Our widgets make great use of an API that Amazon provides. Most of you may not be aware of this, but Amazon now requires all applications that use their Product Advertising API to make signed requests (for authentication purposes). As of August 15, 2009, all API calls that are not signed will be rejected.
I just [...]
Archive for the 'widget' Category
I haven’t written in several weeks and wanted to put out a quick update. The Amazon widgets have been successful beyond my expectations – between the three, they are up to 700+ subscriptions. I am in the process of designing my next widget, and all I can say for now is that it will be [...]
widget platforms
Published June 4th, 2007 in browser, google gadgets, netvibes, provider, widget and widgetbox. 2 CommentsHaving just gone through the registration process for my widgets on a number of sites, I thought I would write up a summary report card on the various widget directories. I decided early on to directly host my widgets – the downside is that it was a pain to set up the necessary infrastructure, but [...]
Well, it’s been one week since I debuted the first two widgets. I have since debuted a third widget called Amazon Latest and Greatest that displays a selection of new releases or bestsellers in a chosen Amazon category. This widget has proven to be the most popular so far, due to a large part to [...]
up and running
Published May 25th, 2007 in amazon, browser, google gadgets, widget and widgetbox. 4 CommentsI am happy to announce to my loyal readers (um, zero, one?) that widgizit.com is officially up and running. I’ve submitted my first two widgets, Amazon List and Amazon Browser to Widgetbox for approval to display in their gallery. Please take a few minutes and play around with configuring the widgets if you get a [...]
Widgizit.com is extremely close to launch. The site is painfully spartan for now. It really only does two things right now – lets users register and serves up widgets quickly. Getting the web site up and running was very rewarding from a learning perspective, but it took much more effort than I had originally planned [...]
Getting closer
Published May 9th, 2007 in amazon, linux, provider, ruby on rails, ubuntu and widget. 1 CommentI’ve made considerable progress since my last post. I have a first-cut working Ruby on Rails application built on a development box – an Ubuntu VM (on Windows). The first round of widgets (Amazon-based) are ready to go. Much of the build process for the widgets and the web site is automated. I’ve signed up [...]
I’m looking at a number of widget registries in which to host my widget. The whole point is to distribute it as widely as possible, and there are several options – Google Gadgets, Yahoo Widgets, Microsoft Gadgets, MacOS Dashboard, Widgetbox, Widgipedia, and others. I chose Widgetbox as the first one to try mainly because widget [...]
I’ve added a couple of sample widgets to the sidebar. The first widget is an Amazon Browser. Type in whatever query you want and hit Enter. You can change the search index by clicking on the magnifying glass and for all indices but “All”, you can specify a specific sort order. Additionally, move the scroll [...]
Here we go. Widgizit represents the very front end of a meandering trek into the world of widgets. As someone with a reasonably strong development background but with little experience with web-based technologies, this has been a longer journey than I (at least) expected, but hey, it’s been fun so far. I’m intending for this [...]