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Google Gadgets Beta for Mac

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Google has released a beta version of Google Gadgets for Mac. Google's Mac Blog provides some details about the release from Mike Pinkerton.
This feature brings hundreds of existing Google Gadgets to Dashboard. You can add fun gadgets (such as bowling, virtual flower pot, or YouTube), useful gadgets (weather maps, driving directions, and news), and others that offer daily wisdom for the ages (Confucius, horoscopes, and even a joke of the day!). These gadgets look and behave just like any other Dashboard widget, so you don't have to learn anything new.
Click to expand...
Google's "Gadgets" are mini applications similar to Apple's own Dashboard Widgets. Google's Gadgets for Mac are now integrated and installable into Apple's Dashboard in Mac OS X. This makes them functionally indistinguishable from Dashboard Widgets.

Google Gadgets comes integrated with Google Desktop, a desktop search application also available from Google.

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/29/google-gadgets-beta-for-mac/
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn
 
So are both Spotlight and Google Search whirring away indexing all the same stuff slowing down my Mac and taking up space with two sets of index files? Or does this either turn off or suggest you turn off Spotlight?
 
All those gadgets sound cool, but remind me again why I would want Google desktop on Leopard?
 
arn said:
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn
Click to expand...

I know what you mean, I was excited to get it, I set up all kinds of cool widgets when I first got it, and I never ever use it.
 
I wonder if this is going to bugger up my machine? I'd rather just install native widgets- this sounds like some sort of emulation layer to get gadgets to look like widgets. In general I am very much not in favor of all these little bolt-on enhancements, toolbars, etc. that folks like Google, Yahoo and others come up with. Who needs another possible way for their OS to become unstable.
 
Orng said:
I know what you mean, I was excited to get it, I set up all kinds of cool widgets when I first got it, and I never ever use it.
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I'm the opposite...thought it would be useless, now I have a calculator, su doku, two games, dictionary, three webclips and the translation widget...
 
ill try it, but if it picks up my marked as not indexed content it's sooo going.
 
arn said:
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn
Click to expand...

I can't help but wonder whether or not there might be just a *tinge* of redundancy in these thousdans of Widgets/Gadgets out there. The "repositories" of each one individually were huge to begin with.

And I'm the same way about Dashboard. I rarely ever use it. Maybe "Calculator" once a month, but it's more of an annoyance if I accidentally toggle it, especially with the slow-as-all-hell load time of my iFossil - I mean iMac.

-Clive
 
404 Not Found Error

Anyone else notice that at the end of the desktop video demo, the URL they give results in a 404 Not Found error?

Funny.
 
Jocko said:
All those gadgets sound cool, but remind me again why I would want Google desktop on Leopard?
Click to expand...
Well luckily you don't need to install Google Desktop to get the Google Gadgets. Although Google attempt to "bundle" them together, you can choose to only installed Google Gadgets.

BTW Google Gadgets is pretty nice if you really want a Google Gadget on your Dashboard that you can't get a Native Dashboard Widget for.
 
hahah nice.

I guess this will ease my adventures into the Mac world ( I've been a PC Fanboy for quite some time ) when I purchase my new MBP mid-jan. :p

I loves you google.
 
I get a virtual potted plant in exchange for disclosing usage statistics? Great! Where do I sign up?
 
arn said:
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn
Click to expand...

Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather. When I'm getting ready to run out the door here in New York, I want to know whether it's going to be cold, or "I think my ears just fell off" cold. I can just run to my computer and hit a button (no need to sit down) and I can see what coat/hat I need to wear. Other than that I haven't found any useful widgets, and I'm always wary of the load they'll put on the system.
 
I had the same reaction to this as to something I discovered yesterday in our company cafeteria when I thought "Wow another new kind of Coke Just what the world needs."

I wonder just how many calculator programs and virtual potted plats there are already.
 
itcomesinwaves said:
Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather. When I'm getting ready to run out the door here in New York, I want to know whether it's going to be cold, or "I think my ears just fell off" cold. I can just run to my computer and hit a button (no need to sit down) and I can see what coat/hat I need to wear. Other than that I haven't found any useful widgets, and I'm always wary of the load they'll put on the system.
Click to expand...

same here. 99% of widgets just pull some info from the web. and usually i need more information than what the widgets display. so weather is the only useful one.

the main problem with dashboard for me is that it takes 30 sec to update the info on all web related widgets and only then you can use the calculator. that makes it quite useless.
 
itcomesinwaves said:
Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather. When I'm getting ready to run out the door here in New York, I want to know whether it's going to be cold, or "I think my ears just fell off" cold. I can just run to my computer and hit a button (no need to sit down) and I can see what coat/hat I need to wear. Other than that I haven't found any useful widgets, and I'm always wary of the load they'll put on the system.
Click to expand...

ever since i found this small app called WeatherDock i never used the dashboard again. i even remove it from my system completely. the weatherdock thingy puts weather info on my menubar so i dont even have to push any button to get the info. just have to glance at the menu bar.
 
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