This post is for web developers and other individuals who are interested in making use of their spare time and having fun while at it. Samsung has fast made a name for itself in the mobile phone arena, and has consistently provided users with great options. One of the things that mobile phone users look forward to is the release of new widgets, which make the phone experience all the more interesting and useful.
This year, Samsung is encouraging the creation of new widgets with Innovation Quest. Also known as SIQ or Samsung IQ, the event this year is focusing largely on the GT-i8910 home screen. The competition is being co-sponsored by The Symbian Foundation.
Those who will be joining the competition are in for an exciting event for sure. More than simply being participants and coming up with something new, contestants are going to be equipped with a lot of tools and resources, which the sponsors are providing. For example, a series of technical papers on widgets for mobile purposes is to be made available.
If you are worried that you are not an expert and you merely like to dabble with software development, you should rest easy. The event is meant for the expert as well as the novice.
At the end of the competition, the SIQ winner will take home around $25,000 and the potential income from the sales of the winning widget. Register at Samsung Mobile Innovator to join now. Deadline is 14 August, so it’s not too late!
Yahoo used to be THE thing when it came to the Internet. I remember more than a decade ago, when the Internet was only starting to become big, it was Yahoo that was on everyone’s lips. Today, however, Yahoo does not have that distinction anymore. The Internet, and technology in general, has evolved so rapidly and so many players are on the field now.
Yahoo is not giving up on its existence yet, though. In fact, even if it has a lot of competition, Yahoo is still a major factor to consider; and it continues to evolve and offer new things to users. One of the recent revelations on the Yahoo Blog is the fact that they are offering a host of new widgets and apps which will allow users to do a lot of things without having to leave the Inbox.
This has gotten a lot of attention and it seems to me – even if I have not personally tested all the widgets and apps – that this piece of news is being received favorably. Reuters actually featured this earlier this month. Some of the most notable widgets and apps mentioned were:
There’s a PayPal application that can integrate into a user’s Yahoo mail, as well as apps from personal finance service Mint.com and blogging tool WordPress which can be weaved into a person’s MyYahoo start page. Nearly 20 new widgets are now available for use in various Yahoo products, including a handful of apps for Internet enabled-TVs.
I am all for this, though I have one question: how is the speed of the interface?
Google fan boys probably know about this by now, but for those of us who may not have heard of it yet, Google has brought out a new first party widget that can be used with the Google Desktop. The widget basically allows you to see your Google Reader feeds without having to open up your browser.
Josh Lowensohn from CNET tells us all about it:
It puts Google Reader’s source list in your sidebar where you can peruse feeds you’re subscribed to and read individual stories in a small pop-up window that slides out across your screen.
The widget works both in Google Desktop’s dock and “popped out” on its own. Between the two, I prefer it off the dock since you can see more of the feeds and stories at once without having to change the height and width of your sidebar; something that can affect the look and feel of other widgets.
The widget is not without its faults, though:
One major drawback is that it can’t yet properly display HTML-formatted feeds, meaning some of your feeds will be left unreadable with images and page formatting stripped out. However, just like in Google Reader proper, you can simply click on the headline to hop to it on its original site.
I also found performance on this widget to be a tad sluggish. It doesn’t provide the instant feedback you get in the browser. For instance, clicking on my source list of feeds and seeing them appear took about two or three seconds. The same goes for any time you drill down to see any feed’s list of stories.
Still, I have to agree with Lowensohn that despite these flaws, having a widget from which you can easily access your RSS feeds is pretty convenient. I am off to download it now myself.
If you are like a lot of people I know, you have your own wireless router at home by now. While some people might not think it necessary to have one, once you have tried using your laptop wherever you are in the house, you will definitely be raring to get a wireless router of your own.
There are many wireless routers available in the market but a name stands out – D-Link. If you have any of the D-Link routers which are 802.11 n-capable, then you might want to get the freebie that the company has for you: the Network Monitor v2.0.
This widget works as an information center and delivers the data straight from your router. It works with Yahoo Widgets, Vista Gadgets, and even the Mac Dashboard. Unfortunately, it does not work with Google Desktop. Anyhow, the Network Monitor will tell you what model router you have, the version of that model, what firmware version you are running on, and your router’s up time.
The guys at PC Mag suggest running the widget on your desktop computer which is wired to the router or on a wireless computer. On a desktop wired computer, you will only get data for send and receive on the network and the Internet. You won’t get any info on the data sent and received on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz Wi-Fi connections.
Another note, if you have had your router for a while and you decide to download the widget, you might have to update the firmware of your router.
Language is one of the main barriers that we have to face on a daily basis. The Internet has brought countries and cultures together, and still we do have our language differences. While I will never stop marveling at the complexities of language, I find it difficult to communicate sometimes, and I am sure that you have similar experiences.
Here is some good news for those who use Google Friend Connect: the widget now has a language feature, which allows users to post and comment using their own language. Information Week has this story:
The revised comments gadget allows Web site visitors to post and read comments in their own language through Google’s automatic translation technology.
“With this gadget, visitors from all over the world can leave messages in their native tongue, and other viewers will be able to instantly translate these comments into the language of their choice,” Google Friend Connect product manager Mussie Shore said in a blog post.
The benefit for Web site owners and visitors is obvious: greater community engagement. The downside—of gadgets in general—is ceding more page real estate to a third party. While Google may be a welcome houseguest on many home pages, the presence of its software takes up room that might otherwise be used for unique content. It also raises questions about whether Google and other gadget makers are privy to too much information about what goes on at the Web sites they’re enhancing.
Now we can interact more with people who do not really speak English! My only concern? I hope their translator is accurate!
Do you like poker? If you are like most people these days, you probably either play poker on a regular basis or you have just recently discovered this exciting card game. Thanks largely to reality TV shows that feature poker tournaments (think World Poker Tour) and the aggressive advertising campaign of online poker rooms, more and more people are finding a new hobby in this age old card game.
These days, it is much easier to find a venue to play a game of poker. If you have a lot of friends who have the same interest, you simply have to get several of them together and you can hold your own poker night at home. Alternatively, you can find card rooms in most cities. For a relatively cheap buy in, you can have a good night’s poker game. More so, you can simply stay at home and play poker online in the countless rooms offering this game. You can choose to play for fun without spending anything or use real money to win big.
Whichever way you like playing poker, you absolutely have to hone your skills in the game. Contrary to popular opinion, poker is not all about luck, but the player’s skill. And here is my gift to you today: a poker widget provided by Full Tilt Poker.
With this widget, you get poker tips delivered right to your desk top. And mind you, they are not simply any other kind of tip – they come from some of the best poker players in the world today.
More and more, technology is making things convenient and easy for us. One of the things that I like about new technology is the goal of integration. With each new wave of new technological developments, users get to gain access to various platforms without the need to change from one gadget to another, or one system to another. Here is a perfect example – a widget providing access to no less than Twitter and Facebook to FiOS users.
FiOS is Verizon’s service which allows users to have Internet, phone, and TV service in one go. There are different bundles available to suit anyone’s needs and preferences.
So is it really t hat cool to have this widget? Why should anyone be excited? First, I am assuming that you are into Twitter and Facebook as much as the next person. These days, I do not think I know anyone who is not very much involved in these two social networking sites. Different people may have different reasons for being hooked on Twitter and Facebook but the fact remains that there are so many users worldwide.
Now just imagine watching a TV show on FiOS. You will definitely be enjoying yourself if it’s your favorite show, but with the new widget, you can even find out what other people think about the same show! I can already imagine sports fans dishing out their opinions on the current game, play by play. Now you can see the huge potential of this widget!
One of the main goals of widgets is to make various platforms accessible to users. Widgets bring together these platforms, making it much easier to share information with other people. And this is exactly what PlayXpert had in mind when they came up with the idea of the PlayXpert Twitter Widget.
CNET reports:
Combining two of the most addictive things about the online universe—Twitter and World of Warcraft—seems like a good way to bring productivity in the Western world to a screeching halt.
If that happens, you can blame PlayXpert, a maker of various in-game widgets for PC gamers. The company today announced the PlayXpert Twitter Widget, adding Twitter functionality to the existing PlayXpert software, which works with WoW and other online PC games.
In-game widget engines such as PlayXpert (which bills itself as an “in-game operating system”) run alongside PC games, offering voice chat, Web browsing, and other tools for players, without the need to quit or ATL+TAB out of the game to launch another app (popular examples include Xfire and Steam).
“A screeching halt” is but an understatement, I think. Having personal experience with both Twitter and World of Warcraft, I am pretty sure that a large number of people will get hooked even more. And you know what the best thing about this new widget is? You can download it for free – along with other widgets – at PlayXpert’s web site.
I can now see critics (of spending too much time playing games) shaking their heads right now.
Do you feel like joining a contest? You might want to hear about the latest thing going on at Library Things, which is actually a widget contest. They recently released a group of new widgets, which I think are actually pretty cool. The widgets were released with predefined styles but the possibility of modifying them was also included. Given this, they are conducting a contest. Here are the rules:
• Submit your widgets to this Talk thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/61668)
• Widgets can be of any type—as simple, complex, staid or way-out as you like. You can use your own CSS or JavaScript, but you certainly don’t have to.
• You can submit up to five widgets, but post only one message. Edit if you need to.
• If you want, share where you put the widget, or where you plan to.
• Go ahead and name your widgets, comment on what you were trying to do.
• Post the “Share with other LibraryThing members” link (e.g., this). Posting the script won’t work.
And what will you get for your efforts? If you win the people behind Library Things will choose your widget to be part of the standard set. Five members will also win memberships, which can be transferrable. There are other prizes at stake, so if I were you, I’d visit the blog and figure out what you need to do.
Oh, by the way, I think that you know that you need to know how to work around those codes, right?
In the past years, blogging has reached unprecedented heights. We can find blogs focusing on just about anything. Indeed, we can find blogs without any apparent focus at all. No matter, the fact is that blogging is something that is HUGE in every sense of the word.
One thing that I like about blogging is that you can do so much with the venue. Blogs are malleable and versatile that you can perform countless tweaks to make your own personal stamp on them. One way to do this would be to use widgets. More than personalizing the blog, however, widgets can actually be used for promotion and monetization. That is why I have been looking at some of the best and most useful Blogger widgets that I can find for my personal blog. Here are some ideas, which can help you in your search as well.
Most commented posts.
I have seen a lot of blogs with this information available in one of the sidebars. I think that it is a brilliant idea to showcase those posts which have received the most comments. In this way, you can attract more readers to those posts and hopefully get more comments in the process.
Related posts.
This widget is easier to find for Wordpress blogs, but I have been having a hard time finding a widget that works well with my Blogger blog. I think it is important to have a related posts widget since it helps your reader find other posts in your blog which may be of interest to them as well.
Tweet this.
Twitter is another phenomenon that has reached far and widget. If you want to reach more people, provide a widget that allows readers to tweet about your post – free advertising for you!
