This year marks the 10th year I've been in the skinning community. It's hard to believe it's been that long. Most people don't "get" why I'm into this stuff. But you guys do I suspect.
Here are 5 reasons why I'm still into this stuff.
#1 The people. Let's face it, you guys are awesome. Each year we seem to attract awesome new people while hanging on to a lot of great folks from around the world. I've got to meet some extraordinary people thanks to skinning.
#2 Tinkering. I love being able to mess around with programs to see how I can change the way they look. There was a really cool Impulse skinning thread (I don't ahve teh URL handy) that reminded me just why I got into this in the first place. People taking things apart to control how it looks.
#3 Being on the cutting edge. The stuff our community considers old hat becomes the "latest" craze for everyone else. Widgets? Meh. We were doing widgets here on WinCustomize years before Konfabulator or Apple "discovered" them. Msstyles? Hah. Old news for us on WC. There's nothing more amusing than watching some msstyles "advocate" trash talk WindowBlinds even as they're using boasting how great something that was derived from WindowBlinds 2 without even realizing it.
#4 Commentors. If there's any particular feature that needs to be explored more, it's the managing of comments on skins. I love uploading something and seeing people comment on it. Go around the net and see comments on stuff and you quickly realize how wonderful WinCustomize is as a community. Helpful, thankful, generous comments make it worth it. Sure, there's teh occasional creep but they're few and far between.
#5 The Skins. I've met people who say that they can imagine cool stuff in their mind but just can't get it on paper or on the computer or whatever. I'm not one of those people.I simply can't imagine the cool stuff that skinners take for granted. Mike Bryant or VStyler or Mormegil will show me something incredible and it's just beyond anything I could have imagined. One doesn't need to be an artist to admire talent.
And so that's why, after a decade, I'm still into this. Every day. I love it. I am always keenly aware how lucky I am that I can make a living doing this kind of thing. You guys rock.
