Metanet Forums

1. Widgets are good. Just don't have the crappy 3rd party ones.

2. Custom cursors are 'bleh'. Games on the other hand are worth the HDD space.

3. Skins -YES. Change is good once in a while.

And on downloading a virus thing: don't download stuff from source you don't trust. Use your common sense, sir!

Techno wrote:And on downloading a virus thing: don't download stuff from source you don't trust. Use your common sense, sir!

What about if you don't know what to trust? And you really want the skin. Also, do you reccomend anywhere in particular to get skins.

Downloading custom cursors is silly. Custom skins are a preference; I don't use any. Also, there are plenty of free scanners if you want to test whether something contains a trojan.

Rikaninja wrote:

Techno wrote:And on downloading a virus thing: don't download stuff from source you don't trust. Use your common sense, sir!

What about if you don't know what to trust? And you really want the skin. Also, do you reccomend anywhere in particular to get skins.

DeviantART is pretty safe, IMO.

Yeah, I get whatever custom stuff from Deviant ART. Not really a fan of custom cursors... they're annoying. Although I do like the Windows 9x cursors and use them occasionally.

scythe33 wrote:Downloading custom cursors is silly. Custom skins are a preference; I don't use any. Also, there are plenty of free scanners if you want to test whether something contains a trojan.

Yes,exactly,and that damn cursor mania gived my comp a virus 3 years ago.
And skins are good,no need to downoad lots of crappy skins,just select one and
I think customing is bullshit.I hate customing.Especially cursors.

Tunco123 wrote: I think customing is bullshit.I hate customing.

bbLean can be pretty damn cool, though:

Mmm, I use Litestep, SlickRun and a 3rd party Visual Style. I don't anything more. (I've tried Google Desktop and... meh, as many desktop enhancers, it hogs some resources).

Rikaninja wrote:

Techno wrote:And on downloading a virus thing: don't download stuff from source you don't trust. Use your common sense, sir!

What about if you don't know what to trust? And you really want the skin. Also, do you reccomend anywhere in particular to get skins.

It all depends upon your operating system. Most OS's have skins on DeviantART, as previously mentioned. As for custom cursors, I pretty much agree that it's unnecessary and better to keep it simple.

Personally, I use a slightly modified version of the Windows Vista cursor (without the tail), and I have a 3rd party skin from devART.

Hmm, okay. I'm habing a look at deviantART.


I'm looking for my computer to look something like that. A lot more simpler but this colour scheming. I also reccomend winCustomize.com. User friendly and I think its safe and useful.

WinCustomize is okay, but most of the skins there are for proprietary applications like ObjectDock.

customize.org

It's a good site, really.

Obviously your computer doesn't have SpellChecker! (Accessories) [/being critical]

I personally like to keep things as simple as possible though.
Widgets and gadgets are an exception, as some are really useful.
Cursors are out of the question, I never cared for them.
Skins? The only thing I have is Royale Noir, and that's not really accountable, just simple colour changes.

Does it really matter? My computer has spell checker now. From yesterday I think.

CHALLENGE: I'm looking for a simple and good looking skin. Which takes up the least amount space and doesn't slow your computer down much. It must also be applicable with Windows XP and be safe from viruses.

I guess I'm a bit of a purist. I have the standard Vista sidebar with some stuff in it, but I honestly almost never look at it. I should really turn it off to save the processor capacity. I do have AutoHotKey running, as it provides me with some useful macros.

Hmm, well, lets look at all the interesting stuff I have running right now.

• X-Chat (IRC client)
• Windows Media Player network sharing
• WhatPulse 1.5
• TortoiseSVN Status Cache (monitors file system interaction for TortoiseSVN, an SVN client)
• National Instruments stuff (enables network sharing features etc... for LabVIEW VIs)
• A ton of crap related to the Microsoft SQL Server (I have it running on my computer for testing things)
• Slacker Portable service (allows for my Slacker Portable connecting to the Slacker servers when connected via USB)
• ImageShack QuickShot (keyboard shortcuts to take screenshots and upload them to imageshack)
• Dell QuickSet (enables some keyboard shortcuts)
• Privoxy (part of the Vidalia internet anonymity system)
• PeerGuardian 2 (firewall)
• MS OneNote Quick Launcher
• LogMeIn
• Jing (screenshots and screen recordings, automatically uploaded to ScreenCast)
• Novell iPrint (used by my school for network printing)
• GPGShell (GUI client to GNUPrivacyGuard)
• Pidgin (open source IM client)
• Dropbox (file sharing/syncing)
• Avast! (antivirus)
• Adeona (computer tracking)

jean-luc wrote:MS OneNote Quick Launcher

This thing has been extremely useful for classes, in my netbook. Fast and easy.

As to your worry about slowing down your computer. Unless you have a really bad computer, or a ridiculous amount of widgets/gadgets (more than you could ever use), it really won't make a noticeable difference. Also, I would never download Vista on a non-Vista computer. That's like finding a survivor of a zombie apocalypse, and biting them to death yourself. Forgive the awful analogy; my right brain hasn't fully turned on yet today. I usually don't spend time with frivolous things like cursors and skins, but if they make you happy, I say go for it.

Well, at the moment I have an almost normal arrow looking green cursor. I have a Think Green save the environment skin which matches perfectly :D Looks simple and nice. With one weather widget that's all I need. And of course Object Dock, with this I don't use my standard taskbar at all.