So, fine JoeUsers and/or WinCustomize users, how does the day find you?  It finds me quite well.  I'm done with my tests, just relaxing today before embarking on weeks of adventure-filled travels, and I've gotten pretty okay grades so far (hey, no fails like Pervy, so I'm good).  But when I'm just relaxing that means I inevitably play around on teh intarwebz a bit.

So I'm poking around and stumble onto the Impulse website.  Now, I'm sure most of you, my fine JU/WC friends, couldn't care less about the fact that your Stardock sign-in also gives you a blog over there to do with as you please, with the same name as your current JU blog or WC page, same links in the sidebar, and even some of your posts cross-posted over there.  Now, not all of them, and a lot of the more bloggy or customization ones don't show up there, but quite a few of the same categories are found on both sites.

There are, however, a few reasons why the Impulse site is cooler (and why I'll try to post most of my articles in categories that will facilitate a cross-post between my two pages now).

1.  It's pretty.  The color scheme is much nicer than the JU pages.  Don't get me wrong, I've gotten used to the poo-brown of JU2, but I've never really liked it.  (Of course, I didn't care for the garish yellow of JU1 either, but I digress.  Why have they both been waste-product colored?  Probably because our content warrants it.)  However, just check out that pretty charcoal, gray and green.  Nice.

2.  The layout of the front page is a bit more intuitive than JU, and I like the placement of stuff better.  There's not as many 'featured articles' where snippets are displayed, but it's got a more complete list of past featured articles.

3.  I think the potentially coolest feature is the 'friends' page.  You can send out requests to befriend other users (much like 'friends' lists on social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook) and build a net of colleagues, friends, and other cohorts.  Now, currently, not many people are using the Impulse site so my friends list is mostly confined to Stardock employees because no-one else is around to add, but I can see the eventual benefits of the friends list as the Impulse community grows.  It has a lot of the benefits of the social networking sites (such as updates of your friends' behavior and such), but still has the pretend veil of anonymity that we like to pretend exists on JU and WC because it's still not your actual name and picture plastered on there (unless you wanted it to be, but I guess that's your thing).

At any rate, I'm sure I'll post other thoughts on the Impulse site as I continue to play around with it and get to know the new features - especially with the official launch of the Impulse program.  But seriously, JoeUsers and WinCustomizers, you might as well come check it out - add me as a friend, I probably won't say no.