No se dice nada nuevo si se afirma que el papel que desempeñarán, a mediano plazo, las mini aplicaciones en la gestión de la información, será protagónico.  Dentro de este nueva categoría de aplicaciones, existen dos grandes líderes, por un lado, Google, con la mayoría de sus propuestas, sobre todo Google Wave, que hacen uso intenso de los denominados Google Gadgets y por otro lado, el dispositivo móvil más mediático,  iPhone y sus pequeños programas iPhone Apps.

SAP, lo tiene bastante claro, sabe que en el futuro próximo, los usuarios de las soluciones de negocio requerirán/exigirán una característica: Movilidad, en este sentido esta convencido, que hoy por hoy, las aplicaciones en la nube es a Google, como móvil es a iPhone y ha programado dos seminarios para el 8 y el 15 de diciembre para exponer su posición en estos temas.

Referencia: Información sobre próximos seminarios sobre Google Gadgets & iPhone Apps for SAP

aníbal goicochea

Today I hack around with iGoogle and Gadgets in my class. So here’s the log of what I’ve learned.

Question: What is iGoogle and Gadgets?

Answer: iGoogle is a place where you can add and customize widgets called “Gadgets”. The Gadgets can be as simple as an RSS display, or as complex as the ones used in online gaming sites. One popular service similar to iGoogle is Netvibes. In terms of functionality, iGoogle is superior. However, Netvibes has the balance between graphic and functionality.

My first try at developing a Google Gadget; nothing fancy; kinda reminds me of my first PHP lesson.

So anyway, I went through the “4 steps for newbies” from this page.

Then I decided to take this as an example. Copy the code to text file, make some changes and save as XML file… simple stuffs.

After that, I read through the code and instruction to figure out the rest. Change , test using Gadget Checker, (loop around for 2-3 times), then upload the XML to my server, and Submit.

Ok. This is how my first prototype Gadget looked like.

Then I start searching for other Gadgets published on iGoogle and find the ones I like, View Source, save the files and open with Notepad ++ (best Notepad evar); read through them, find the parts that can be used, then copy or improve and put those into my own Gadget file. I’m not the best coder out there (heck, I even consider myself sucks at coding). But at least I’m smart enough to do these things. After all, every master starts first by imitating their masters.

A simple example would be my “FOGTHMTJT” (First Official Gadget That Have More Than Just Text). Of which the code I have attached in this pot.

Anyhow, there are a lot of already made features and preferences on Google Gadget. Just call them out using the code is quite easy. What takes time is mostly the HTML and Javascript.

Until next time (^-^)

This is EneilShade, casting out a net to the internet to reel in real people. There is apparently not a single real, living person reading this blog. If you are a real person, though, then congratulations, and please comment below. Otherwise, GTFO! All of the tags on this post are on what this blog is about, to capture real readers.

Did you know: You can get my photos in a Google Gadget, for enjoyment on your iGoogle page, blog, or anywhere else you can put a widget. I cooked this up quite a while ago, but never got around to promoting it.

In any case, follow one of the links below to go to the page for that Gadget. Click “Add it Now”, and it will appear on your iGoogle page.

The photo updates every ten minutes, so it’s always fresh!

	Random Landscape Photography from the Blue Ridge Mountains
	Random Nature Photography from the Blue Ridge Mountains
	Random Floral Photography

It is 3am in the morning, I have class at 9am later, and I am online blogging.

No, it is not because I have a burning desire to blog and will not sleep till I have spilled digital ink across this pixelated canvas, but because I was on antibiotics for the past week and am used to waking up at 4am to take my medicine.

My body clock is all screwed up, I really hope to get it back in order by next week though. =)

Anyways, back to the topic at hand, I’ve been on a customization craze lately. I’ve been dressing up my desktop and customizing my firefox like a maniac.

It all started with Rocketdock. I installed it on July 20th, one and a half months ago. I was inspired by my friend’s desktop and asked him how he achieved such a minimalist effect, since my desktop was so cluttered that it even had icons off the screen. I had a hard time finding anything and wasted plenty of time searching for documents I needed urgently. Well he introduced me to Rocketdock, but I was busy for quite awhile before I found the time to try it out.

That night I installed Rocketdock was unforgettable. Once I had the gorgeous interface actually on my screen, and completed categorizing my documents into icons on the dock, I was hooked. I started installing Stack Dockets and researched other widgets I can add to my desktop. By the end of the night I had Shootit! and The Rusted Clock from yahoo widgets, and Twitter and Gmail on Google Gadgets. I even spent a hour or two photoshopping Rene Margritte’s La Grande Familie portrait painting into a landscape desktop wallpaper, just because my desktop was SO CLEAN(!!!!) now that I actually can see my wallpaper.

Here’s what it looks like with and without the add ons:

Unbelievebly clean, don’t you think so? And so gorgeous!

Well, after that I started on Firefox add-ons. I downloaded Autohide, which makes my firefox start in full screen mode, and MouseGestures, which I had tremendous fun showing my sister. Too bad Mozilla ver 3.5 doesn’t support MouseGestures, and I had to give that up when I upgraded it today.

I discovered Foxtab today. Here’s a video to show its awesomness:

I had lots of fun playing around with it, because the interface is so beautiful. I had to admit I was slightly disappointed though, because I’d been searching for an equivalent to Opera’s Speed Dial – HOLY. I just found it, speed dial for Firefox. My life is complete. I shall now go and spend the rest of my insomia on customizing that too.

Whoohoo!

I am a gadget freak. Definitely one of those people who rush out to grab any new technology as soon as it becomes available… In the ’90’s it was electronics for me.  I had every portable stereo, clock radio with cd player and cordless phone that was on the market…And don’t think I’m exaggerating.

Well, maybe just a tad…

And then the Internet arrived.  Oh, the joy that was within me!  And shortly there after, my dearest cyber space friend appeared in my life.  Google.

If I had to pick any other career on the planet, my dream job would be at Google Headquarters (don’t get me wrong, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE selling  Las Vegas Real Estate!).  But doesn’t Google seem like the place to be?  You just know those guys have a BLAST all day long, and LOVE what they do!

Google NEVER fails to amaze me!  Every time I turn around, those geniuses are coming up with something new.  First email.  And who doesn’t adore Gmail?!  Next they introduced Google Earth, and  maps and videos and mobile products , oh my!

Now I think they’ve really outdone themselves…  Introducing Google Voice.

WOWZER!

I just finished watching all their little tutorial videos and yes, I AM AMAZED! You have to sign up to be invited, but once

you receive your invite, you are able to choose your own telephone number.  Doesn’t sound exciting?   Well, let me tell you, IT’S  GOING TO GET EXCITING RIGHT ABOUT  NOW!

Not only do they provide you with a telephone number in the area code of your choice, they also, in standard google fashion, provide you with a plethora of FREE services included with this number.  Things Ma Bell never dreamed of!

For instance:

• The number works on any phone.  Your cell, your mom’s cell, heck, even your land line (if you still have one…).
• You can screen your incoming calls.  Don’t know who it is, or perhaps just aren’t in the mood to talk with “that certain someone”?  Don’t answer.  And it prompts callers for their name, so if it’s a number you don’t recognize, they must provide their name prior to the call coming through (of course Google Talk allows you  to change the settings to fit your personal needs).
• There’s a voice mail attached to the service, and get this: YOU CAN SCREEN THE MESSAGE, and if you feel like answering, pick up mid message!
• You can personalize messages for each individual caller.  Need to tell honey to pick up the kids, leave a message and when he calls, voila’!

There are so many more things Google Voice can perform- I only touched on a few… And from what I’ve seen, I love it, love it, love it! Unfortunately this isn’t going to work so well for me because my business cards and all of my marketing have my current number printed on them, but when I can figure out a way to incorporate this service into my life, your can bet I will be there with bells on!

So what are you waiting for?  Get over to Google Voice and request your invitation!

Talk Soon,

Heidi Griffith, Realtor®
Realty One Group
702-540-0420

E-Mail

VISIT MY WEBSITE

just give it a go : http://storegadget.googlelabs.com/

Questo mese sono ben tre i miei lavori pubblicati da ioProgrammo.

Nel numero di agosto parliamo di alcuni degli ambiti di più attuali nel panorama del web development.

Presento HTML 5, prima di tutto, per le grandi prospettive che si aprono nella multimedialità, nell’accessibilità e nel location aware browsing.

Nel secondo articolo presento Google Wave, il nuovissimo servizio offerto da Google (nemmeno disponibile al pubblico al momento), che promette di rivoluzionare il modo in cui si comunica online.

Infine, nel terzo articolo spiego come utilizzare i fogli di calcolo di Google come archivio dati accessibile dall’API dei Google Gadgets.

Molto materiale, quindi, da leggere sotto l’ombrellone

Ah, day two and it should have started off better.  Knew I had to leave a bit early from home to drop my son off at his Dad’s new house.  Still trying to figure out best routes to and from his house.  This morning with the hazy fog it didn’t help and I was a few minutes late getting to work.

First one in the office this morning.  Dropped my stuff at my work space and scurried to get to the morning duties (I had switched days with a co-worker).  Unforwarded the helpdesk phone and then proceeded to swap the tapes on both the Horizon and Authority Works servers.

This was to be my IT @ Admin day so I needed to focus on the morning duties and get them out of the way.  Once logged into my Ubuntu and Windows machines I did a quick cursory check of email (no dire messages).  I then proceeded to do the morning duties (just like yesterday).

Once they were out of the way I checked the helpdesk tickets and assigned them accordingly to my co-workers (seems some days I get a lot and others I don’t – it all evens out in the end).  Opened Twirl so I can peruse Twitter (both my personal account – @mlibrarianus and the library’s official account @HoCo_Library).  Then I queued up a Tweet for the library’s account using TweetFunnel.

Our Network Administrator came into the office and had mentioned that we had a power outage (clock in the workroom before ours was behind).   PACs were showing red on PACMON (our own montioring system that our web programmer wrote) but luckily the Day End computer finished running Day End before the power outage (having to run day end in the morning before people start logging into Horizon is not a fun thing to coordinate).

I proceeded to work on the email bouncebacks.  I’m still amazed at how many we get.  Are that many people really changing their email addresses and not updating them with us or what?  Still trying to figure out the best way to ensure our customers get notified without this having to deal with bouncebacks.  It is a labor intensive process that should not be handled by IT.  Haven’t come up with the answer as I know that there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tweet that made me chuckle.  I don’t normally follow the trends on Twitter but this one caught my eye #verydullbands.  Some were pretty good.  tumour seemed to be on a roll.  Time to head to our Administrative office in the East Columbia Branch and be the IT guru of the day (each of us takes turns spending a day at Admin helping with computer/software related issues that arise).

After getting my lunch in the fridge and things settled into the IT cubicle, I logged into the Ubuntu machine we have set aside for us.  Last time I was there I used Good OS – as if Google and Mac had a love child this would be it.  I really liked the operating system and having the Google gadgets.  Alas I was back to our staff desktop version of Ubuntu which is nice too.

Queued up another tweet for the library’s official account (which is approved by our Public Relations dept. and released to the Twitterverse).   Talked to a colleague who had heard I’d been recently to Spain recently and was thinking of going.  So I sent her a link to my photos from Espana on Flickr.

Consulted with fellow IT co-worker about iTouch and our collaborative software, DeskNow.  He had a Blackberry and wasn’t familiar with the iTouch.  Went around the Admin office asking staff if they had an iPhone or iTouch.  Found someone in Public Relations that had an iTouch who was able to help with the question another staff member had asked me.  I won’t mention my extreme jealousy of those with the iPhone or Blackberry (I soooo miss my Blackberry).

Helped another colleague with a PrintNow problem.  Think the delay was due to her Java update message wanting attention.  Once I clicked on that PrintNow printed the screen shot she needed.  Stopped by the cubicle of our Training Coordinator to discuss a request that had come up in my visits to the branches regarding our Staff Intranet.  She was open to the suggestion that the less formal “Lunch and Learns” be part of the training calendar as well as a notice on the Staff Intranet.

Back to my cubicle.  Checked on the Merlin site since I was playing admin while Nini Beegan was on vacation.  Cleaned up a bunch of registered users that were clearly spammers.

Consulted with web programmer and network administrator about the best way to get a new image onto our PAC screensavers.  The library’s unofficial (yet very professional and wonderfully talented) photography, Fritzi Newton, had taken shots of each of our 6 branches along with iconic views of our county and mixed them with photos she was able to obtain from Enoch Pratt.  She put these altogether as a screensaver for our public computers.  There was wording on each saying where the photo was taken.  After 2 years of these being out there for the public someone had realized that one of the slides had Maryland misspelled.  Fritzi corrected this and gave us the new image (with correctly spelled state) to use.

Realized I hadn’t really talked to our staff at Admin about the revamping the Staff Intranet.  I had been to all the branches to get feedback so I wondered around the office and talked to different staff.  Along the way I helped with a couple browser settings.  The one feature that I love on our Intranet was one that I pointed out to several folks.  Our web programmer had created a staff directory – the staff search box searches that directory.  So if you don’t know what branch, the phone number, the exact spelling of their email, what title they have, etc you can search for a person (last name or first name or full name) and see all of that plus a picture.  I convinced several people that using the staff directory search was 100 times easier than scrolling through the phone list.  This made me realize that this well used by many but missed by some box needed a more prominent spot on our Intranet.  So I moved that up further on the left hand side along with moving the Quick Links further to the top as well.  These are just temporary stop gaps until we revamp the whole Intranet.

LUNCH!

Assigned to myself and closed helpdesk ticket regarding receiving spam from old email address.  *sigh* The only 100% sure fire way to not receive spam is to not use email.

Played telephone tag with the editor of our reader’s advisory blog, Highly Recommended, regarding a few tweaks and a new idea that had come up in a meeting.  Then I went about interviewing more of the Admin staff about our Intranet and what ideas they might have.

Dealt with calendar settings for two people in Public Relations.  They didn’t have a box checked so the calendar invites were not showing up on their calendars the way they should.

Debunked an Urban Legend that was sent via email to IT.  I love Snopes.com.  I used to hang out on their bulletin board and I do miss the folks from there.

Discussed ideas with the Events & Seminars Manager about the use of voice recorders regarding local authors.  Getting them to read excerpts from their books or interviews with them as part of a podcast.

Answered an email from staff about the spam filtering option setting in our email.  Explained that we use Barracuda, spam filter, on the main email server so there is no need to use the one provided by DeskNow (if you do it actually creates more work).

Decided to make another change to the current Staff Intranet (that was brought up by staff at the branch) and managed to not screw it up.  Deleted code and things still worked properly.  Then I got a little too confident and removed some more – this time I did screw it up.  THANKFULLY, our web programmer who has the patience of a saint with me was able to figure out what I did wrong and fix it.

Way past time for me to go, so I turned off my machine and headed home.  I had to pack and drive to PA that night since I going with my parents the next morning to the hospital.  My Mother was having a biopsy of her lung done.  Here’s hoping it all goes well and the results are good.

Eccoci al consueto appuntamento con ioProgrammo.

Il mio articolo del mese – il numero di luglio è in edicola in questi giorni – offre una presentazione dei Google Gadgets dal punto di vista dello sviluppatore (ovviamente).

I Google Gadgets si presentano come applicazioni estremamente flessibili, facili da creare e da condividere: con i gadget si aggiungono funzionalità uniche alla propria pagina su iGoogle, su Orkut e su qualunque container li supporti.

E poi … possono essere ospitati dai server di Google e facilmente incorporati in qualsiasi pagina web.

E poi … sono scritti in semplice HTML/JS

E poi … colloquiano in modo estremamente semplice con i Google Spreasheets

Questo mese offro una prima presentazione dei gadget. Il mese prossimo approfondirò il discorso, mostrando come visualizzare i dati di uno spreadsheet all’interno di un gadget. E quindi, appuntamento in edicola

Back here I discussed at length the issue of desks and associated ephemera: real, and virtual by way of Google Gadgets. 

I regret to tell you that Google Gadgets has failed, for me. Hogging to much power and slowing down the booting up, and closing down process. Not to mention limping through normal work processes, just to indulge in some cute or handy gizmos. 

Now I have a solitary image, no screen saver and one folder icon plus the recyle bin icon and my mobile BB icon. That’s it. Neat, tidy efficent. Not cute, not helpful.

However all is not lost: I have created a fabulous igoogle homepage for myself, with all the functions I need and none of the ones I don’t.  Running Google chrome my igoogle page is just a click of a tab away. 

Ok, so in my last tutorial (which I hope you have read before this one), I told you how to make a gadget. So, yippee, you have made a gadget, and can use it while in the “Preview” mode of the Google Gadgets Editor. I plan to solve that problem now.

There are multiple ways that you can make use of your Google Gadget. You can do it the Google Sites, a very painful way, and get the URL for the gadget (will explain later), or you could publish it.

Let us go over the Google Sites way first (IMPORTANT: IF YOU ARE NOT USING GOOGLE SITES, SKIP TO THE OTHER SECTION).

Ok, see where I have highlighted with a red square? Yes? Well that is the link you can click to get the URL of the gadget you just made. Now, go to the Google Site you intend to embed your gadget on, go into the edit mode for the page, and click “Insert” –> “More” –> “Add Gadget by URL” –> paste in URL for your gadget. Easy, right? WRONG!!! Cool, now you have your gadget on your page – but if you ever update it, you need to redo this entire sequence. It is kinda painful (ask me how I know).

Now the GOOD way to do things (this also works a little for Google Sites), PUBLISHING YOUR GADGET!!

There are a few things you must make sure you have done to your gadget before you do this. First, you NEED absolutely NEED to make sure you have named your gadget properly before you continue. It is impossible to rename a published gadget – even if you republish. Next, make sure you fill out the “author” attribute. How do you do this? Easy. In the section <ModulePrefs title=”…” /> you add the tag: “author”. It will then look like this <ModulePrefs title=”…” author=”…”. Pretty simple. Then add the author_email=”…” tag in the same way. Next, follow that with a thumbnail=”<image URL of your gadget here>”. And finally, add a description=”…” tag after the thumbnail (order really does not matter). Now that you are done, go to “File” –> “Publish…” –> “Publish to iGoogle Directory”. It should work beautifully.

Now, once you have clicked that, you should get a new tab with a Google page with Gadgets content in it. It should look a little like this:

Most of the tags it tells you to include are not required – I have already told you the required ones (if you feel like you need to put in the other tags, go ahead). The URL for your gadget should already be in the “Send” box. Press that.

You should now get a page that has this:

Now for the part where is says “Did you know you can put your gadget on a webpage? Click here.” that is what you need to press now. You should then get a page like this:

Press the “Get the Code” button. You should then get a string of code below those two buttons. For users of Google Sites, copy this and I will tell you what to do later. For users of good hosting clients, copy this code, paste it into your pages HTML, and you are DONE!! You unlucky (but lucky at the same time, because Google Sites are fast, simple to edit, easy to maintain, and also the CHEAPEST by far (approximately $30-200 savings)) Google Sites users, make a new Hello World example, and paste this piece of code you get in the place of Hello World, get the URL for that gadget you just saved, and repeat the steps listed above for normally posting a gadget on Google Sites.

Have fun with your newly posted gadget!

If you have any ideas, do not hesitate to visit our site, or site’s help-page, email me at support@vrpsite.com, or just simply comment at the bottom of this post.

How to make gadgets:
PART ONE: Getting the editor
To make a Google gadget, first you must have the Google gadget editor. “Oh noes!” You may say, but this is not too hard to solve. I can simply give you the link: here. Once you have added that to your iGoogle page, then we can go onto the next step (yes, this requires a Google account, hence the “Google Gadgets”)

PART TWO: Starting your gadget
Hokay, so now that we have the gadget editor, it is time to get started:
Ministep one:
   check that you have the “hello.xml” opened, as it is the easiest thing to start off with
Ministep two:
   delete the text after the ‘Content type=”…’ stuff, you do not need it.
Ministep three:
   start adding the code for your gadget (see here for my YouTube tutorials, for good coding techniques, see the text below)!
PART THREE: Coding techniques
When coding a gadget, you need to keep a few things in mind. First, always use good coding conventions, which are a certain set of steps/methods that make code much more readable. The first rule of good coding conventions is: WHITE SPACE IS YOUR FRIEND!!! The computer just ignores white space, so use VERY liberally. The next, and probably most important rule is to use obvious variable names, i.g: $Date. That is obviously a variable that contains the date of something.  And number three is: be spare on the comments, they clutter up the page. If you are forced to use too many comments, then you are not properly using good coding conventions.

PART FOUR: The gadget construction
Most gadgets use JavaScript, HTML, CSS, or a combination of all three. They are required to use XML, as they are XML gadgets. XML is called Extensible Markup Language and is used when there is a need for a language that is readable and writable by humans, and easily readable by computers. HTML is HyperText Markup Language and is used for the main body of your gadget’s look and feel. CSS is called Cascading Style Sheets and is used for fine-tuning the look of your gadget. It allows you to create custom classes for your buttons and other such inputs. It is used mostly to style pages using HTML or XHTML.  JavaScript is a variant of Java that is used to enable programmable objects that get run within other programs, or in a Google Gadget, your browser. While JavaScript is a variant of Java, do not expect to be an instant expert at it if you know Java well, they are almost completely unrelated.
PART FIVE: Some simple code
Here is some help getting started. If you are immediately confused, take a breath, and stay calm. I find that the most affective technique for staying calm while looking at a new programming language is to take a deep breath and resolve myself to learn this language. Let me give you some starting tips:
1. Do not EVER skimp on white space, I know I have already said this, but NEVER EVER skimp on white space.
2. Always use good variable names, yes this is a reoccurring statement.
3.  Tutorials are OK! I would never have gotten as far as I have without tutorials! Speaking of, I can give you one right now (you cannot tell, due to formatting problems, but there is excessive white space in there)!

The Simple Gadget:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<Module>
<ModulePrefs title=”Simple Gadget Example” />
<Content type=”html”><![CDATA[

<div id="container"></div>

<script type="text/javascript">

function onLoad()
{
  _gel('container').innerHTML = "Hello, World!";
}

function displayHTML(value)
{
  _gel('container').innerHTML = value;
}

_IG_RegisterOnloadHandler(onLoad());

</script>

Simple Inputs: <input type="text" name="Text1" id="Text1" size="30" onkeydown="displayHTML(this.value)"  onkeyup="displayHTML(this.value)"

]]></Content>
</Module>
Do not be phased by that. If you want to see that gadget in action, paste it into your gadget editor and press “preview”.
Let’s go through this line by line. First, the very beginning line
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
is just to tell the computer how to interpret the following text. Then, the line after that,
<Module>
tells the computer to create a XML module, which is a little application. As for the next line,
<ModulePrefs title=”Simple Gadget Example” />
That just states some general preferences about the new module we have created. It sets a title (obviously) and that is about it. You can go a lot more extensive, declaring height, width, scrolling or not, author, author email, and lots more.
<Content type=”html”><![CDATA[
Ok, this line may be a wee bit confusing. It is a little piece of code that says "Ok, the text following is html, but do not parse the text following <![CDATA[. *Gasp* ok, that is probably the most confusing line of this all.
<div id="container"></div>
All this does is divide the HTML into a new section and assign a callable id to this new section of HTML.
function onLoad()
{
  _gel('container').innerHTML = "Hello, World!";
}
I am going to tackle this all at once, due to it being a function. The "function onLoad()" declares a new function, and assigns a name to it. Inside the parentheses would go input variables, which will be explained in the next function. I hope you at least get what happens next. There is a { following a enter. This just contains the function text, so the computer knows what this function contains. now, for a bit of harder stuff. 'gel('container').innerHTML = "Hello, World!"' is a line of code inside of the function 'onLoad()' that tells the division of HTML we created earlier with the id of "container" to change the inner HTML code. Pretty simple, huh? the '_gel' is a command devised by Google themselves. Then there is just a } to declare the end of the function.

</script>

This has probably the most obvious use ever. It simply tells the JavaScript interpreter to die (not literally).

Simple Inputs:

This is not even a function. Since the interpreter for JavaScript has died, it is going to interpret as HTML now, so text is just text.

<input type="text" name="Text1" id="Text1" size="30" onkeydown="displayHTML(this.value)" onkeyup="displayHTML(this.value)"

All this is is a line of HTML that makes a textbox input that has a size (characters per line) of thirty, has the name (what shows up next to the value when the form is submitted, not necessary in this case since there is no form…) of Text1, and the id (used to call the text in the box and any other value) of Text1 (same as the name). The onkeydown/up sections are little events (when any key is pressed down or up) that run the function inside of the quotes.

]]></Content>
</Module>

This is just some cleanup HTML. It ends the <![CDATA[ and the module, completing our gadget.

I hope that this simple tutorial taught you enough to create a simple gadget. If you have any questions/suggestions/comments then just post a comment, join my Dimdim conference, or email me at eneilshade@gmail.com. Have a good Google Gadget experience!!

Last week I mentioned that the Gmail Notifier gadget that I used with the Google Gadgets (Sidebar) for Linux got pulled, and not having that gadget was a deal breaker for me since I rely on it so much. I did some checking and discovered that I hadn’t gotten it from the Google Gadgets Team PPA.

Some of you may wonder what the hell the big deal is since the google-gadgets package on the team’s PPA does includes the Gmail Notifier gadget again, but that gadget is definitely not the one I was looking for. You see, I have three accounts I have to have checked and I don’t have a ton of real estate on my desktop to put things. While you can collapse the Gmail Notifier gadget to a very small footprint it doesn’t show what account the specific gadget is for, which is something shown on the gadget I used before I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04.

I did some searching and discovered that the gadget I was looking for is the No-frills GMail gadget by Daniel Faust. With that gadget you get a way to check for new email, get a glimpse at what email has come in, and go to your Inbox on Gmail, all without even having to collapse the gadget to reduce how much space it takes on your desktop. Plus, when I have a window covering the gadgets I can simply click on the icon in the Notification Tray and the gadgets come to the front, along with my WeatherBug Sidebar Gadget and any other gadgets I have running.

Now the only thing is to find them available for Linux, since you can’t simply download the Windows versions of the Google Gadgets and install them. Luckily my old brain remembered that I may have gotten it from GetDeb, and sure enough I saw versions available for both Hardy and Intrepid, although not Jaunty. I had already tried the Hardy version and it wouldn’t install on my system thanks to some dependencies that couldn’t be met. Luckily I snagged the package for version 0.10.5 for Intrepid and was able to install it. There is a warning that it won’t be updated, but that’s okay for me.

I know they’ve definitely updated the gadgets but as long as I can use my No-frills Gmail gadget and my WeatherBug gadget (since the Linux version of the Bug is still pretty fugly by comparison) I’m willing to stick with the old version.