browse through the themes and wallpapers on this site at lightning speed. Each library can be viewed in multiple ways depending on user preference (see screenshot for the thumbnail view).

If you don't already have a subscription to WinCustomize.com, it's only $19.95 and that's for TWO years (less than $1 per month). This site costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to run and ads and other things don't even come close to paying the bills. Only the continued support of users subscribing to the site make WinCustomize possible.

18 Reply 1 Referrals
Robert_Snyder
Reply #1 Friday, March 26, 2004 4:08 PM
Right on, Frogboy!
Y'all hear the man? If you're not a subscriber yet, do it! It easy! And it's the best 20 bucks you'll spend today!
It's worth every penny and then some.

Popeyexp
Reply #2 Friday, March 26, 2004 5:11 PM
I too got a subscription, but my stardock central wont show previews > Kinda pointless, but I dont mind supporting a great site like wc. Thanks frog, and if you could help me out with my SC prob, it would be greatly appreciated. Already tried Stardock support, but no help.

Island Dog
Reply #3 Friday, March 26, 2004 6:39 PM
I got a subscription but I don't have stardock central, I have the wincustomize browser.

dogfacedboy
Reply #4 Friday, March 26, 2004 6:50 PM
I'm surprised that any site can cost that much to run, but I am clueless in such matters - is it really that expensive to run a site such as this? Or is that a bit of over enthusiastic exageration?

Anyway, this is a great site, certainly the best I have found. Whilst I don't have a subscription I do enjoy contributing my stuff to the site.

Frogboy
Reply #5 Friday, March 26, 2004 7:03 PM

Popeyxp: What version of Stardock Central you using?


dogfaceboy - It takes 2 full time IT professionals to run this site these days (salaried). In addition, this site uses roughly a hundred megabits of bandwidth per second. Or put another way, about 18 MEGABYTES per second is put out.  You can get a "business" website that has a 20 gigabyte per month limit on bandwidth for $200 per month. However, WinCustomize goes through 20 gigabytes every 18 minutes.


There are nearly 1.1 million registered free accounts on WinCustomize and only a small percentage of the people who use this site actually create accounts.


snowleopard77
Reply #6 Friday, March 26, 2004 7:32 PM
I can see stardocks point with charging for Wincustomize.com, Wincustomize.org and so forth because I own a copy of Object Desktop and the price for the software is very resonable. But on the other hand I use to use these websites back in the day before stardock got their hands on the domains or before they becaome so commericalized and I think it can it can be a completely free site if they really wanted it to be. I still remember the day the site went down and something like three days later it was completely different. The site does not have to be "stardock endorsed. It should be private or in the hands of the users. I also think this has caused a decrease in creativity in creating new skins, objects, icons, and additional things

Darco
Reply #7 Friday, March 26, 2004 7:48 PM
I bought the subscription in December when you needed help with the servers, but I don't use the Web Browser because I like coming to the site instead. Won't I be able to do that anymore? I try to support WinCustomize by buying everything I can but I don't like the browser it cuts off much of my screen. Can't I just continue with my account cross referenced?

Darco
Reply #8 Friday, March 26, 2004 7:52 PM
One more BOO HOO!

snowleopard77
Reply #9 Friday, March 26, 2004 7:57 PM
Wincustomize is free, but this wincustomize browser and other stuff. I did not realize that there was that much bandwidth being used, but it seems that stardock as a monoploy over skining sites, and when they took over this one a few years ago ( back in the day of winblinds 0.92 and 1.x it seemed like they were making all the "independent" skinning sites shut down, almost like apple did to mac clones. I want to see more independently owned skining sites come up

UpsideDownGC
Reply #10 Friday, March 26, 2004 8:44 PM
It is actually a good idea becuase if Wincustomize goes down stardock loses its sales so it ensures the skinnings sites stay up. There would be no skinning sites without Stardock and Stardock would no longer be in business without the skinning sites so it helps to have Stardock support the skinning sites. Also the subscription is just a way to show that you like the site. It is much more reasonable than the subscription cost at DeviantArt. I might buy a combined one if they ever do that. Anyways, I think that there should be a way for people to submit their skins without going through moderation or anything...wait there is it is called free hosting, if you want your own site you get free hosting I personally pay 14 bucks a month for 20gb bandwith and I run many different websites on that account but I only have 1gb of space. Put it this way...websites are loss leaders and when you cant lose you have to charge. ESPN can lose but that gets people to watch their television. Stardock is not as big as the Disney Corporation or even Ultra Pro... so if you want to keep Stardock up and get all the features subscribe. I did and all you have to do is keep the coins you find on the gorund every day (this time pick them up) and then save them for 2 years to pay for your subscription renewal. Simple
My thoughts end
HERE

Ande
Reply #11 Saturday, March 27, 2004 5:15 AM
My version of SDC (1.30.264.46) does not look anything the one shown in the preview. I also have wincustomise subscription but it is not intergrated into stardock central. Stardock Central is set to update itself so what am I doing wrong ?

Chef Garry
Reply #12 Saturday, March 27, 2004 11:45 AM
Unless I'm badly mistaken, there was no Wincustomize site before Stardock as Stardock put up the site. There are all kinds of places to get skins elsewhere if you're happy to sift through a lot of junk to find anything worthwhile.

For myself, I only check in here about 4 or 5 times a day. There's no question that I'll renew when my subscription comes up.

dogfacedboy
Reply #13 Saturday, March 27, 2004 11:52 AM
Thanks for enlightening me on the costs of running this site Frogboy, and I have to say, I don't envy the guys who foot the bill for it all!

Frogboy
Reply #14 Saturday, March 27, 2004 6:25 PM

snowleopard77: WinCustomize was created by us from day one. So I'm not sure what you're talking about.


You have plenty of skin sites you can go to. There's skinz.org, skinbase.org, customize.org, deviantART, ArtUpRoar, just to name a few real quick.   The WinCustomize.com domain name was never owned by anyone but us.


neophil78
Reply #15 Saturday, March 27, 2004 6:46 PM
Yes you can Darlene, i get SDC but i use it just for downloads applications upgrade, i don't like the Wincustomize browser and the other stuff coming with ...

Latin4567
Reply #16 Saturday, March 27, 2004 11:50 PM
this site is great
I can't believe there are so many users an yet Wincustomize is still knda a secret

Jafo
Reply #17 Wednesday, March 31, 2004 8:31 AM
snowleopard77....what on earth are you talking about?  Stardock didn't 'take over' this site at all....they created it, and financed its creation, and are still paying for its existence....

DougI
Reply #18 Thursday, April 1, 2004 5:10 PM
I saw the plea for support so I tried the WinCustomize browser once again (third try). The Skins & Themes section simply doesn't work on my computer. I've tried the FAQ's and the newsgroup and the help files. I've been a paying customer for years (Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, etc.) but I just can't bring myself to pay for a program that doesn't work for me. I may give it another try someday if the demo ever gets past the 1.0 version.

On the plus side, I love the software and the regular website.

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