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Download XM Online Radio 1.3 for Google Sidebar

Mini Explorer 1.2 Update

The Staff — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:21:42 +0000

We’ve been testing out a new version of the Mini Explorer gadget for a little while now and decided it was a good time to unleash its refined power on the populace at large. What’s new with the gadget you ask? Almost everything.

We re-wrote the majority of the gadget code (don’t worry, the design is still the same) to allow us to add in more engines quickly and easily. Beyond that though, we’ve managed to do some interesting technical stuff like (you can skip this part if you’re not interested) reduce memory footprint, increase speed, and allow for file specific engine links with all sorts of override tags for flexibility.

We have Blogs, Sports, and Dailymotion now! Lots of spiffy links and RSS reader pages set up for the blogs to make life even easier when trying to catch up on what’s going on in the world.

We also read the e-mails and comments from across the pond. There are a bunch of new countries added to this edition including Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, India, Japan, and Brazil. We’ve tried to customize where we can, though it mostly applies to search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Another nifty feature in this update is the engine enable / disable menu in the settings panel. While re-ordering engines is a little complicated at this point, you can disable the ones you aren’t planning on using to whittle the menu down to a much friendlier size. It only works on main engines, but its something we hope to expand on over time.

Several sock gnomes may have been injured during the testing of this gadget. Don’t worry, nobody was killed.

We also upgraded the flyout with new resize options, faster loading, and included a basic search history (which can be disabled in the settings panel). We know the limitations of the flyout iFrame are many, but we’re hoping that some extra work in the enhanced pages will make up for some of that. We’re still keeping an eye out for decent alternatives that would allow true browsing in the iFrame, sadly, the code support just isn’t there quite yet.

There is a new icon color and we made some small touch ups to the shape. We realize that it’s a significant jump in color but hopefully it’s not too off-putting. It’s an experiment, if it doesn’t work we’ll go back to black, if people don’t mind it, we’ll keep it where it is. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

As always, comments, feedback, praise, and questions are all very welcome. If you have any problems with the gadget let us know either here in the comments or send in an e-mail via the contact page and we’ll do our best to provide support for any issues that crop up. We did extensive testing on this gadget, but that doesn’t mean the odd problem can’t crop up, especially with such a radical redesign of the working parts.

Enjoy!

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XM Google Patch Updates

The Staff — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:08:26 +0000

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:

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.

Windows Vista Magazine 1.0 Gadget

The Staff — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:14:29 +0000

In addition to our other projects, we’ve been working with Windows Vista: The Official Magazine to bring you a brand new news reader / site search gadget for the sidebar. Lots of options, very easy to use, and a cool theme just like the magazine, this is a must have for anyone looking for daily tips, tricks, and news about the Vista operating system.

As always, if you run into any issues, let us know and we’ll do our best to troubleshoot and alleviate the problem.

Feedback is graciously accepted. Thanks.

Update: Gadget Article on Windows Vista Magazine

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TechRadar 1.0 Gadget

The Staff — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:36:08 +0000

We are pleased to announce the launch of a brand new RSS reader gadget for TechRadar.com! The gadget tracks stories in their main RSS feed, provides summaries, site and product search, and a nifty browser window to boot.

Update: Gadget article on TechRadar.

Please let us know if you run into any issues and we’ll do our best to address them.

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MCR 2.0 Update

The Staff — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:43:49 +0000

Two major updates have been made to the MCR gadget:

1.) The option to ‘minimize/maximize’ the gadget in the sidebar and on the desktop. Thus making the gadget more convenient and space saving for all!

2.) The gadget now automatically refreshes the users points every 10 minutes.

These were the major updates that we made to the MCR gadget. If you like this gadget, let us know. If you run into any issues, also let us know and provide any details you can about the problem.

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System Monitor 1.1 Update

The Staff — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:55:45 +0000

Did somebody say dual core? We decided to crank out a quick update to the System Monitor gadget for all you enthusiasts out there. We’ve added in dual and quad core support to the CPU monitor and an additional option to the RAM monitor. Here’s a quick rundown:

Dual and quad core support added.
Usage display option added to the RAM monitor.
Added a monitor lock / unlock button.
Double-clicking the date and time monitor brings up Windows Calendar.

It’s a minor update, but we hope you all enjoy it. Let us know about any issues you run into and any additions you would love to see in the future.

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