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Stardock produces the coolest eye candy/functionality customizations made for Windows. I’ve been a long time user and haven’t looked at the boring Fischer Price style of Windows since XP came out. Now that Vista is out, what can Stardock do to trick out your new OS?

How about new versions of many of your favorites.

• LogonStudio - which will let you customize the logon screen for Windows.
• Windowblinds (my personal favorite), will provide thousands of different visual styles to skin the look and feel of Windows Vista, along with the ability to change color, saturation, and all kinds of other elements, Windows Vista users will be able to make Windows Vista look however they want it to look.
• DeskScapes - Object Desktop users will be able to get exclusive animated wallpapers not available anywhere else. And they’ll be getting our new program that lets Windows Vista Ultimate users have dynamic animated wallpaper. Dynamic animated wallpaper is generated on the fly and it’s all done on the video card so even on a mid-powerful computing rig, you’ll see virtually no CPU use and incredibly cool stuff.
• DesktopX - Leverage the Windows Vista sidebar but with the power of DesktopX gadgets!

There’s a lot more, and you should definetly check it out. Also, after just the first day of reelase, 5% of WinCustomize traffic is made up of Vista users.?

I know several people who’ve purchased new PC’s with a Vista Upgrade disk. Now that Vista is out, the question was “will I only be able to upgrade or can I perform a clean install?” I ALWAYS perform a clean install. After time, the OS just gets junked up and if I’m gunna lay down a new OS, it’s going to be on a clean installation. Well, the gang over at dailytech.com has apparently figured out how to use a Vista upgrade disk to perform a clean installation.

Workaround Discovered For “Clean Install” With Vista Upgrade DVDs

So should gamer’s run right out and get a copy of Vista today? Probably not just yet, according this article, especially for NVIDIA users. Judging from what PC Perspective has seen thus far, the gaming performance available to enthusiasts is somewhat mixed on Windows Vista. Both NVIDIA and AMD have some areas where their cards perform well and others where they do not and features from XP to Vista haven’t translated over quickly either.

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I’m called The Googlemeister at work because I can find just about anything on Google. There’s no magic in it though, just well formed queries. Google provides its own Advanced Search Made Easy… or you can check out Ourpicks’ Pro Guide to Google searches.

Yup that’s right… Uncle Bill is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday, January 29, the eve of Microsoft’s Windows Vista launch.

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Man I must be a real geek, cuz this made me laugh out loud when I saw it.

“The eloquence of a few lines of verse can be a powerful thing. Poetry can cause you to pause and think about life. It can incite feelings of rage. A good poem can even bring you to tears. We’re not sure where this one lies in the spectrum of emotional reactions, but we’re thinking somewhere between a chuckle and a look of heartfelt confusion. This shirt, designed by ThinkGeek Love Labs® makes an especially good gift to one you love or love to confuse, depending on their knowledge of hex and Internet lore. ”

In what has got to be both the stupidest move by Diebold and the most hilarious hack ever, Princeton students take an image of the master key to the Diebold voting boxes on the Diebold website and use it to create a real master key that will open any Diebold voting box. Clever students… stupid Diebold. These are the guys we’re trusting to make electronic voting happen? What I don’t get is how eBay can support bajillions of secure transactions a day… yet they can’t get electronic voting right.

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You can hurt your own credit score pretty badly just by trying to improve things. This is a list of things you can do to battle the draconian practices of companies like Experian and beat them at the credit score game.

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Free podcasts from some major universities like Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, Purdue, Standford, UC Berkeley, etc.

University podcasts aren’t the only thing you’ll find on OpenCulture though. They have podcasts on Art & Culture, audiobooks, foreign language lessons, news, technology, and more.

Open Culture explores cultural and educational media (podcasts, videos, online courses, etc.) that help make learning dynamic and fun, no matter what your age. They sift through all the media, highlight the good and jettison the bad, and centralize it in one place. This is a no joke site, it’s edited by Dan Colman, the lead editor, who is the Associate Dean & Director of Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program.

Hmmm the name of this phone sounds very much like my theme. Interesting….

Nokia’s research and development team have kicked it up a gear with an attractive “aeon” concept phone showing up in the R&D section of the company’s website. The most prominent design feature of aeon is a touchscreen that stretches over the full surface area of the phone. Only a concept phone, but still wicked-sexy technology.