Build.A.Gadget

Countdown 1.0.1

Admin — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:28:20 +0000

Next up in the line of gadget recodes is the Countdown gadget. No notable changes, but we re-coded the backend files and made some icon tweaks. If you haven’t checked out this gadget before, now’s a great time!

Click here for more info / download.

FB Explorer 1.0.2

Admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:42:24 +0000

This update takes the gadget back to the OpenGraph API for the friend activity feed as well as fixing the notifications issue that cropped up this past week.

The notifications thing was Facebook messing with it’s icon URLs and leaving incomplete ones in the part of the feed we were using. Luckily, they provided a new place for icons in the notifications themselves, so no more red X’s on the left hand side.

There’s also a standard re-code in this update, though that’s all under the hood, and we tweaked the icon slightly. Enjoy!

Click here for more info / download.

Hulu Tracker 1.0.1

Admin — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:41:08 +0000

This is a quick update that overhauls the code of the gadget and gets it in line with current standards. We also did some tweaks to the icon and made efficiency tweaks to themes and functions.

Click for more info / download.

Market Tracker 1.0.1

Admin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:55:22 +0000

Due to a GPU usage issue on a secondary server, we have rebuilt the feed for the Market Tracker gadget to work through BuildAGadget. This update has the new feed link as well as a redesigned codebase and should be a touch more efficient.

Please note that we are cutting the current feed and that this update will be required to continue to use the gadget.

Click for more info / download.

GPlus Notifier 1.0.1

Admin — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 05:40:52 +0000

We made a major overhaul to the extension for it’s 1.0.1 debut. Gone is that simple icon and sickly popup and here comes a shiny new icon, fully featured popup with actual notifications in it, multi-post integrated directly into Google+ itself and a bajillion customization options.

Welcome to the best Google+ Notification extension out there.

Features
• Tracks Google+ notifications: Badge, Popup, and Desktop
• Support multi-posting for Twitter and Facebook with an integrated form in Google+
• Customizable popup has a bottom bar with these options: G+ Buttons, Share Bar, Blank space
• Fully redesigned options panel that will become the new standard for BuildAGadget extensions
• Customize the icon style, badge color, refresh interval, and more!

Download GPlus Notifier

FB Explorer 1.0.1

Admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:26:43 +0000

This is an emergency patch update that re-codes the gadget to use the Facebook legacy API calls instead of Graph API for the friend activity stream, comment display, and wall display.

Facebook recently made some changes to their API that had a side-effect when performaing AJAX calls in Internet Explorer. This had a rather large impact on the sidebar gadget causing a loading issue with the Friends side of the gadget. This update fixes that.

Note: While the information is fairly similar to what was up there before, some characters issues may crop up. This is because the older API wasn’t built to nativly handle JSON, so instead of sending standard characters, it sends unicode characters instead, which can sometimes trip up the parser. Most people shouldn’t be affected by this, but on occasion, it may cause a post or comment to not show up. We’re going to keep and eye out for any ways we can fix this though this particular issue was one of the reasons the gadget was moved up to the Graph API to begin with.

Click here for more info / download.

WoW Explorer 1.0.1

Admin — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:53:09 +0000

We have made our first update of the transitioned release gadget. This update patches up the memory leak some people reported and redesigns the links flyout to be more encompassing. We’ve also re-written the code base to use objects instead of the gadget body for storage. This means less file writing and hopefully, a more efficient gadget overall.

Click here for more info / download.

GPlus Notifier 1.0.0

Admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:33:58 +0000

We just released a new extension for Google Chrome that tracks your notification count from Google+ and lets you launch the site, refresh the count, or +1 a page from the popup.

It’s a simple, but useful extension for the moment, but we hope to improve on it’s features in the future. Enjoy!

Download GPlus Notifier

XM Online Radio Status

Admin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:43:22 +0000

Many people have e-mailed us wanting to know more about the situation with the Xm Online Radio gadget, when will it work again, where’s my sound, why can’t I login, and how about that channel list?

First, a couple quick notes:

1. We are not affiliated with SiriusXM in any way. Some people have sent in support tickets asking us to reset their password. We do not have any access or authority to do that and we will NEVER ask for your login information.

2. The reason the gadget cannot currently login is because SiriusXM pulled specific server files that we (and every other 3rd party player) were using to authenticate a user. This file also generated the cookie that was used to connect the radio stream. Without that in place the gadget stops working once a user logs out.

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We have good news and bad news.

1. The channel list has been updated for anyone who still has a working gadget. Don’t logout of the gadget, you will not be able to log back in.

2. We have managed to decipher a decent amount of the new SiriusXM website player and can now login, select a stream, and get the data for that stream.

Now the bad news.

The new stream that SiriusXM is using requires a Flash player with custom Akamai functions to be able to work. Basically, we need to rebuild the player part of the gadget. Before now we have relied on Windows Media Player to do this work for us. We’ll need to build a custom player that can stream the data, has volume controls, and can be accessed via external javascript functions from the gadget. This may take some time to get working.

That is not to say that this gadget is dead and buried. It is possible that at some point in the future we will get a player working and be able to provide an alternative to the SiriusXM web player. It’s just not going to happen this week, or this month. We’ll get back to you.

Rest assured that when we do finally get this thing working we’ll be letting everyone know via the website, Twitter, and Facebook page, so be sure to check into those or subscribe to our RSS feed to stay up-to-date.

New Site, New Gadgets, Lots More Coming…

Admin — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 10:04:36 +0000

Hey everyone, we got the new website and service splatform up and runing as well as several transitioned releases for gadgets. Now some of the links to the site are probably going to be fussy until we can clamp everything down, but otherwise, this is the new look and platform that we’ll be getting all the gadgets to work from as time goes on.

Upgraded Gadgets

FB Explorer – Upgraded and now includes Notifications. Chat still up in the air, but we have some ideas for down the road.

Sidechirp – This is a replacement gadget for Twitter Explorer. Essentially an upgraded version that we’ll develop on going forward.

WoW Explorer – The new gadget fixes the realms issues, adds in better EU support and can display multiple realms.

Countdown – New version can do up to 20 different countdowns with lots of options.

New Gadgets

Hulu Tracker – Nice new gadget with a couple modes to browser for Hulu videos as well as watch them in-gadget.

Market Tracker – A basic overall markets gadget. Not as spiffy as Market Monitor, but it covers the basics.

GFinance Tracker – Useful for anyone who tracks their financial data through Google Finance.

Cooking Timer – A fairly utilitarian gadget, but one that people really wanted once they saw the countdown gadget.

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We’re not stopping here, up next on our list to tackle is the XM gadget. We can’t make any definitive promises here, but we’re going to try and get it up and running to the best of our abilities and hope that it works out.

Enjoy everyone! And Happy 4th of July!