Actually my first experience was when I was looking at my media player and saw something about how it could be customized. There where links in it to Stardock and Wincustomize. Thus I got into it and found customization was possible for my computer. That and this was at work and they thought I was crazy till they saw what I was doing. "Esp. my bosses!" Next we found that we needed it to do things with programs we had problems with in the system for different work stations. Such as "Crystal reports in Excel". But this was a completely different story compared to just windowblinds and icon packager and so forth.
We found most people did not want it to work so they would be able to do their job better and a lot did. Such as the loss prevention group of employees wanted it greatly on their laptops to help so they could find things better in the system. But the accoutants could careless for it meant more work for them being able to use the system more. But we did things to change the gui in crystal reports so it worked best for everyone in the system to give them what we thought was best. Just so they could get more done. Today with Vista, it is the sameway... I still have people who come to my office and say " look at this on my laptop and tell me what you think~!!?"
That and the forever ending call about I can't find something in the system because my screen is messed up.
In short skinning is there for everyone. Those that need it will find it and use it. Those that don't? Could really careless and really don't like using a computer at all.It's kind of like life... some got a life - others don't and really don't care much anyway.
But with the release of Vista and people see what a nice skin can be with The Windows Aero style. They are now being changed a lot. I have tons of people ask me daily " Can you change things in Vista to make this look better?" I tell em well you bet I can! Lets give it a try and see what we can do with this thing. So the story goes on and on.
But in truth - things are changing and have changed a lot with Vista being released. before it was this is how it is and it's gona stay this way. My bosses would never even use a screen saver or for that matter even let work stations have one. But now we have it all and it does make things better for everyone. When people like what they have to work with. They do a better job and it would seem they do more and do more things faster too. Result more production!!!
Customizing is strongly encouraged where I work at! Due to the fact that I worked hard at making my bosses see what it can do for them and the employees. Also a lot of those employees are now into getting what they truely want on their work stations.
It means a lot more work for me getting them into the areas where they can do these things. But I'm there for that reason. To make the production enviroment happen.
I encourage skinning and hope others will also. The world can be so much better with it made to art.
Good luck all and happy skinning !!
SGT
