Great news…Stardock has announced its annual 50% sale!   Make tracks over to the Stardock store https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products And get what you need… Remember, it ends 11.25.14 at 11.59 PM Eastern time!

  ID’s on vacation…so here are the picks from the past week in skinning! There was a glitch – hope the urls accompany the thumbs.        

  Lifehacker was noting the update for Windows 8.1 with the Start Menu feature and the allowing apps to run in a desktop window and made mention of the Start8 and ModernMix Stardock apps which do that already... Nice to be noticed! And speaking about noticing, please note that the update to Start8 for the new Windows 8.1 update is available , per Island Dog.

As you all know, Metall Tech (bleumart) was chosen as the skin to base all the app skinning efforts on, after Island Dog raised the idea of a Community Project. Special thanks have to go to sydneysiders for that idea, her screen shots (used here) and for her well known vStyler “back to work, slacker!” whip. teddybearcholla was chosen (with her pom poms) as the Cholla Cheering Squad of 2014. Also, special thanks go to DaveBax for collecting all the links to the skins (below). You...

    Lightroom is really the ideal photographer’s tool – especially when used in conjunction with Photoshop - has been updated by Adobe and our own Island Dog has written about it. Lightroom 5 new features: Advanced Healing Brush: Enhancements to the Spot Removal tool allow you to heal or clone using brush strokes. A new “Visualize Spots” tool highlights sensor dust spots for easy removal. Radial Filter: Apply any of Lightroom’s local adj...

  No surprise… but really nice to see. Congrats, Stardock!   Also at Lifehacker.com:     Read the review here:  http://www.extremetech.com/computing/150346-how-to-run-full-screen-windows-8-metro-apps-in-a-window-on-the-desktop Read more about (and get try) ModernMix here: https://www.stardock.com/products/modernmix/

  Martin Brinkmann, owner and chief reviewer at the excellent site ghacks.net has done a very thorough review of Stardock’s newest winner, Start8. I’m really glad to report that his review was extremely positive! Please head on over to read about it here: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/12/13/start8-windows-8-start-menu-review-giveaway/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e732%2ehj0ao01hy5%2er3p Also, if you review it or leave a comment, you might win a free license. Learn more ...

  Congrats to Stardock! It isn't everyday that a product...any product is honored this way. Kudos to the dev!     Would you like to learn more?   https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/       If you'd like to learn more about Multiplicity 2.0:   https://www.stardock.com/products/multiplicity/      

  Eddie Cho of the c|net review staff has given Decor8 a nice review . “After you install the app, Decor8 will appear on the Start screen like any other tile. When you open the app, you'll be greeted with an options menu that appears mighty hard to discern from a standard Windows 8 settings menu. From the Background settings, choose any custom image or photo to set as your background for the modern UI and add visual tweaks like fading, blurring, and color overlays. Dec...

      Don't regret missing these deals! Head over to:   https://www.stardock.com/thanksgiving_sale/software.asp      

  My chance at throwing together a TWIS (this week in skinning). I.D.'s off somewhere playing hooky AND I got his lovely wife to disable all interwebz connections on his devices. So.... here are some skins deserving of your interest:                 Tanger Master Suite                                       Hollyday Docks    ...

  Thanks to ZubaZ for bringing my attention to this. Well, no surprise. They like the new version Start8.   The review discussed Start8’s unique features, and that it’s still a beta. Here are those features: You can get it (still free) here: https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ You can watch Brad’s YouTube presentation as well: Thanks for the good review, gHacks!

  To continue Island Dog’s post on Photoshop ( Adobe T.V. ), Lesa Snider (my Photoshop goddess) is doing an in depth (pun intended) three day webinar provided by the great folks at creativeLive . It will have a day on each of these topics: Selections. Adjustment layers. Smart objects.   All you have to do is sign up for a creativeLive account (free). Then enroll in whatever you like… There are generally replays of these classes, so if you&rsqu...

  Martin Brinkmann over at gHacks.net has just written a nice article “Going straight to the Windows 8 desktop”. I read it, and if you’re planning to update/upgrade to W8, I think you should as well. Start8 was mentioned prominently: You can get Start8 here: https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ You can read more about Start8 here: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/16/going-straight-to-the-windows-8-desktop/#comment-1466310 https://forums.wincustomi...

  EaseUS approached me to review their newest updated Todo Backup Workstation 4.5. I agreed to do so, because of my positive experience reviewing Todo EaseUS Partition Manager Pro 9.1. You can find that review here .   This software does everything you want it to do, through a simple user interface. Installation is a breeze, and what’s better is that there’s no reboot (as in prior editions). There’s a video that comes with it that explains various aspects of...