After 1.8 went up with so much fanfare (We’re lying, 1.8 was kind of a terrible release and we apologize deeply), we decided to go over the code for the gadget one more time and came up with version 1.9. We even tested this one. There are a few differences and upgrades, some under the hood, others visible, here’s a list:

Updates:

• The channel list will be downloaded into a local file. This is for speed and stability.
• You can now go to the settings panel to update the channel list
• All functions were looked over, most were deemed worthy, some less so
• Several re-writes were made for stability testing and speed
• Links flyout has been majorly updated to include a help FAQ
• Adsense was added to the bottom of the channel flyout
• Scroll options added for the up and down arrows on the gadget face
• Scroll options: by station number, by original list, or by favorites
• If you have a flyout focus problem, we’ve added an option for you
• Changed “Username:” on login flyout to “E-Mail / Username:”

There are other things we’re still toying around with. Tune select options? Yeah, if we can figure out the least annoying way to implement them. Bouncing the XM data through our server to *hopefully* eliminate stability issues? On the to-do list. Channel listing archiving? Maybe someday. Integrating this with weather, time, date, calendars, and a cute animatronic cat? Probably going to be a different gadget if we ever decide to do that.

If you run into an issue with the gadget, don’t panic. If you can, click the XM logo on top of the gadget and peruse the help menu for instructions. This thing isn’t foolproof yet and the occasional glitch will happen (statistically it’s gotten lower, but it’s not completely gone), instructions for resetting the gadget, restarting the sidebar, they are all in there.

Why would we want to use a gadget that can still glitch up on rare occasion?
Because it’s one of the best, most compact and easy to use XM players out there for free.

Download: BuildAGadget.com – Widgipedia.com – Live.com Gallery

If you run into any issues that the help menu doesn’t cover, have any ideas, suggestions, etc. Please feel free to send us an e-mail from the site or post on the blog. Enjoy!

P.S.: Special thanks to Eric Putnam for helping us catch lots of errors and typos.

When Google Desktop 5.8 came out this past week, some of the new ways that it parses code broke our XM gadget on the sidebar. Since then, we’ve released a patch, but we have a second patch to release today. The current version is now 1.3. If you haven’t gone and re-downloaded it, please do:

Download XM Online Radio 1.3 for Google Sidebar

This patch fixes problems with favorites and the channel selection should be working now. Problems such as no sound and no initial channels have been reported, but not en masse and we haven’t been able to replicate the issues in house as of yet.

If you run into any issues with this version of the gadget, please document them below with as much detail as possible so that we can recreate the problem and hopefully be able to include fixes in upcoming versions.

Thanks.

It’s been a while since our last update but be assured that we aren’t sleeping on the job.  We’ve recently revamped our XM landing pages and we’re including more stuff than what was there previously.  The new design is cleaner, more to the point and hopefully more useful with the additions of the What’s On and XM-Sync pages.

The What’s On page is similar to the channel view of the gadget, it gives you a real-time listing of the currently playing track and information on a per channel basis.  Think of it like watching the weather channel, but for music instead. 

XM-Sync is something new we’re working on for our various XM gadgets and players.  The idea is to be able to back up your favorites and settings so they can be retrieved and / or updated from the players themselves.  We’re still working out the kinks, but it will be available on the next platform we release an XM player for and we’ll retrofit the rest of the gadgets.

The service is privacy friendly, we go over the details on the landing page, which when it’s finished, will allow you to log in and modify favorites and settings at will (all authentication is off from XM’s servers).

We’ll try to keep the details coming as we move ahead with our next projects.

Another quick XM update for everyone.  Nothing too major here, but we’re preparing for some channel group swapping to be going on in the future.  As of right now, the AOL channels are no longer on XM Online, so it’s a matter of time before we know if they are to be replaced with another group or if that’s it.

Otherwise, couple tiny tweaks to the gadget:

• Buttons cleaned up for size and clarity
• Channel up and down now use arrows instead of + / -
• Minor tweak to bad channel handling in favorites

As a word of caution, export your favorites (Settings -> Favorites -> Export) to the desktop.  Just in case.

Download XM Online Radio (For Vista Sidebar)

You read it right. We now have the XM Online Radio available for Google Sidebar. This means you can run it on Windows XP! It’s not quite as nice as its Vista cousin, but this gadget still maintains favorites, stream settings, all your favorite buttons, and is pretty stable and easy to use. You will need to download and install Google Desktop if you aren’t already running it.

Download XM Online Radio 1.0 (Google Gadget)

Enjoy!

P.S.:  Do let us know if there are any issues and we’ll do our best to resolve them.  Thanks.