Neowin.net

Thanks aco for this news bit coming to you from Devianart. The popular ICQ skinner has been released. Major changes have been made to make ICQ easier to skin, more customizable and more compatible with the new ICQ 2001b release.

What's new in ICQ Plus 3.1:

• Import WindowBlinds skins. Place the WindowBlinds .zip or .wba skins file in your ICQPlusSkins directory or import it.
  
• All scrollbars, tabs, groupboxes and comboboxes skinnable.
  
• ICQ Splash Screen skinnable (bitmap or animated gif).
  
• New options for titlebar buttons (advanced buttons).
  
• New options for background images (active and inactive state and more).
  
• Don't show ICQ banners when skin is selected.
  
• Better skin preview.
  
• WindowsXP support.
  
• ICQ2001b build 3638 support.
  
• ICQ2000b build 3286 support.

Bugfixes
ICQ Plus allows you to change the appearance of ICQ. When installed, ICQ Plus integrates with ICQ by adding a menu item to the main menu. Choosing this menu item brings up a dialog which lets you configure ICQ's appearance in several ways. You can apply a predefined skin or create one yourself. ICQ Plus also allows you to change the appearance of individual features as well. You can change background images of dialog boxes (BMP, JPEG, and GIF images are supported), change the main menu image, set your own animated GIF or AVI file instead of standard ICQ animation, and change the style of dialog boxes, buttons, other controls, and individual dialog box settings. Skin files can be imported and exported via ZIP file. ICQ Plus also has multi-user and multi-ICQ support. ICQ Plus runs on Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.

News source: Devianart
Download: ICQ Plus 3.1

One of the problems for Dell has been that storage systems aren't made out of standard building blocks and don't have standardized software, a difference from areas such as PCs and low-end servers where Dell is more successful. In storage, a lot more research, development and testing are required.

Dell sells two kinds of storage devices--lower-end "network-attached storage" (NAS) systems that attach to ordinary computer networks and higher-end "storage area network" (SAN) products that reside on special-purpose networks.

Dell's foray into storage began in 1999 with a deal to sell NAS devices from leading supplier Network Appliance while building its own SAN storage systems.

However, Dell and NetApp parted ways in September 2000, with Dell deciding to stick to a lower-end NAS market segment by selling the Quantum systems.

But the company will re-enter the high-end NAS market, this time with the IP4700 "Chameleon" product from storage specialist EMC through a deal announced in October.

Also as part of that deal, Dell canceled its own SAN products, despite recent work to improve the product line, and now will sell EMC's products.

Eventually, though, Dell still believes storage systems will come to resemble the server and PC market, filled with interchangeable "commodity" parts, McAnally said.

Storage systems attached directly to servers are a commodity today, he said. "NAS is quickly approaching that model. SAN would be farther up the commiditization curve," McAnally said.

Dell's new products, aimed at smaller customers or at the branch offices of larger ones, are made of commodity parts.

The 715N, aimed at entry-level consumers, costs between $2,000 and $4,000 and can store as much as 400GB of data. The 750N and the rack-mountable 755N version cost between $8,700 and $30,000, has capacity up to 7 terabytes, and competes mostly against models from IBM, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard.

The new models all use a specially tailored version of Windows 2000, Dell said.

Dell began selling NAS systems of its own design in February.