Posted 01/23/09 at 09:15:45 AM by Paul Lilly

In a recent blog entry, the Google Desktop team outlined exactly why it is the search giant has favored keeping its widgets open source for the community. These include:

• Source code can be a valuable learning tool. The gadgets not only show you how to develop Desktop gadgets (and) integrate with Google APIs, but also provide other tidbits of knowledge such as how to calculate phases of the moon or StarDates.
• The images and graphics are also open-sourced....We hope people can take advantage of our graphic designers' talents.
• We get warm fuzzy feelings by simply supporting the cause. It fosters a spirit of openness and collaboration between the team and developer community.

And really, who can argue with warm fuzzy feelings? Silly as it may sound, CNet says it might also be the most important reason, even from a business perspective, as open source makes a great recruiting and retention tool for top employees, which can be vital as companies try to weather a struggling economy.

Hit the jump and tell us what gives you warm fuzzy feelings.

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Posted 11/17/08 at 05:51:46 PM by Andy Salisbury

Got a MySpace page? Like watching TV? Want others to know what you like to watch on TV? Then you’re in luck!

MySpace recently launched a widget that you can place directly on your profile page, aptly named, Primetime. Placing this on your page will allow you to provide all of the content from both MySpace and Hulu to the viewers of your glitter inspired profile.

While the widget does provide a snazzy built-in search, it is only available to users in the US. This likely due to licensing, but has a good chance of changing once the paperwork gets filled out (and who knows when that will be). Even still, most of the members of the social networking site won’t have any issues with that, given that 76 million of the 122 million MySpace users worldwide are within the United States.

So go! Enjoy full episodes of Family Guy and The Office! Just make sure that you let all your “friends” join in on the laughs as well.

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Posted 08/20/08 at 05:24:49 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Now Google is also providing a widget for webmasters to customize 404 error pages. This is especially handy when certain pages have been moved or removed but keep garnering precious traffic. The widget code is available at Google Webmasters Tools page. Of course, the 404 error widget is fully customizable and so can be easily and seamlessly integrated into your website. Microsoft had released a toolkit that performs the same function in June. Although it might sound like a trivial addition, it will help webmasters woo more users to their websites - or retain them to be more precise.

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