Build A Gadget » News & Updates

New Website Design

The Staff — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:13:21 +0000

We’ve been working hard recently and this is one of our larger projects. Why a new design? To make things easier for us to get things updated and launched and to make getting information and support easier for everyone else to obtain.

We’re still making minor tweaks to the site here and there, so please let us know if you find any typos or errors on the site and we’ll work diligently to get them patched up.

Where Oh Where Should Your Data Go?

The Staff — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:28:28 +0000

We have been making a lot of changes in the backend programming of our gadgets to figure stuff out like how to make the data more accessible, how to get the sidebar to not lock up, and how to get the gadgets to work in UAC lockdown. Additionally though we put a data folder into the documents folder for each user of our gadgets.

This folder is harmless though it doesn’t go away if the gadget is active because we are storing data in there as you use the gadget. The data is in an XML format and can be read plainly so you know we’re not hiding anything illicit in there.

It has since been brought to our attention that putting the folder in the Documents folder would be considered unacceptable to some people, so we figured we would ask you all where it should go. Keep in mind that the really big guiding idea here is that the data must be easily accessible. That’s why we took it out of the gadget folder to begin with. Easy data access allows for backups, recovery, deleting, and grabbing debug information that some users may need to get.

To that end, we have a poll up, please let us know what you are all comfortable with. Thanks.

Edit: It looks like the AppData directory has won. So from now on, the plan is to have all of our external gadget data in the AppData/Local/BuildAGadget Content directory. Thanks for voting everyone!

Shiny New Website

The Staff — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:24:29 +0000

Hey everyone, we just completed work on a new version of the website. It’s still a work in progress in some parts, so we’ll be tweaking many things as we go along. If you spot any typos, please let us know and we’ll correct them asap. Here’s a list of the major changes:

New layout
Redesigned project pages (now standalone pages)
Site search (via Google Custom search)
Redesigned support section
Redesigned contact form
Less version numbers to worry about
Better page usability and larger font sizes
New developer section (still very much under construction)

Overall, we hope this new design helps out some people and that everyone enjoys a new cleaner layout.

Upgrading To Wordpress 2.5

The Staff — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:19:20 +0000

If you see anything really weird happen for the next few hours or so, we’re upgrading the blog to the latest version of Wordpress.

Blog has been upgraded.

We Are Now A Gold Partner

The Staff — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:35:21 +0000

We made Gold Partner on the Live.com Gallery – now the pressure is really on to keep building good gadgets.

As far as we know, we are also the first Gold partner on the gallery, so it’s pretty easy to find our gadgets. Stay tuned, we’ve got more fun stuff coming!

Our Live.com Gallery Profile

Changes And Upgrades

The Staff — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:45:34 +0000

Some of you may have noticed a bit of sprucing up around here, we just completed a set of upgrades to the overall site, but most especially to the blog over the past day and half. Some of the changes are obvious (see the new share button?), some less so (new plugins!). We’ve even gone and redone our contact form so it’s less confusing to use and looks better to boot.

In other news, we have opened ourselves up to doing commission work for Vista gadgets (for the time being). If you have a good idea and are willing to pay for it, send us an e-mail through the request form and we’ll be happy to get you a quote. Please note that this is for Paid work, so keep your non-paid ideas in here as it were. We do still consider ideas to do even if we’re not being paid, so by all means, let us know what you’re thinking.

There will be more as we go along, for now, it’s time to work on a few other projects and begin coming up with bug fixes for the XM 1.4 gadget.

Happy New Year!

The Staff — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:12:39 +0000

Greetings! We know we don’t post much these days aside from updates (which we’re sure you love or hate), but we wanted to extend our wishes for a Happy New Year to everyone and give you all a brief list of what we’re up to:

XM Online Radio is currently undergoing a 1.3 update. Faster info, additional artist searching, and a few other things will be going into this version.
We have another FaceBook app in the works.
We also have a special edition of the UE in the works (but more on that much later).
And whatever else we think of in the interim.

So from all of us here at the office to all of you out there at home, let’s hope that 2008 is much better than 2007 was.

FaceBook Application: ToyBox

The Staff — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:28:52 +0000

If anyone uses FaceBook, we just released an application called ToyBox. ToyBox allows you to add more content to your profile, similar to a really lightweight CMS. You can do anything from rants, poetry, prose, links, Amazon lists and items, and more!

We just launched it so we’re working through streamlining the app to make it better and every so often, we’re adding themes and more boxes and what not as well.

Features:

Up To 5 Custom Boxes For Your Profile
Multiple Box Types (Write, Amazon, More Coming Soon!)
Multiple Themes (7 Right Now, More Coming!)
Top 10 Lists
Full Help Guide
Easy To Use
Full Ajax Saving For Easier Editing

Check Out ToyBox

Anyone Still Use Link Shorteners?

The Staff — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:11:49 +0000

I realize that this type of site isn’t on the popular side of people’s browsing habits these days, but I thought it would be nice to announce that the redesign to URLot.com has been launched this morning. The interface a lot nicer than it was, there are more options for link shortening, there are more options with the user accounts, and well, there’s just a lot more to it. In case anyone still has a few long links to shorten, do check out:

URLot.com

P.S.: There is also the possibility of using this site
as the basis for a gadget, any thoughts?

New Site Design!

The Staff — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:42:52 +0000

Well, not a full site redesign, but you get the idea. In order to kind of make this place a little bit easier to understand for the average mortal, we’re currently engaged in a bit of housekeeping.

So we’ve made a couple of changes. The first of course is that there is an actual website now instead of just a blog. But never fear, the blog still exists (As you can see) and still powers the website. It’s almost confusing, but pretty much that’s it. We have all of our really pretty stuff on the other pages, and this is the section where we get down to the nitty gritty. The updates, the lingo, the comments, that stuff hasn’t changed.

But hopefully with the advent of the new changes, visitors to the site won’t be as perplexed by what’s in front of them and can still get very easy access to the programs we’re making. So that’s that.

We’re still tweaking a few things here and there, so there might be an occasional change that will pop up, but nothing too major, so you can re-add your bookmarks without fear.

By the way, how do you all like the new site?