Make Your WebPage Cool with Google Gadgets

Wanted to have a poll, a stock market ticker, a music box, on your website? But were set back by the technical details. Now you have Google Gadgets, so calm down and learn how you can add all those cool features to your web page(blog/wiki page/web page). I am starting this new feature Tutorials on this blog, where I will introduce you to various technologies to improve your website, design insights etc. Read on for more...

Google Gadgets are nothing but widgets. The "most popular posts in the side bar of this blog is an example of a widget. The Minekey box that you see at the end of the blog is also a widget. However, most of the widgets are limited to the blogging platforms or some custom platforms. Google Gadgets for example could be added only to iGoogle page, or on the Google Pages.

However, in an announcement last year Google made their gadgets available to be published in any web page. I will take you through a step by step process of how to achieve this in your web page.

Go to the Google Gadgets home page and search for the kind of widget you want. In this tutorial I am searching for a gadget which will help me create a poll in my website. The search result takes me to a page which has about 5 results.

You can see a list of Gadgets and the description of what they do. I choose the first one. Clicking on the link takes me to the details page. Now click on "Add to your Webpage" button. You will taken to a page where you can customize the behavior of the gadget.

Once You are done with the customization, You can click "Get the Code" to generate the code. All you have to do now is paste this piece of code in your web page, or blog. Check out the Bangalore Bloggers Meet page for an example.

What are you waiting for, now spice up your web page with all those things that you wanted to have.



What do you think of this Tutorial? If you have any issue with technology, let me know. I will try to help you with a step by step process if I know, else will point your to people who can help you.

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Monetizing your blog with PayperPost

Earning with ones blog is not a bad idea. I know many out there in the blogosphere who will scoff at even a remote idea of trying to monetize a blog. However, I am not one of them. This blog as you all know is not not for profit, however at the same time it's not charity too. I am planning to move to my own domain and plan to have this blog hosted outside of blogspot and it needs some money. (You can see the first steps in this direction with a change in the design).

I was not very happy with what Google adsense was doing for me or rather what I was doing with Google adsense. Not doing much to hack the placement nor even placing the ads at the right place. I was looking out for some nice non intrusive ways of monetizing to take your favorite jaunt to a better and more productive user experience. I came across Nithya's blog and then got introduced to the idea of getting payed for the posts. The site is payperpost, this site has a huge blog network.

How does it work?
You need to create a login on payperpost, then claim a blog. Once this is done you can see a list of opportunities available to you with the amount of money you will be making once your post on that opportunity is approved. The approval process takes about 3weeks (for me) after which the money is credited to you via paypal.

Now, one of the things that I do on this blog is review websites and write about them, if I am getting paid to do the same, I don't see anything wrong with a few posts a month. (Mind you my first and foremost concern is my readers). I have taken this opportunity not to provide you with junk or abuse you my readers but to let me help you to introduce to some alternate ways. You can also make some money from your blog using this site. For any queries please leave a comment, I will be more than willing to help you.

I should say I am fine with what payperpost does to my blog finances. Do let me know what you think of it? Do you like it?

some JavaScript Frame works Comparison

In a previous post of mine, I provided you with a list of SNS platforms. In this post we will see a few JavaScript frameworks being compared among themselves. Mootools has come up with SlickSpeed a page where you can evaluate some popular javascript frameworks.

Update: The jQuery 1.1.3 is 8x faster than 1.1.2(specified in the above link).

iPhone as iPod

Many of you who want to have an iPhone are set back by the online activation and the lock in with AT & T.

Wait for a few minutes and think, is it necessary to use iPhone as a phone?

You can very well use it as an iPod, a Wi-Fi device, browse email, watch you-tube videos, show off to friends, play around with all the cool apps made for iPhone and a host of other things. The only thing you can't do is talk!!.

Now you might ask me is it possible?
Yes, it is very much possible. Check out this post my Amit at Digital Inspiration for more details. For you convenience I am reproducing the relevant parts over here.

For more information check this link iPhone Independance Day

"Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon), who became world-famous after writing a DVD copying software, has published a hack to activate the iPhone without iTunes or the two year voice and data contract from AT&T.

Add "127.0.0.1 albert.apple.com" to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Download iPhone Activation Server to activate your iPhone for iPod+WiFi use."