The Flip Side 10.10.06

The transcript is about a podcast episode discussing various widgets. It mentions different widgets like BitTorrent search, Nordic Design Blog, Google Desktop widgets, On Tour, and Google applications. It also talks about a top 10 list of favorite widgets and an interview with the creator of Widget World website. The website is described as a place to list and download widgets, with a new redesign and a win an iPod program. The creator hopes to make people more aware of widgets and the site offers a convenient way to submit widgets. There are plans for future promotion, including giveaways. October 10th, 2001, Episode 21, Welcome to the Flipside with Jon Prowell. Hello and welcome everyone to the Flipside. This is your host Jon Brown and we've got lots of stuff to talk about in the widget world today. So we're just going to jump right into the show. Hope you guys had a great weekend. I had a pretty good weekend. So on to widget news. Some new widgets that are surfacing right now are BitTorrent related. So if you're interested in using BitTorrent clients, you can now do so with the use of widgets. There's a really cool BitTorrent site search widget for OS X. This widget allows you to search for torrents on 17 BitTorrent search engines directly from the dashboard. The widget is created by torrentbuilt. He also included quick links to TorrentFreak's latest articles and the TorrentFreak homepage. Currently, like I said before, there are 17 BitTorrent search engines built right into the widget. So if you are an avid BitTorrent downloader, this is a great widget for you. Another great widget for monitoring your BitTorrent downloads would be BitSticks. Now, BitSticks are made by Vanilla Soap Widgets, and you can find them at VanillaSoap.com. It's a really great widget. It's a standalone BitTorrent client. It's pretty cool to use. Very thin, very slim, and elegant. So again, Torrent widgets, you have the MultiBitTorrent search site widget, and also the BitSticks by Vanilla Soap. The next widget that I really liked is the Nordic Design Blog dashboard widget. Now, for the readers who are using Mac computers and really want an easy way to read the latest articles from Nordic Design Blog, you can download the Nordic Design Blog widget. It's a simple widget, RSS feed, that allows you to read the latest blog posts from the Nordic Design Blog. The next item on the news today isn't really a widget, but it's something that is used in conjunction with Google Desktop widgets. Now, we talked about Google Desktop before on the show, last show, and what they are is a series of widgets meant to be run on a web browser. You can add them to your blog sites, and now you can use them in the dashboard. That's right. You can actually bring your Google Desktop widgets into the dashboard using a program called Amnesty Generator, made by Mesodynamics, and you can find them at mesodynamics.com. Amnesty Generator doubles the size of your widget universe. It is a free utility that converts any Google webpage gadget into a dashboard widget. Using Google's new Add to Your Webpage feature, select a webpage gadget, copy and paste its HTML code directly into Amnesty Generator window, tweak some settings, and generate a new widget with a click of a button. From there, you can install your new widgets into Apple's dashboard Amnesty widget browser, or even convert them into standalone OSN applications with Amnesty Singles. There are thousands of Google gadgets to choose from, so this is a really great product. Again, mesodynamics.com. Check it out. Amnesty Generator. The next widget I talked about on the show last time, but it's worth mentioning again, and that's called On Tour. On Tour is a great widget that allows you to automatically search for artists that might be in your area, depending on the music in your iTunes library. So if you have songs in your iTunes library by certain artists, you type in your zip code, it'll tell you exactly when those artists are going to be in your area. Really great widget, and again, it's called On Tour. The last bit of news today is talking about Google again. While searching Google, some people have noticed that they have some really great applications, like SketchUp, Picasa, Google Talk, and more. The sad thing was, they were only Windows compatible. Unfortunately, now, if you go to google.com slash Mac, you can see every single Mac-compatible Google application right now. I highly recommend trying these applications, and before I talked about Google Dashboard widgets being available through Amnesty Generator. Again, really cool way to bring Google into the whole realm of widgets, and it sort of completes the circle when it comes to Google and the Mac. A website just released a top 10 list of their favorite top 10 Dashboard widgets. There was a lot of widgets out there, and many of them were widgets that people use on a daily basis, including the MacZot widget, which came in number 10, followed by the GoGoRedBall widget, which is a really cool widget. If you haven't picked it up, it's really great. It allows you to play with a ball right there in your Dashboard. The DigRSS widget came in at number 8, and this is a really cool widget that allows you to see the latest dig entries on Dig. Number 7 was Sketcher, another great widget designed by Nate. He's the same guy that also developed the GoGoRedBall widget. Really great. It simulates the Etch-a-Sketch toy. Pretty cool. Check it out. Also, AppUpdate at number 6. Really cool widget designed to automatically update your applications and your system. Tells you when there's a new application available. Number 5, the Sudoku widget. You guys are going to have to correct me if I'm wrong. It's a really cool game widget. OpenFire was up at number 4. That's a really cool 3D awesome fighting game widget. FlipClock, number 3, by Widget Machine. HulaGirl, number 2. Number 1, iStatPro, obviously made by iSlayer. Again, these are the top 10 widgets according to winopeg.com. The link to this article will be in the show notes. Check it out. Leave your comments so that they can see exactly what you think of their top 10 picks. Today, we had an opportunity to sit down with the creator of Widget World. If you're a fan of the dashboard like I am, then you already know that there are some really great sites for listing and downloading widgets. This site is no exception. Widget World is a great website. It is always updated and displays download links to widgets on the web. They have many widgets listed, and you have a choice as a developer to link to your widget to your own server or to upload it to their servers for hosting. That's a very useful feature. They display the top most downloaded widgets as well as the top 10 most recent widgets. They also have a members area that allows you to get information from Widget World directly. They also have a great Widget News area that serves as a blog about widgets and also about widget-related topics. Widget World is a really cool widget website, and I guarantee that everyone will like it and use it and find it very useful. So head over to www.widgetworld.nl and check it out. Hi, this is Piet Nuppie from the Netherlands. I would like to thank John Brown and Flipside for inviting me on their podcast. Hi, it's great to have you here too. The Widget World website has just been redesigned. Can you talk about what you hope to accomplish with this new great widget site? I'm glad you mentioned the redesign of the website. What do I want to accomplish with the redesign? I build websites myself for my profession. I think the best websites are simplistic ones where the menu is obvious for visitors what they can click and what they cannot click. I think the colors are quite important. If you look at the new design, it's basically black, red, and gray. I think they're quite attractive colors for a website. My plans with the websites are to make people known with widgets. Widgets, to me, are handy tools which are available to me with the touch of one button. I think they're great tools. So, in short, what do I want to accomplish? I would like for people to get to know more and more widgets. That is true. Widgets are really great handy tools. That's why we all love the dashboard and that's why we all love developing widgets. But there are quite a few other dashboard websites that allow you to submit your widget and get it listed on a website. What sets your site apart from the other dashboard widget websites out there? As you might have noticed on the website www.widgetworld.nl, there is also a submission button to submit new widgets or interesting widgets. What is different to that submission than other websites? I think the way you can submit widgets in widgetworld.nl, it's very convenient. It doesn't need any pictures because when I receive the uploaded widget, I will take care of the pictures so that in the overall websites, every picture is basically in the same shape and form. So, what would be different? I take a bit of work out of the hands of the submitter. That is true. The ability to take a simple step like submitting a widget and making it even simpler is really a good idea and quite handy too, especially if you're going to be submitting quite a lot of widgets. So, yes, that's a very good feature. If anyone's ever been to widgetworld.nl, they'll notice that you have a direct link to a win an iPod. Can you give us some more information about that? The win an iPod program, if you look at the website, you'll see the button win an iPod on top. Basically, it's a button where you can win an iPod. In 275 callers, one iPod is given. What I do have to stress is that it's basically for Dutch visitors. There's a phone number with it, and I think that phone number you can only reach when you're calling from the Netherlands. I'm very sorry to say, but win an iPod is probably not for American citizens to be able to win one, but I'm always on the lookout to get those tiny little services for an international crowd. If someone can show me a win an iPod program that I can run for international visitors, I'll be very glad to receive that. Well, that's actually pretty good news. A lot of people that I see designing and developing widgets are coming out of the Netherlands and coming out of European countries, so that would definitely be an interest to them. Head over to widgetworld.nl and you can get more information about their win an iPod program. Do you have any special plans in the future for promotion for the website, such as maybe giveaways or something like that? Looking at future promotions for the widgetworld.nl website, it's kind of hard to find new things. I've tried it with the iPod program, but as I told you before, that's basically a Dutch program. It's hard to find really international things to give away. The website, of course, has a lot of free widgets that are made by very helpful people out there. Of course, having a Macintosh. So, when we look at the website and what it offers, it already offers a lot of free widgets, which I, of course, have to thank the makers of the widgets for. So, if I would have to answer what are future promotions or plans concerning that, I have to say at this moment I have no plans with that. So, if someone could point me out some nice services or nice giveaways that would attract visitors on the widgetworld.nl website, I would be very happy to receive any ideas about that. Well, that's great. Well, let's just put it out to the listeners. If you guys have any ideas for a giveaway for widgetworld.nl, if you have any ideas for programs that they can be running on their website to attract visitors or even to attract people to go to their website and download things, whether it's a giveaway, whether it's a product, whether it's an item, whether it's a service or something like that, go ahead and shoot me an email at widgetshowatmail.com or leave me a comment on the show blog, which you can find at www.widgetshow.com. The last question we have for you today is, what is your favorite widget and what do you love the most about the dashboard in OS X? If people ask me what would be my favorite widget, I would definitely have to choose the countdown widget. I have a girlfriend living in Canada and I'm from the Netherlands myself, so there's that big pool of water in between called the Atlantic. And the countdown widget, it's a great-looking widget, which helps me in counting down the days when we'll meet up again. It's in the dashboard and having so much little tools at hand with just the touch of one button, to me that's what the computer is about. The computer is a tool. If my tool isn't working properly, I just throw away the tool and get a new one. And that is so often seen in computing, that we humans adapt to the application we work with. I see that totally differently. I think the application has to adapt to us, the users. And that's what I see in the dashboard so well, that if I want something to use, if I want something to be there with just the press of a button, and I want to have an overview on something, there's bound to be a widget that will show me that. So, to me, widgets, it's one part of the computer. I think it grabs the essence of the computer. The computer, it is our tool. And that's why I'm very excited about the dashboard. That is very true. And I do agree with you that the dashboard and widgets are tools that are used in very, very specific ways. And I also agree, I do really do like the countdown widget. Really good widget. Well, Pierre, it was really great having you here and talking about the Widget World website. Really awesome. Again, listeners out there, if you want to check it out, go to www.widgetworld.nl. Once again, I would like to thank John Brown and The Flipside for inviting me on their podcast. I do hope that some visitors will visit my website after listening to this podcast. The address to visit the website is www.widgetworld.nl. It's a Dutch website, but it's all in English. So, you should all be able to read it and download some great widgets there. I was very delighted to be able to be part of this podcast. And once again, thank you all for listening. Hi, well, thank you again. And yeah, guys, go out and check out his website. Again, it's www.widgetworld.nl. I know we're all pretty loyal to our widget download websites, but this is a really good widget website that I think that if we all just collaborate with, he'll be really willing to take in a lot of ideas and consider making changes or even adding features, things like prizes or downloads or something in the future. So, who knows? This is a really good website. And I really feel that, especially for our friends over in Europe and that side of the world, that this website really can serve you guys better, too. So, again, check out the website. Really great content, good widgets, really nice guy. Again, www.widgetworld.nl. Well, that's going to do it. Again, if you need any information about anything we talked about in the show, you can find it in the show notes. And you can find the show notes at www.widgetshow.com. You'll also notice that we have a hotline. Our hotline number is 206-333-0417. Again, that's 206-333-0417. If you record something, it'll automatically be recorded and sent to me in the form of an MP3 and we'll automatically include that into the show. So, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at widgetshow.com or call the hotline. If you're a widget developer or designer and you've designed something really cool and amazing, then tell us about it. Even if you're not a designer or developer, if you've made something great, then our site is a really great way and a great forum to announce it. So, again, submit your widgets to widgetshow.gmail.com and we'll go ahead and post them on the show blog and allow everyone to comment on your widgets. Talking about commenting, we also have a pretty great forum. If you head over to forum.widgetshow.com and sign up for a free account, you can become part of Widget User Discussions on the forum, which is a really great place to get your questions answered and to get your opinions and everything voiced out into the open. So, again, head out to forum.widgetshow.com and become a member. So, again, head out to forum.widgetshow.com and become part of some great user discussions. If you would like to review any products on the show or if you have any products that you know of that are widget-related and you would like to have them mentioned in the podcast or on the show, again, you can email me at widgetshow.gmail.com. Well, thanks for listening, everybody, and thanks for downloading, and thanks for subscribing to my podcast. It's really great when widget developers from all over the world can collaborate together like this. I hope you guys have a great week, and I'll catch you all next time on the flip side. Microsoft Mechanics www.microsoft.com