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Windows Sidebar Gallery Launches

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

May 30, 2006, 2:55 PM

In preparation for the public release of Windows Vista Beta 2, Microsoft put live over the weekend a beta Web site for hosting gadgets that run within the Windows Sidebar. The Gallery enables users to find available gadgets and allows developers to submit their own creations.

Although the site is currently quite sparse, Microsoft is accepting feedback and is expected to add more information and RSS feed support. Microsoft also released a beta SDK that provides documentation and examples for those interested in building Windows Live Gadgets for both Live.com and the Windows Sidebar.

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By PC_Tool

posted May 30, 2006 - 7:00 PM

I'll never understand this "widget" fad. Must mean I'm getting old.

Damn. ;)

Score: 0

By crashoverride

posted May 31, 2006 - 1:15 AM

I've yet to understand it either but widgets are even starting to make an appearance on Linux. Not quite as many as on Mac OS and Windows but they are out there.

Score: 0

By kingkev

posted May 30, 2006 - 8:25 PM

"What's a widget?"...Name the movie. :P

Score: 0

By Gerwin

posted May 31, 2006 - 4:12 AM

A widget is a useless program that just serves to eatup your memory but hides in the background so that you don't notice.

Score: 0

By anmol.2k4

posted May 31, 2006 - 6:07 AM

WORDS OF WISDOM

Score: 0

By CMSTech

posted May 30, 2006 - 8:30 PM

RIP Rodney! Long live Back to School!

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted May 30, 2006 - 3:17 PM

Also, does windows live stuff look really really bad in FF? I don't mind optimization for Microsoft's own browser, but it actually looks quite horrendous on FF.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 30, 2006 - 6:57 PM

What the hell is FF?

Score: 0

By ds0934

posted May 31, 2006 - 3:59 PM

Depends on what industry or world you live in. For most geeks: FireFox. For those living in Vegas or NYC it could also mean fist-f**k

Score: 0

By lastjuan

posted May 30, 2006 - 8:08 PM

Firefox of course ;)

Score: 0

By The Man

posted May 31, 2006 - 12:51 AM

that's the abreviation of Final Fantasy, squaresoft probably owns the patent on it.
:-p

Score: 0

By rijp

posted May 30, 2006 - 3:06 PM

I still like Yahoo Gagdets better...

Score: 0

By anmol.2k4

posted May 30, 2006 - 3:50 PM

wow , i have actually found rijp make a mistake, i make mistakes but hey im human, but rijp he cannot could not or may be keyboard had an error.

yah its yahoo gadgets.
pleez do not take it personally ,i actually think you have good command over English language skills.

Score: 0

By wincement

posted May 30, 2006 - 8:21 PM

You missed an even greater error.

It's: Yahoo!

Not: Yahoo

How sad.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:08 PM

Make no mistake, keyboarding skills are in NO way indicative of english skills. The inability to type, or blunder during a typing session should not be confused with my english or grammar or even spelling skill.

I may type too fast for my fingers to keep up, but that doesn't mean my spelling is in question.

Score: 0

By anmol.2k4

posted May 31, 2006 - 6:04 AM

man im sad that you took it personally, i was not questioning you language skills, but im sorry if the post sounded like that.
I am strongly with you that you language skills are lot better than most of us.
And i agree with you on the fact that was a typing error.( you have no idea how many errors i make while typing ;))
just posted that for few gags, was not expecting such reaction to that.

Score: 0

By anmol.2k4

edited May 31, 2006 - 6:06 AM

Score: 0

By The Man

posted May 31, 2006 - 12:53 AM

naw, i think you had it right the first time, yahoo! anything makes me gag.

"Gagdets" ;-)

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted May 30, 2006 - 3:09 PM

Ah, Microsoft, now it's not only following Apple, it's following Yahoo, Google, and a bazillion other Independent software producers.

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted May 31, 2006 - 11:06 AM

Shows how much you know. Your totally wrong!

Score: 0

By Gunzip

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:17 PM

Vista had a sidebar back when it was Longhorn. It appeared in the first "alpha" back in 2003.

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/pdc2003.asp

Btw, a pet-peeve -- Who cares who has the technology first? Your post is a waste of time / just plain idiotic. What's your point? What counts is the implementation. If you have something to say about the technology, that's great, else stop wasting bandwidth... I like Yahoo Gadgets as well and find the gadgets in Vista to be not as polished and really lack the geewhiz factor that Yahoo offers. Regarding Apple, yeah, I think their gadgets are superb. I'm not knocking Microsoft. I think what they have is nice, but there are others out there that are better... Still, I will probably use what Microsoft offers, just because it's there and I only want to run a handful of gadgets - like weather, a big clock, maybe some resource utilization stuff... that's about it. For that, what they currently offer is fine.

Gunzip

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:37 PM

"Who cares who has the technology first? "
I do, that is why I posted it. I'm interested in technology that fits a niche, not replicates what is already available.

"Your post is a waste of time / just plain idiotic. What's your point? What counts is the implementation."
Thanks! Justification for your post would be great! I was giving comment to the technology, the article itself. You can easily ignore people's opinions on tech. I'm curious about what other people think, it helps me decide if a product is worth checking out. SIW, k-lite, even firefox opinions helped me to start using those products, and I am grateful to BN for the opportunity.

Thanks!

Score: 0

By anmol.2k4

posted May 31, 2006 - 6:15 AM

so in your opinion competition is bad ?

Score: 0

By THZGryphon

edited May 30, 2006 - 6:13 PM

"I'm interested in technology that fits a niche, not replicates what is already available."

So you don't use Firefox?

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted May 30, 2006 - 8:10 PM

FF fits my needs where other browsers didn't:

Open source: I trust it. (Neither Opera nor IE have this.)
Small yet extensible with extremely modular add-ons.(Opera nor IE don't have this.)
Extremely customizeable scripting engine. (opera and definitely IE doesn't have this)
Good Security record with quick fixes: (IE doesn't have this)
Ability to block elements of pages: (Opera doesn't have this to a level I'm comfortable with)

Score: 0

By THZGryphon

posted May 30, 2006 - 11:52 PM

There were browsers before it, should it not have been made?

Score: 0

By Gunzip

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:49 PM

Ok. Sorry for the harshness. My bad... Nothing good in the (work) cafe, so I'm a little on edge. No excuse for the persoanl attack and "idiotic" comment. Sorry about that.

I agree, more opinions the merrier and BN is a good forum for that. I guess I just have issue when Microsoft always seems to get critiziced for never inventing their own technology even though I think they do put forth a lot of new technologies (I think their Kernel Mode Driver Framework is a great example). I don't know if they were actually ahead of Yahoo or Apple. I think they had a head-start, however, thus the link to the PDC 03 pictures w/a sidebar and "gadgets".

Gunzip

Score: 0

By amroliwala

posted May 30, 2006 - 3:12 PM

Hey, it works. I personally would like widgets on Windows, if not for their cool functionality, then because I'm envious of OS X :).

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted May 31, 2006 - 5:36 PM

Envious of a Macintosh?! :^) After 30 years of using everything from mainframes to 1984 Macs, a computer is still just a computer to me. One works this way; another that way. In the end, the same products (e.g., spreadsheet, journal article, statistical analysis, graphic, etc.) emerge.

(And before anyone goes ballistic, I am a Macintosh--and WinTel/AMD--owner. Honestly, I find neither significantly better than the other. A computer is a computer. On the other hand, their users--within and between--are significantly differently!)

Score: 0

By frankwick

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:37 PM

OS/2 did it first. What an awesome OS. What crappy marketing.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:38 PM

Agree'd. OS/2 still running strong here where I work. See no reason to replace such a hardy OS.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted May 30, 2006 - 4:57 PM

-perk- OS/2! A moment of silence for the greatest of ALL OS!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 30, 2006 - 6:15 PM

:p

http://www.ecomstation.com/

There ya go. Apparently, they're still updating it.

Wow...

Score: 0

By atab0y

posted May 30, 2006 - 10:58 PM

mmmm... respectfully, if you mean they as in ibm... then they aren't updating it anymore. least not according to the ibm and the letter they sent me (q4 last year) and the company i work for who still use it and sell it as part of our customer product. sales ended end of last year, support ends end of this year. ecomstation is a third party oem product from serenity systems based out of texas. there is a partition to make os/2 open source...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 31, 2006 - 9:14 AM

lmao...

Dude.

Follow the link. eComStation is built off of OS/2 Warp 4 and is the closest thing you'll ever get to a supported OS/2 system.

Press release here:
http://www.ecomstation.c...ease%20of%20eComStation

Score: 0

By smarterthanyou

posted May 31, 2006 - 1:57 AM

OS/2 will probably die off like DOS did. DR-DOS, which was the last version of DOS ever developed, became open source after Caldera bought it and was discontinued a short time later.

What does OS/2 have that Windows 2000 and later don't?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited May 31, 2006 - 9:18 AM

Speed, stability, secure simply due to the fact it's so far off the radar most script-kiddies haven't even heard of it...

Servers, workstations, Kiosks, POS systems, ATMs, almost all used OS/2 if the company making them knew what they were doing.

Within the last 2 years or so, it's use in such applications has dropped considerably due to IBM no longer selling or supporting it, and the lack of community knowledge about eComStation, who are still supporting it and extending it's functionality.

Score: 0

By barcrest

posted May 31, 2006 - 10:24 AM

The problem is applications and always will be. If you can't get the applications you need to work on a specific O/S you will not use it plain and simple. If no new O/S2 aplications are in development the O/S might as well pack up and go home.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited May 31, 2006 - 11:02 AM

...unless the old applications handle the job just fine.

Of course, most of the uses for OS/2 currently on the market would be in-house apps, anyway.

Most POS., ATM, Kiosk hardware that uses(d) OS/2, used apps developed by the manufacturer of the device, or were at least written by someone *for* that device.

And what the hell are we doing talking about OS/2 in a Windows Vista Sidebar Gallery topic?

Could we *be* more off-topic?

Score: 0

By frankwick

posted May 31, 2006 - 3:18 PM

The original desktop sidebar: http://pages.prodigy.net...story/os221/od_fold.gif

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 31, 2006 - 11:04 PM

OD = Object Desktop.

Originally created for OS/2, they *did* move on to Windows. They now have an entire suite of apps for windows that provide an *enourmous* amount of functionality.

They also happen to be the guys selling WindowBlinds. ;)

Look 'em up at http://www.stardock.com

Score: 0

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