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Mike Elgan says go wild with widgets
Mike Elgan, the guy who maintains the always entertaining Mike's List email list and related blog The Raw Feed, has an article up at Computerworld encouraging the liberal use of widgets. His idea is that since many computer users have either a laptop that they're not regularly using (only used for travel), or an older machine around that is still serviceable but not currently in use, this extra machine could be put into use as a widget display machine, for want of a better phrase. When I starting reading his article, the first thing that came to mind was that I didn't think there are enough compelling widgets to make this a reasonable idea. But Mike addresses that by saying that although no one widget engine has all that many compelling widgets, the secret of his plan is to simply scoop the very best from as many widget engines as you need to use. Since they're being set up on a spare machine for this express purpose, you don't have to be cautious about using resources for displaying the widgets.
Mike provides a very useful list of current widget engines including (but not limited to)
Mike also makes mention of other widget engines, including platform specific ones for Mac and Linux, and some non-free ones that are also certainly worth a look. And make sure to check out the last page of his article for some inspiration as to what is possible if you want to take the time to put together a truly personalized information portal.
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsNorbOct 30th 2006 9:57AM
Thanks for the information! Let's talk about it!
LebeuOct 30th 2006 1:28PM
And that's enviromentally conscious, a separe computer for widgets?
MysteriusOct 30th 2006 3:29PM
@Lebeu: Think of it as recycling!
LebeuOct 30th 2006 7:37PM
@Mysterius: I was thinking it more from energy consumption point of view.
Fred DixonOct 31st 2006 12:16PM
There is certainly a wide variance in Widget Engines. Some focus on monitoring local data (such as CPU usage), while others focus on monitoring remote data. Some focus offering GUI intensive applications (similar to Apple’s Desktop Accessories, circa 1984), others focus on smaller, information-specific tasks. Almost all have a community of users who contribute their own widgets.
It's worth trying out a spectrum and finding what fits.
At Serence, we've focused on monitoring remote data using very little screen real-estate. Small is beautiful, and we think people want a personal dashboard that does not take up much screen space, memory or CPU.
Regards,... Fred
Regards,... Fred