September 3rd Skin Thoughts and Reviews

A Simple study in blue,

I have been away for quite some time , with many irons in the fire this summer. But I am back to bore you with some more of my "home decorating" ideas!

For the first day back, I created this very brief , and quite simple theme.

I decided not to include any DesktopX , RightClick, or ObjectDock themes today, as I still have little time to devote to the subject.

Castaway by CasualTraveller , Though still a Vista theme , perked up my desktop nicely, as throughout the summer I had only a plain black theme that didn't change much at all. I was happy to see that there were only a few glitches for the XP OS, one being the misalignment of the username and user pic in the start menu. It is such a small blemish it really doesn't detract from the look on the whole.

The titlebar text is highlighted in such a way as to look like a white neon sign on my desktop, though because of the font size, it tends to be slightly blurry. The green, red, and blue  mouseover highlight on the min,max,close buttons make for a refreshing splash of color  in an otherwise very blue theme.

I chose Aladdins Cave by Ahabkaba to be the backdrop of this theme. Because of the few extras I chose, I could go with something a bit busier than usual, and because I love busy, it worked for me. The blues, greens and subtle hint of brown attracted me , as I liked the color combination in CasualTraveller's screenshot on  the windowblinds download page. The wall is an interesting combination of futuristic design  and arabian nights while feeling more at sea than midair . A definite sense of floating here.

While I have many IconPackages  that would work with this grouping, The Preface by dar0ckx takes on a life of its own in this blind. I added Firefox 2007 by D. Arnaez because I liked it better than the default Firefox icon. I do wish artists would include some of the more popular programs icons in their Iconpackage  iconlibraries, I like to "complete the look" where ever I can.

To finish the look, I used Bluster by Libardo. This CursorFX theme is well made and doesn't mess with the ram use in my computer the way some of the newest vista designed cursor themes do. The color scheme is perfect with this group, and  the styling of the animations really compliments the wall I chose while standing out enough that it's easy to see where the cursor is, when the windows are minimized and only the wall is exposed.