History of Aqua-Soft

Originally posted by Three Drives@Jun 15 2003, 08:21 PM
Doug?

Doug Hoxworth? or a similar name?

Man I remember that his site was on my daily rotation asmuch as 3-4 years ago! (maybe 5).

The red page "christian resources" right. I loved the aqua stuff on that page.

That guy was one of the first aqua resource sites I used to visit years ago.

I can't believe he's related to you guys.

Another guy I remember from the dawn of time is j450n, he's still around.

wow! someone remembers that far back, you've sure been around longer than 75% of the staff :lol:

#33244

I loved Dougs page...he didn't just do Aqua themes, he also did other themes. Doug was one of the nicest guys I've ever had the pleasure of meeting - just all around a good guy.

I don't remember are exact date of opening, because honestly the months of doing the Daily News that followed probably destroyed my brain. It took at least 90minutes each day to come up with each article and it kinda blurred alot of that time together into one giant linkfest of news.

#33247

Monday, April 16, 2001 is when the real site opened

:cry:

Welcome
Posted by: Casull Posted on: Monday, April 16, 2001

Welcome to Aqua-Soft, an organization of people with specialized skills for making the Windows GUI better emulate the Mac OS X Aqua GUI.

The site has been completely redesigned with a new look and a new server. We have added many new features and you can expect more to come as we are ever expanding.

Aqua-Soft produces skins and themes for Stardock's ODNT's many components and various other programs, we also develop our own programs to emulate certain functions of Mac OS X.

We would like to thank everyone for all of their support.

Please enjoy the new site.

-The Aqua-Soft Team

so damn stupid i posted this in another darn thread...

#33251

How is this for nostalgia: As posted by Deadzombie on Friday 22 june 2001

So it's 3:07PM C.S.T. and the daily news is only a few hours late. My file server crashed HARD, and nothing short of an OS overhaul would do the trick. (Everytime I referenced explorer the system would flash bright white colors and automatically restart...)I would like to thank the following for my incredible adventure this morning:
First, everyone that insists using an insane amount of pop-up windows on their websites for no good reason whatso-ever. (And no, I'm not talking about those nekkid women sites, we're discussing normal everyday websites) 1 pop-up window is acceptable, barring that it actually contains some sort of interesting content. 2 pop-ups is just greedy, as the webmaster (heh) is probably getting 1/10 of a cent or something for every click in the ad space. 3 or more pop-up windows deserves public execution and the banning of all the webmasters blood relatives from the internet for the next 50 years. I was hit with 5+ this morning surfing for the news, which seemed to trigger the explorer problem.
Secondly, and really, most importantly, I would like to thank Microsoft for IE 5.5. At best a flawed browser, at worst a masochistic nightmare that tears through your resources whenever it decides things are getting a little rough (i.e.-3 or more pop-up windows). I appreciate the fact that you really can't repair an install of IE. Hmph.
Now I realize the blame is really my own. I skin everything in my GUI. I run 4 desktops at the same time using control center while surfing 3 or 4 different websites (not to mention WinAmp, DesktopX, WindowBlinds, Themebar, Photoshop6, Outlook and ACDSEE32 Pro running in the background...)so it's probably me causing the problems. But I run a high-end system. AMD 1.2G, Geforce2 ultra, 512MB pc133, Win2k. Bloody Hell. Do you had a situation similair to mine? If so, hit the comment section below and share.
Because of my incredible lameness this morning I'll be posting Real Live News throughout the weekend to catch everyone up with what's out there.

Find more on: this link

#33252

How funny!!!! And looky looky - Dougs site: Christian Resources

#33253

ahh yes... the good old days.

#33257

wow DZ, you got your own recognition badge? C'mon, your a bigger man than that. Your Computer specs say it all. Big man.

ut I run a high-end system. AMD 1.2G, Geforce2 ultra, 512MB pc133, Win2k.

LOL, that brings me back. I remember my kick ass Unreal Machine (400Mhz).

Who has been here since A-S opened? I think we should have a "Classic Member" badge.

#33259

Originally posted by contrasutra@Jun 16 2003, 01:18 AM
wow DZ, you got your own recognition badge? C'mon, your a bigger man than that. Your Computer specs say it all. Big man.
LOL, that brings me back. I remember my kick ass Unreal Machine (400Mhz).
Who has been here since A-S opened? I think we should have a "Classic Member" badge.

Shhhh - thats my wifes system now. She thinks it's awesome, don't tell her any different!

#33262

I looked again at CyCoPaTh's old site and wanted to show you guys that that the name of the group Aqua-Soft was decided upon by the original team on December 13, 2000. Man, that was a long time in terms of OSX history.

Chris' news also mentions the names of the original members.

Go visit his site here.

By the way, I think a lot of old stuff can still be downloaded from there.

Cheers

#33283

Doug's Site was a blast. Anyone remember the Screensaver he had where the photographed Apple from a G3 would float around? (or wasnt that from his site??)

I learned about aquafying through he late skinz.org (I mean the original), and through Stardock/Wincustomize.

I remember when skinning was seen as a weird thing. But it had the advantage that poeple wouldnt realize it was *possible* at all... Hehe all the puzzled looks plus the occasional "wait .. do you have an APPLE??" :woot:

At that time, you had to dig really hard for OS-X resources. It took me quite some time to find the "H2O Professional" skin for Workshelf (highly underrated dockreplacement on Aqua-Soft, folks!) because it only was available from ?? pcdesktops?? I think it was... Use of WBAmp put CPU usage to almost 50% on my PIII 500MHz hehe

It's been a long way we come it seems. But then again, nothing much has changed it seems, too. Stardock STILL refuses to incorporate a useful right click into their progs. WIndowBlinds (or its skins) are still buggy (WBAmp! WBAmp!). Microsoft uses some half-hearted prog an people flock to it. (think about whats NOT skinnable with the uxtheme.dll!).

Though basically everything keeps changing at an awesome pace, some things seem to stay the same ...

Hey I'm beginning to get philisophical. I'd better stop that. Last time I did I was posting in the 50ies- Thread of Konformism and Konservatism by Videoman and I said something about Frances Farmer(anyone actually read that post?). The board crashed :lol:

Have Fun!

McTrinsic

#33295

Originally posted by McTrinsic@Jun 16 2003, 01:32 AM
I remember when skinning was seen as a weird thing. But it had the advantage that poeple wouldnt realize it was *possible* at all... Hehe all the puzzled looks plus the occasional "wait .. do you have an APPLE??" :woot:

"Wait a minute...is this a Mac?" That's been pretty much the story of my life since about last November, when I installed the first version of Y'z Dock I could find (I didn't even own my own computer until last August, nor did my family, so such discoveries couldn't have occurred much sooner for me than they did). Very few people I know at the moment have any idea that skinning is possible - and, well, now that I think about it, it's been almost exactly a year now since I found out about skinning XP with WindowBlinds. I met a guy who had the sweetest custom-built computer ever (at the time), with WindowBlinds to boot, and I was hooked. Of course, these days I like StyleXP a bit better, but nonetheless...

Man...hooray for the little coincidences and occurrences that make up life, neh?

:hey_suga:

#33298

I had Time Warner cable guys come out to troubleshoot my cable connection last year, and it was pretty funny watching each one, visit after visit, sit down and freak out! "I thought you said you have Windows!!!" they would each exclaim. And I would act like I didn't know what the problem was..."Of course thats Windows, don't you know how to use Windows?!?" Heh, Im retarded sometimes, but it was funny.

A little clarification about the original members, not to piss anyone off, just so we know whats what:

vMac...swell guy, really stuck to his own site and his app. He didn't contribute all that much...if anything to AquaSoft.

Xer0 - great guy. Did he ever finish his excellent WB1 skin? The world may never know.

InkMan - I feel bad I had actually forgotten InkMan. He contributed where he could, and was extremely enthusiastic. He stuck with the site for quite awhile.

I guess my point is that it was only the four of us because that's how those early email and IM sessions went...pretty much between just us. We wanted to kick off with a larger group, yet often we wouldn't receive a reply from many of the people that had commited. My only regret is that I dont have copies from the original "What do we call this site" emails we sent around. We had some very funny names going...

Oh yes, please ignore my old nick "Straytoaster". That was lame beyond belief, taken from a Bill Sienkovich comic...

Speaking of lame, an early screenshot!

#33317

and if I'm correct, that is the VDE dock..?

#33323

No, I used VDE dock for about a week and then DesktopX was the only thing I'd use after that. I think it came out right at that time...it's how I came to know Brad Wardell...he was a big (if somewhat quiet) supporter of ours in the first year. I think Brad is a secret Aqua freak...

#33328

I have been visiting A-S regularly since August '01...I was content to lurk until November of '02, when I finally joined the forums. Been great ever since.

-godpunk

#33330

Originally posted by Timan@Jun 16 2003, 12:42 AM

:cry:

flashbacks :shy:

(Y) keep it up (Y)

#33356

This is pretty cool actually, Ive been around since January of 2002, though I didnt register for the boards until a bit later

Here's an early screenshot of my Aqua-fying on my old Windows 98 machine, oh yeah, 400 mhz, 20 gb, 64mb Ram - sad thing is it was my only computer until about a year ago