Thursday, September 25, 2008

Question of the Day: Is No Desktop Syncing Good or Bad For Android? [Question Of The Day]

One of the most puzzling announcements to come out of the release of the T-Mobile G1 was the fact that there would be no desktop app to sync your data. While you will be able to sync you contacts and... Read More

Twitter Tweets

Twitter Tweets
This is an experiment to check out LoudTwitter. For the next week or so, I will be playing around with this and getting feel for how it works and how to customize this to work with your WordPress.com blog. Stay tuned for more news. Apologies to those annoyed by Twitter rambling. It annoys me, too, which [...]

This is an experiment to check out LoudTwitter. For the next week or so, I will be playing around with this and getting feel for how it works and how to customize this to work with your WordPress.com blog. Stay tuned for more news.

Apologies to those annoyed by Twitter rambling. It annoys me, too, which is why I need to learn more about how to maximize Twitter content and help you learn along the way.

Are you using LoudTwitter or a similar republishing tool for your Twitter account? How is it working for you? Any tips for me?

  • 07:20 Getting a lot of great interest in #sobcon09 in May 2009 Chicago. You going to be there? I will. Can’t wait. #
  • 10:56 #wordcampvancouver is this weekend in BC. Will you be there? Wish I was. I’ll be #wordcampportland. #
  • 11:36 Looking for digital video editing software. Finding crap. Suggestions? #
  • 11:36 @wordcampbham I’m sure #wordcampbham is going to be fantastic. I need some promo material to help, so contact me! #
  • 11:38 @backon_online #wordcampportland is going to rock. I am so excited to meet up with new-old friends and NEW NEIGHBORS! Love being in portland #
  • 11:41 @jeffr0 Thanks and eager to get news on your new WordPress podcast! How’s that going? #
  • 11:41 @secretsushi WordPress 2.7 is due later this fall. A demo will be featured at many of the WordCamps this weekend - so stay tuned for peeks. #
  • 11:42 @duanestorey Some friends of mine are heading to #wordcampvancouver this weekend. Glenda and Darrell. Treat them like honored guests for me! #
  • 11:43 @kwbridge You can email me answers on how WordPress changed your life at lorelleonwordpress at gmail. Thanks! #
  • 11:44 @mollermarketing And you did great answering how WordPress changed your life! You are a video star! #
  • 11:46 Idiot Alert: I recorded video at #bwe08 vertical not horizontal. ARGH! How do I flip or rotate digital video? #
  • 11:59 @vegasgeek yep!!! :D Lay down video - new style. Everyone lays down. So used to still, didn’t think about horz vs vert. SIGH. #
  • 11:59 @wiredprworks Will be posting how WordPress changed your life video and video of talk after weekend’s #wordcampportland. Going to ROCK! #
  • 12:20 @GlendaWH Hey, my new dear friend! lorelleonwordpress at gmail - Your video is ~3 minutes on how WordPress changed your life! #
  • 12:21 @vegasgeek LOL That’s the solution for sure. But I like the idea of 200 people laying down to watch much better. Fun at #wordcampportland! #
  • 12:53 @bkajino Can’t wait for #wordcampportland You know I’m also talking about Woopra??? Will have some goodies for those attending, I hope! #
  • 12:54 OMG Did you all see that I’m on the cover of Blogger and Podcaster Magazine?! Bunch of my articles in there. Wow! Didn’t know until #bwe08 #
  • 13:11 @GlendaWH Can’t find your card - found Darrell’s so I emailed him with notes. CAn’t wait!!! #
  • 13:18 Ever have one of those days when you wonder why you blog? Back from #bwe08 I shouldn’t but tired out. Need kick. :D #
  • 14:21 @WatershedStudio Blogger and Podcaster Rock Star? right? :D I was so stunned to see my name on the cover. I’m just little ol’ me. #
  • 14:22 @gregbd Right, but not separate. Your blog is yr online resume today. Social business model circles around it. Start blog first then social #
  • 14:45 Idiot Alert Off. FOUND IT! How to flip a vertical video back to horizontal. is.gd/31N1 Simple and easy! Whew. #
  • 14:56 Michael Moore giving away next movie tinyurl.com/5dkqm8 Slacker Uprising. Another example of how free giveaways make money? #
  • 16:13 @vegasgeek What dates are you thinking for WordCamp Vegas? WordCamp Denver scheduling for Jan and don’t want to overlap. #
  • 20:28 4 WordCamps this weekend: Portland, Toronto, Utah, Vancouver(BC) WordPress #wordcamp weekend! #
  • 22:06 @MikePerry Thanks. It was a surprise to me at #bwe08. Great timing. :D Blogger and Podcaster Magazine doing some interesting stuff lately. #
  • 22:07 YEAH! Raw fooder! Check out the raw food porn book "Raw" by Charlie Trotter. Too much trouble to cook but sexy pics. :D #
  • 22:08 @vegasgeek Denver wanted the same dates for their WordCamp. Will let them know and maybe they can change them. Thanks much! #
  • 22:14 @gregbd BuddyPress WordPress Theme on steroids is doing that as are others. Connecting the dots. We need more dot connectors to stop scatter #
  • 22:15 @bkajino Woopra is very sweet. I wrote that article (wrong byline), too, after first public preview (hours). It’s even better now. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Posted in Blog Babble������

Optical Illusion Of The Day

Optical Illusion Of The Day
This Widget pulls the latest illusion from Mighty Optical Illusions website (www.moillusions.com) and shows it on your desktop. If you click on the image, browser takes you to that particular illusion's description and comments.

2008 Ole Miss Rebels Football Schedule Widget 4.0

2008 Ole Miss Rebels Football Schedule Widget 4.0
Clicking the Ole Miss logo displays the Rebels Football Schedule with kickoff date, time, TV and scores from previous games.
About 2008 Ole Miss Rebels Football Schedule Widget
Instant automated access to the latest Rebels kick-off and schedule information for the 2008 Ole Miss Rebels football games. All games are listed with the date and time, home or away, TV scheduling plus the scores from the previously played games.

- Team logo hot link to the team’s Official Athletic Web Site for the absolute latest information on scheduling.
- Button to play Ole Miss Fight Song.

National Champions 1960

HOTTY TODDY!

We've Got Widgets!

We've Got Widgets!
As anyone following the site can see, we've put a few new widgets in the gallery since last week.

We've added widgets from the NBC Show Heroes, Harper Collins Booksellers, American Idol, Rotten Tomatoes, Ask Men, Fox Sports, Career One, 20th Century Fox, FX, Speed Channel, News.com.au, and about a couple hundred of your own customized ExpressWidgets!

Heroes

How cool is it that SpringWidgets is driving the viral widget on the official Heroes MySpace page! I don't know if you are a fan, but here at SpringWidgets, we are all fans of Heroes and this is one of the only shows that we refuse to miss!

Look through our gallery and you might also discover a Heroes feed in an ExpressWidget or two!

Harper Collins
Take a look at the upcoming books section of Harper Collins Booksellers. Every upcoming book they offer will sport a widget that you can take with you to count down to the release of your favorite upcoming book.

ExpressWidgets in the house!
Even though it's only been a week since we had our soft launch of the ExpressWidgets beta, we're being bombarded with new widgets. My guess is that even with the tens of thousands of SpringWidgets RSS Readers that were created before we introduced the new process, we'll see this gallery grow rapidly.

For those of you who were brave enough to jump on board right away and found a thing or two that you would like changed about the express widgets process, we've been listening! We've upgraded the profiles so that they now show the widgets that you have "expressed" and we've also built in an "edit" and a "delete" feature for your widget in case you have a change of heart after you've published.

Simply log in using the button on the upper right of this page to view and edit the widgets that you have in our system - you can change the default size, header image, gallery tile and color of the widget using your edit page.

American Idol chose to have our technology drive a few bobbling heads made especially for their contestants. Now you too can put a Sanjaya Bobbler on your blog. Check out their site for more information

If you have a few minutes, take a stroll through our gallery and take a look at the variety of creative and colorful solutions that have been added. Chances are that you'll find quite a few that you can add to your page or blog.

This has been a busy couple of weeks here, and we have pushed out quite a few new widgets and features. We're hard at work on some other stuff too that quite honestly blows the doors off any other widget platform out there, bar none. But more on that later . . .

Have a Studio! 0.1

Have a Studio! 0.1
A Piano, a Sampler and Sound fx’s for your Dashboard
About Have a Studio!
Use your Keyboard to play the Piano, click on the Samples for some Beats and enjoy your little studio in your Dashboard ! Credits to ButtonBeats.com for the Piano Synthesizer !

Facebook Climbing to 3rd Spot

Facebook Climbing to 3rd Spot
The October data are in! Facebook is continuing its amazing climb, taking the 3rd spot away from Del.icio.us. Favorites are back, stealing the first position from Google Bookmarks. Again, Favorites here means “browser bookmarking”, for any browser. On the Feed Reader front things are much more quiet. There was almost no changes between September [...]

The October data are in!

Facebook is continuing its amazing climb, taking the 3rd spot away from Del.icio.us. Favorites are back, stealing the first position from Google Bookmarks. Again, Favorites here means “browser bookmarking”, for any browser. On the Feed Reader front things are much more quiet. There was almost no changes between September and October.

Top Bookmarking/Sharing - October 2007

Top Feed Readers - October 2007


We've Got Widgets!

As anyone following the site can see, we've put a few new widgets in the gallery since last week.

We've added widgets from the NBC Show Heroes, Harper Collins Booksellers, American Idol, Rotten Tomatoes, Ask Men, Fox Sports, Career One, 20th Century Fox, FX, Speed Channel, News.com.au, and about a couple hundred of your own customized ExpressWidgets!

Heroes

How cool is it that SpringWidgets is driving the viral widget on the official Heroes MySpace page! I don't know if you are a fan, but here at SpringWidgets, we are all fans of Heroes and this is one of the only shows that we refuse to miss!

Look through our gallery and you might also discover a Heroes feed in an ExpressWidget or two!

Harper Collins
Take a look at the upcoming books section of Harper Collins Booksellers. Every upcoming book they offer will sport a widget that you can take with you to count down to the release of your favorite upcoming book.

ExpressWidgets in the house!
Even though it's only been a week since we had our soft launch of the ExpressWidgets beta, we're being bombarded with new widgets. My guess is that even with the tens of thousands of SpringWidgets RSS Readers that were created before we introduced the new process, we'll see this gallery grow rapidly.

For those of you who were brave enough to jump on board right away and found a thing or two that you would like changed about the express widgets process, we've been listening! We've upgraded the profiles so that they now show the widgets that you have "expressed" and we've also built in an "edit" and a "delete" feature for your widget in case you have a change of heart after you've published.

Simply log in using the button on the upper right of this page to view and edit the widgets that you have in our system - you can change the default size, header image, gallery tile and color of the widget using your edit page.

American Idol chose to have our technology drive a few bobbling heads made especially for their contestants. Now you too can put a Sanjaya Bobbler on your blog. Check out their site for more information

If you have a few minutes, take a stroll through our gallery and take a look at the variety of creative and colorful solutions that have been added. Chances are that you'll find quite a few that you can add to your page or blog.

This has been a busy couple of weeks here, and we have pushed out quite a few new widgets and features. We're hard at work on some other stuff too that quite honestly blows the doors off any other widget platform out there, bar none. But more on that later . . . Read More

Beyond Sync 3.5.8.135

Beyond Sync 3.5.8.135
A file synchronization product that allows you to synchronize files between folders A file synchronization product that allows you to synchronize files between folders (read more)

iPod Taking Some of the Blame for Problems With Metallica's 'Death Magnetic' [IPod]

iPod Taking Some of the Blame for Problems With Metallica's 'Death Magnetic' [IPod]
If you purchased Metallica's new album Death Magnetic, you may have noticed that it sounds like complete shit. But don't blame Metallica, producer Rick Rubin or mastering engineer Ted...

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

BoomCooler: A Portable Party In an Ice Box [Cooler Tunes]

BoomCooler: A Portable Party In an Ice Box [Cooler Tunes]
Throw in a cooler, some speakers and mix with a little hillbilly inspiration and you have yourself a BoomCooler. Billed as "the ultimate portable entertainment system," the BoomCooler makes it easy...

Promote Your Widgets!

We've been upgrading our site over the past few weeks, adding robust search and sorting, better widget description pages and building in some new tools that can be used promote your widgets.

Almost every upgrade we added is focused on making your widgets easier to find and the promotional tools are free to use with any widget in our gallery, so I thought I'd invite you all in to try them out.

No matter if you have uploaded a great new custom widget or created a quick express widget, all the new tools that we have just added in will work to help you promote your SpringWidget!

So, what's new?

1. Tagging In case you don't know what they are, "Tags" are just words that describe your widget that are used when someone searches our gallery. "Tagging" allows you to make it easier for users to find your widget.

You should tag your widget with words that describe the content or nature of your widget. For example, the springwidgets blog is all about news on the SpringWidgets platform, so I'd tag it with "springwidgets", "widgets" and "widget news" but I'd leave out more obvious words like "blog" and "news" because they really don't help users find content that is specific to my blog.

2. Star-Ratings Another tool to help you promote your widgets is our new ratings system. You can rate any widget in our gallery and users can sort by the best rated widgets. The more that you rate, the better the system gets! Help us out and rate a widget or two in the gallery today.

Here is an important tip - we let you rate your own widget so you can start the ratings yourself... Go ahead, give it a try.

3. Favorite Widgets Every time a user "favorites" your widget, it's added to a list of favorite widgets on that users profile! The better your widget looks and works, the more likely you'll have fans.

Want to favorite a widget? Just click the "favorite widgets" button on any widget in our gallery. Much easier and faster than saying "What was that widget called again?" and banging your head on the desk. :-)

4. Social Bookmarking Links Automatically add (or help vote up) any widget in our gallery to the various social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit. These sites are great ways to promote your widget and find new users. Just click the icon and follow the directions to get started. The great news is that once you submit your widget with these links, users can vote your widget up with a click or two!

5. Widget Search The best way to be found is to make sure that you are accurate when describing your widget. Any user can search our gallery for your widget and find results based on your developer id, widget title and description and tags.

The more accurate and descriptive you are, the more likely that a search will include your widget in front of interested users.

6. Tag Clouds and "Sorting by" Navigation Users can now search by Ratings, Tag Clouds, Name Sorting, and Most Recent Widgets.

Since users will be looking through the gallery with these tools, the more descriptive you are when entering your widget into the gallery, the better!

7. User Comments The more talked about your widget is, the more users are likely to trust adding you to their page or desktop. Get the conversation started by adding your own comments to the widgets you like.

Find a widget you like? let the creator know that you like it. Just feel like saying "thanks for letting me use your widget?" That's ok too. We hope that the addition of comments will be a popular and helpful feature for everyone.

Now get out there and start promoting yourself!

We are continuing to make improvements every day and we'd love to have your input on what to build next, so pop on over to the forums and tell us what you think!

Thanks,

Don Read More

Awesome Photo Gallery/Google Maps Mashup

I recently was contacted by James Sanders who created a really cool Photo Gallery and Google Maps Mashup. They installed and customized the Photo Gallery Plugin such that a little thumb tack is displayed on a map of the world... Read More

Queen of England Buying the World's Largest Wind Turbine [The Queen Of Green]

Queen of England Buying the World's Largest Wind Turbine [The Queen Of Green]
We don't know how much it cost her, but word is that the Queen of England has put down some mega-bucks to buy the world's largest wind turbine. The 10-megawatt monster machine built by Clipper...

Redefining the Widget

Last year at Widgets Live, the announcement of the SpringWidgets platform redefined what a widget could be. At the time of our launch there were three categories of widgets: desktop widgets, web widgets and a special subsection of web widgets that would work on social networking profiles.

We changed all that by inventing a widget platform that allowed for the first time, the ability to use a single, updatable and configurable widget file to reach all of these destinations. We took it further by incorporating in the ability to “pop” any SpringWidget you find on the web onto your desktop with just one click.

Since our release, there have been a few companies that have announced a similar product offering - YourMinis and Netvibes are examples we feel are well done.

I'm going to give you a little sneak peak behind the curtain where we are quietly working on redefining the widget once again, and perhaps in the process spur another round of inspiration.

For the most part, online widgets have been exactly what the limited definition has made them out to be …

A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation.

Thanks Wikipedia

Reading this, I’m thinking about the widget landscape and in my head I’m starting to challenge the entire box that we have collectively put widgets into, trying to look past the simple definition and look at the transformative nature of what a portable chunk of code can do.

Is the widget just a visitor on the web page or can it be much more and control and interact with the web page it’s on? If widgets are like parasites, can a parasite define the host?

Can a widget be a portable “experience?”

Envision if you will a Widget that no longer sends the user off to another site to personalize itself. Imagine a widget that is not content to stay within the confines of it’s own little box, but rather can interact with the page it lives on. The “Transformative Widget” would take over the page it’s on; integrating it's content within that page and transforming it based on a click.

If the Widget is not just a chunk of code, but rather a portable experience, imagine the infinite ways we can expand the brand experience within the social network itself. Moving code and embedding Widgets can create a better way to immerse the user in an extreme brand experience. The widget then becomes an ad that is user embedded, user selected and more powerfully engaging and interactive than any traditional advertisement that is available - and just as performance oriented.

If a user allows the widget to brand the entire page, is that a "Widgetview", an "Ad Impression", or a "Pageview"?

So if SpringWidgets is ready to challenge the Widget Landscape it’s safe to say that the launch of THE FANTASTIC FOUR Widget is the next step in redefining the Widget. The transformative nature of TFF Widget is completely apparent once you start using it on your MySpace profile and the brand experience is more immersive than anything possible with a widget prior to the Fantastic Four widget launch.

This is only one of the many transformative widgets that we are engaged in and only represents a small amount of our R&D efforts. Over the weeks and months to come, we'll be rolling out some truly fantastic products that will not only transform the widget, but transform SpringWidgets as well.

We would love to have you on board as we make these transformations, so please feel free to download our API and put your own thoughts to work in redefining what a widget can be. Read More