As we close in on the first days of summer, it's always fun to pick and feature some of our favorite wallpapers that you can use on your desktop. Of course, there's no reason you can't download these and use them on your various mobile devices as well! Here are five of our favorite summer wallpapers! Seaside Relaxation   Canopy on the Beach   Rolling Wave   Tropical Beach from Above   Summer Countryside ...

With the benefit of hindsight… Every 4X game I’ve played struggles with the late game.  This is because they tend to become a micromanagement slog where the outcome of the game was known long before.  So how do you address this?  Well, the wrong way to do it is with AI governors or other such “help” from the AI. GalCiv IV flips the concept of governors on its head. In previous GalCiv games, you had to manage every single planet you coloni...

WindowBlinds is one of our software products that has been around for quite a long time - longer than I've been at Stardock, at any rate! If you're unfamiliar with it, WindowBlinds allows you to customize the look and feel of your taskbar, window frames, and more. You can make your desktop look unique by choosing from several different styles and skins and adjusting them to suit your personal tastes. I think one of my absolute favorite features of WindowBlinds 10 is the randomization. If ...

Over the weekend, a friend shared an article discussing the new Amazon Sidewalk service that will be debuting as an experiment on June 8th. If you live in the U.S. and use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device (this includes Ring doorbells, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, etc.) you will be automatically enrolled in this service unless you manually opt out. This new wireless mesh service will share a small bit of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don't have c...

MS finally released WinGet 1.0 which was planned and mentioned at Build 2020. “A package manager is designed to help you save time and frustration,” Microsoft’s Demitrius Nelon explained when the firm announced its plans for WinGet. “Essentially, it is a set of software tools that help you automate the process of getting software on your machine. You specify which apps you want installed, and it does the work of finding the latest version (or the exact on...

June is here and summer will be officially here soon! I think it's going to be a hot one, and I'm going to keep some beach and tropical themes on my desktop! With a new month brings a new desktop screenshot thread, so post your desktop screenshot in the forum and lets us know what skins you are using! Post your desktops to the monthly thread here:  https://forums.wincustomize.com/505165/ (This is a news thread and will be locked. Screenshot taken by Chasbo)

So I turn 50 this year.  It's an arbitrary milestone but such milestones gives us an opportunity to take stock in our lives. I wrote on my Facebook page that I get frustrated being a failure.  My friends and family were quite worried and I should have given more context to my feelings which is what I am going to do here. We all have certain personality traits that can get in the way of accomplishing what we want.  Maybe you just want to lose some weight and you just can't...

We’re all familiar with the idea of “comfort food,” right? For some people, that means a heaping plate full of homemade southern fried chicken, while for others it might be something as simple as tomato soup out of a can with some grilled cheese. Alternatively, some might not find food to be a comfort at all and may find some peace in other things. I think “comfort activities” covers the concept fairly well as a blanket term. In general, a comfort activit...

Twitch found themselves in some hot water (hah! See what I did there?) with their streaming community recently when they demonetized the channel of popular hot tub streamer Amouranth. Now, you may have the same question that I had when all of this first came to my attention: What the heck is a hot tub stream? Hot tub streams started as a way to adhere to (or circumvent, depending on your perspective) Twitch's terms of service regarding swimwear, which was only acceptable if the streamer wa...

We are less than a month away from the official start of summer, and we've been talking about it over the past few weeks here. Last week, we looked at some animated wallpapers for you beach lovers, and today we'll look at some WindowBlinds skins for that same summer theme. If you have a favorite skin that you use for summer, let us know in the comments below and be sure to post them in our monthly desktop screenshot thread here . Beach   Summer Green ...

DeskScapes 11 is currently in beta and although there are a lot of fantastic new features, one in particular is my personal favorite: playlists. In the newest version of our popular customization app, you can set different backgrounds - both animated and static - to a playlist that will cycle in and out at intervals of your choice. I have a lot of interests and things that I love, so sometimes choosing just one of something is tough for me. I usually will manually change out my deskt...

Twitch has announced a big change to their subscription prices for several countries outside of the U.S. In an effort to boost subscription rates for streamers, Twitch is adjusting to a localized price model starting with Turkey and Mexico on May 20th. Lower prices will mean less money for streamers at first, but Twitch seems to believe that they'll translate to more subscribers and higher earnings in the long run. In case you're unfamiliar with how Twitch works, streamers can accumulate both...

We recently announced the brand new DeskScapes 11 (the beta is available exclusively through Object Desktop). Users can animate their desktop backgrounds, add customization to personal photos and tons more. While we're in the beta phase, we encourage users to submit bugs and suggested changes. Head over to this thread. Beta 2 Changelog: Fixes issue with the 4K flag on some dreams showing incorrectly Alters screensavers to terminate process vs exit on mouse move etc Fix...

The sun is out and it's time to start looking for a place to have a nice vacation at! If you can't travel yet, you can turn your desktop background into an animated paradise with DeskScapes . With DeskScapes you can download and use a wide variety of animated and static wallpapers to turn your desktop into a tropical paradise, or anything else you would like! Check out some of our favorites, and find more in the DeskScapes gallery here . Hawaiian Sunset Cafe   ...

I’m really not much of an artist. To be frank, saying “not much of an artist” is being a little too kind to myself. I once drew a dog at the request of a 6 year old, who, upon me finishing my drawing, looked up at me and said, “I don’t know what that is, but that’s not a dog.” Kids and their brutal honesty! While I’m not good at making something out of nothing, if given the right tools I can occasionally create some fun visual things. Fo...