If you're a Star Trek fan, you wouldn't pay to download a desktop background image -- also called wallpaper -- from the upcoming movie. That sort of thing is always available for free on movie websites.

But Jeff Schader is boldly betting that fans will pay $14.95 to transform their computers into immersive Star Trek experiences, trekifying everything from icons to the look of window frames.

Ten years ago, Schader didn't know how to use a computer mouse. (Seriously.) Now he's chief executive of The Skins Factory, a successful digital interface design company. The eight-year-old business is run virtually out of his home office in Cooper City, with the help of an all-freelance staff.

It started with creating customized frames -- also known as skins -- that changed the look of programs like Winamp and Windows Media Player.

Skins go beyond changing a window border from blue to green, or changing your wallpaper to a picture of your cat. They're about making your media player look like a Batman logo rather than a boring box. They're about making your computer look like it belongs in a Mickey Mouse cartoon when you click the Start menu.

What Schader started with $6,000 and a credit card now has a client list that's the Who's Who of the technology and entertainment industries: Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Capcom, Sony, Activision and Yahoo!, to name a few.

The Skins Factory has always made themes and skins for brands, movies and games. But this is the first time Schader is selling his company's work in retail outlets.

''We've been making skins for people for so long, it's only natural to take the next step,'' Schader said.

The company has branded the desktop themes as Hypersuites, and there are themes for the Disney Pixar movie WALL-E, classic Disney characters and some very spacey designs called Darkmatter. He began selling them at the end of July at CompUSA, TigerDirect.com, Amazon.com and his site, Hyperdesk.com. He plans for the first Star Trek theme -- based on the original series -- to hit stores at the end of December. A theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation and a Borg theme will be ready before the new movie hits theaters in May 2009.

'I was worried people would be like, `Oh, it's 15 bucks, and the economy is tanking,' but it hasn't really stopped anybody,'' Schader said, adding that his site got about 623,000 hits in October, up from 220,000 hits when he started selling them in August.

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Making these themes isn't cheap. It costs roughly $20,000 to produce one theme, and icons can cost as much as $500 a piece.

''For companies, it's part of a brand initiative,'' Schader said as he pulled up his company's Disney theme. ``Every window has Mickey Mouse on it. It doesn't get any more immersive than this.''

Schader said he doesn't have many competitors, but it goes without saying that customization remains a hot item for fanatics. So he's not worried that business will slow down anytime soon.

''Themes are such a niche,'' Schader said. ``Anyone can do a theme, but not everyone can do a good theme. We have competition, . . . but they're more about quantity than quality.''

The Skins Factory is also expanding with plans to offer desktop themes for Mac operating systems -- something not many studios do.

Although brands tied to science fiction, sports and hobbies do very well with this type of marketing, others don't.

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