Over the weekend Microsoft launched their new gallery that provides downloads of their version of “widgets” (mini-applications made popular with Apple’s OS X Dashboard and Yahoo!’s Widgets) called Gadgets that work with the forthcoming Windows Vista Beta 2 release. There are a few problems …
such as there are currently (as of today, May 30th) only eight Gadgets available of which six are games (and two of those are for solving Sudoku puzzles). In addition Microsoft’s focus on IE compliant content rather than standards complaint content means that the site is trashed if you are using Firefox. Sigh. Gadgets live in something called the Sidebar under Windows Vista and like the Apple Dashboard the Gadgets are all visible or none are visible — unlike Dashboard widgets Gadgets run continuously. Microsoft Gadgets are essentially AJAX-based but with specific support from the Microsoft IE Object model. Check out the Microsoft Gadget Developer’s section.
