Windows Ultimate Extras is losing value faster than the US dollar as one of the few “extras” is soon to be superseded by a free third-party application that works not only on Vista Ultimate, but Home Premium and Business versions as well. That extra would be DreamScene, that third party would be Stardock and that application would be DeskScapes 2.0. Those grumpy looking people in the corner would be Ultimate Extra advocates.

Tomorrow, Stardock will announce DeskScapes 2.0 – the second version of its desktop background visualiser tool for Windows Vista. Formerly DeskScapes was an extension to the DreamScene extra, allowing for dynamic generated “Dreams” on top of just the motion videos allowed by DreamScene itself. Now, both formats will be supported by DeskScapes 2.0 without the requirements for DreamScene or Vista Ultimate.

Supplied screenshots by Stardock: (Left) DeskScapes uses little resources even to render dynamic backgrounds.
(Right) Dynamic dreams support a range of configurations to customize the experience.

Bit of interesting background, the implementation of an animated desktop feature in Windows Vista was actually first developed by Stardock. They then demonstrated the idea to Microsoft who partnered with them to produce the Ultimate Extra, DreamScene along with a batch of its original content. Stardock then shifted its focus on DeskScapes – a free extension to DreamScene which allowed for dynamic renderings instead of just static video, as well as a community to share user-generated Dreams.

As you might the same question I asked when I first heard about this, how Microsoft will ever approve of this? It’s basically slicing a huge portion of the already miniature Ultimate Extras cake to share with everybody. But it turns out Microsoft is fully aware of this release and Stardock’s involvement in the original Dreamscene is only as a content-provider.

Broadly speaking, DeskScapes 2.0 is purely an incremental release of DeskScapes to support more versions of Windows, plus the occasional bug fix if there’s any. Its features include:

• Plays video content as wallpaper
• Plays .DREAM content as wallpaper
• Supports Triggers for changing animated wallpaper
  ex. think sunrise/sunset
• Supports Dynamic (non-video) content
• Supports author credit in dialog

Freeloaders will be glad to know the standard version DeskScapes will be available for free, and there will be an enhanced version with “additional features and premium content” for $19.95. Although it’s not clear what those additional features are, which may or may not be the features described above. But in the least, many more users will have access to the basic functionality of animated desktops.

DeskScapes 2.0 is scheduled to be released in February of 2008, but a beta version is expected soon.

This screenshot comes from the new version of the Zune software soon to be released. For a “now playing” visualizer, it displays a wall of all the album art in your music collection with the current album enlarged over the wall. Minimalistic controls are overlayed at the bottom. It reminds me of a room filled with music posters. Very cool indeed.

Microsoft has officially made the press announcement regarding Zune Originals just minutes ago, and it is everything expected from yesterday’s leak plus even a little more.

Users who order from the Zune Originals website from tomorrow will be able to customize the back of their Zunes with three types of laser engraving. First, a series of 27 artworks from the “Artist” series will cover the entire Zune. Alternatively, a series of 20 artworks from the “Tattoo” series will allow for up-to 3 lines of text. Finally, without images, you are allowed a maximum of 5 lines of text. This offer is offer for free, and for all new Zune models.

Unfortunately it looks like early-adopters are screwed once again, with no opportunity for them to customize their Zune if they pre-ordered elsewhere.

The ordering process will be as follows.

Step 1: Pick the Zune model – 4GB, 8GB, 80GB (separate page) you would like to customize.

Step 2: Pick the color of your Zune.

Step 3: Pick the type of engraving – text, “Art” series, “Tattoo” series.

Step 4: Choose the appropriate artwork, add appropriate inscription.

Step 5: Preview your handy work.

If you build it, they will come. If you build another one, will they come again? And another? In April of 2004, Microsoft launched Channel9 – the first official Microsoft community of its kind where developers and evangelists could interact with real Microsoft employees plus a backstage pass into the development process of many of the hot products at the time, including Longhorn. Whilst this type of interaction is nothing special today, it was a significant cultural shift back then.

After the success of one community, they took the idea and ran with it. In 2006, they launched On10 – a community for ‘consumers’. A few months ago, they launched Channel8 – a community for students. Somewhere in the mix is also the Silverlight community, ASP.NET, IIS.NET, WindowsClient.net and Mix Online. And the latest baby just born today is TechNet Edge – a community for IT professionals.

How many is too many? That’s exactly what I thought of when I heard about TechNet Edge, and that’s also question being discussed on Channel9’s forums today. I understand why Microsoft would want to segment its websites based on different audiences, but I also feel it’s dividing an already short attention-span but more importantly, the community.

For example, as a full-time student and based on Microsoft’s segmentation, I should be visiting and loving Channel8 – the site for students. However in reality, I have to dabble in all of the different sites, spending less time in each, because all of them have some content that’s interesting to me, even if I’m not a developer or IT professional. Compare that to the experience before the urban sprawl of communities, I spent all my time and effort on one site (Channel9), with one group of community members, reading one RSS feed, learning one navigation design and fabricating one online persona.

The consensus on the forums is that Microsoft should remove the artificial classification of videos and division of communities (forums, members) to form one central access point where the user can make the choice on what content they are/are not interested in. Not only could this be beneficial to existing users, new visitors could avoid the dilemma of ‘choosing’ a community when they should belong the ‘whole’ community.

The chances of that happening in the short term or at all is rather slim, so I’ve stitched together a short-term solution to at least the contents problem. Instead of subscribing to each of the five main feeds (8, 9, 10, Mix & Edge), I’ve made a dead-simple Yahoo Pipes which aggregates all of them into a single feed. You can access that “all-in-one” RSS feed here.

Speaking of Channel8, I was part of a video interview for that which was suppose to be published last month. I wasn’t that bad, was I?

On November 8 the FCC published Microsoft’s appropriate filings for an apparent update to the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 mouse, appropriately dubbed version 2.0. In the documents made available contains quite a few revealing photographs of the new mouse design. Notably it has undergone a significant redesign. Personally, I wouldn’t have called it version 2 if I saw these mice side by side.

Currently, I own a Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 and use it everyday. I think it’s a great mouse. I was curious to see what’s changed.

By comparing the photos, all of the finger and thumb grooves have been removed. Instead, every surface is smoothed from end-to-end. The thumb inset appears to be much deeper, which might be good since I find it currently too shallow. The thumb buttons have also been streamlined to be thinner, which could also be good since I find myself clicking them accidentally once in a while. Lastly, the grove around the scroll wheel has also shrunk.

From what I can see, version 2 looks less comfortable. However, mice is a hard thing to judge from the outside. Even I had doubts about the mouse which I now can’t live without. Because of that, I won’t make a judgment without trying it out.

No release date has been provided.

November 13 “Z-Day” is fast approaching and Microsoft’s got one last magic trick up its sleeve for the 2nd-generation Zune.

Earlier today, the ever-reliable ZuneScenes.com reported on an insider source leak describing various pre-purchase hardware customization options for the Zune 80 – including color, text and logo etching. This offer will be free to customers who order via zune.net. Then the source goes on to explain how the Zune team will slice the heads off anyone who leaks this information early. Ouch, because no other than Microsoft itself has confirmed the rumor, twice in fact.

First, a user on Gizmodo had the idea of looking at the domain records for zuneoriginals.com. Not surprisingly the owner is indeed Microsoft who registered it on June 9, and last updated it November 9.

Registrant:
Microsoft Corporation
Domain Administrator
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Created on..............: 22-Jun-07
Expires on..............: 22-Jun-09
Record last updated on..: 09-Nov-07

To give more weighting to this domain proof, all of the TLDs (zuneoriginals.com, zuneoriginals.net and zuneoriginals.org) are all redirected to zuneoriginals.net. And on the placeholder page is no other than the Zune logo.

Secondly, Microsoft posted a new knowledge base article 944404 on November 2 titled “Description of Zune Originals”. Although this article is currently inaccessible due to obvious reasons, it is clearly recorded on kbupdate.info which tracks new Microsoft knowledge base articles even though if they are unavailable. No doubts this document will contain intricate details about Zune Originals after November 13.

Together, this is pretty solid evidence of the existence of Zune Originals. I have no doubts every other detail leaked about Zune Originals would be true too. But we won’t have to wait very long to see the magic trick from the magician himself.