A friend of mine asked me if I knew of any good job-finding widgets. The question sent me on a search.

The first one I found was a winner: the Simply Hired widget. It has all the essentials for good, easy job searching.

The widget allows you to search for jobs using your choice of search words in any U.S. location. You can assign any mileage radius around that location, and to search the entire U.S., just leave the location and radius fields empty. The widget saves your searches so you can access any of your searches quickly form the Menu button.

The widget is based on the same job search engine used at the simplyhired.com site.

See a real-world example of the widget in my sidebar on the right-hand-column of this page. Feel free to use it. And good luck with your job search.

P.S. Don’t miss the “Panic” button.

Pros: Not only embeddable to Web pages, but can also be installed as a desktop widget.
Cons: Search is currently limited to the U.S. only. Canada is said to be added soon. It’s not clear that you can single-click any search result to open it. It’s also not clear that to get the desktop widget, after downloading the SpringWidgets platform, you need to find the Simply HIred widget in their Widget Gallery, click the Options button and select the Desktop icon.
Coolness factor: 4/5
Platform required: None, if it will be used on a Web page. As a desktop widget, requires the SpringWidgets downloadable platform (see below).
Get the Web-based widget from SpringWidgets: here
Get the desktop-based platform and widget from SpringWidgets: here

There are still a thick handful of analog publications we rely on, including Newsweek, which lands in our snail mail box every Tuesday.

If you’re like us, we first flip through the pages to find one of our favorite Newsweek features: “Conventional Wisdom.”

Conventional Wisdom offers a take on the hottest newsmakers and headline grabbers in the worlds of entertainment, media, politics, news, business… the world at-large. Newsweek calls it a “distillation of the ever-changing thinking of beltway pundits and the chattering classes.”
 
But there’s no need to thumb through magazine pages to find it.

Just use the widget, fresh with daily “wisdom” and ready to install.

And if conventional wisdom is not your interest, Newsweek offers several other widgets that provide coverage on discreet areas, such as technology and science, health, international news and top ten stories of the week.

Pros: Easy to install to a number of social sites or embeddable to a Web page.

Cons: Not available as a desktop widget, unless you use a tool like Amnesty Cube to convert it to desktop form.

Coolness factor: 4/5

Engine required: None. Can be “uploaded” to a large number of social sites, or embedded into any web page.

Get the widget: here

Bitty Browser, from Bitty.com, is a miniature browser embedded into a Web page. It’s called Picture-in-Picture for the Web.

Why would you want to do something like this? Two good reasons:

1. As a marketer, you can distribute this widget with your brand set as the home page. Whenever the customer opens the page with the widget on it, your branded home page is right there.

2. As a user, you can do some quick browsing without leaving the page you’re already on.

It’s a win-win situation.

Play with my Bitty Browser here. It’s engaging and every time you come to this page, you’ll be seeing my brand.

Pros: Fully customizable; easy to install; can browse without leaving the page you’re on.

Cons: Marketers need to strategize distribution; too many linkbacks to bitty.com; for user, browsing can involve more scrolling than desirable.

Coolness factor: 4/5

Engine required: None. The widget is either uploaded to a social site or manually embeddable.

Get the widget here: Bitty Browser

Why are desktop widgets better than browser widgets?

For one, if you’re like me, when your browser accidentally (ahem) closes and all your embedded widgets are gone, you’d like to trash your browser forever.

And then you see your trusty ol’ desktop widgets and you just want to hug them. You might even ask yourself if there is any way to get your embedded browser widgets onto your desktop.

Enter AmnestyWidgets’ HyperCube. AmnestyWidgets is a division of Mesa Dynamics, a provider of Web-to-desktop widget conversion solutions. Hypercube, their flagship product, provides a platform for finding and installing desktop widgets. But the feature that I want to focus on here is its “Create Desktop Widget from Code” tool. This tool allows you to convert any embeddable widget code into a desktop widget. Pure MAGIC!

I tested its alpha version 0.25a for Windows XP. They also have versions for Vista and OS X.

I was able to create lovely desktop widgets from WidgetBox, yourminis and others. In fact, EVERY embeddable widget code I tried was very easily converted into its desktop equivalent.

The obvious caveat, at least for Windows XP users, is that this is alpha software. Yet the “Create Desktop Widget from Code” tool worked flawlessly for me.

Pros: You want to have any awesome embedded widget on your desktop? YOU GOT IT.

Cons: The XP version is alpha. The interface can be confusing, but WidgetAnalytics says that the next release will have an improved interface. If you use only the “Convert to Desktop” tool, like I do, you’ll be fine. Requires a platform installation, but what desktop widget doesn’t?

Coolness factor: 5/5

Platform required: Amnesty HyperCube

Download platform here: Amnesty HyperCube

Web 2.0 has spread us out all over the galaxy.

We have our Digg account, our Technorati account, we are in Facebook, Bebo, Reddit, del.icio.us, Netvibes, Blogs and on and on and on …

How do we keep track of it all? Well, one cool way would be to have a simple all-in-one widget that lists our 2.0 universe. You’d click one site in the list and there you go.

This is where the ShareYourself widget by Dustin Bachrach comes in. It does all of this PLUS your friends can see it and use it wherever you choose to put it.

Check out this list of where you can upload this widget: MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, Tagged, Blogger, hi5, Live Space, Piczo, Freewebs, LiveJournal, BlackPlanet, myYearbook, WordPress, Vox, TypePad, Xanga, Multiply, iGoogle, Netvibes Pageflakes, MiGente, OR embed (copy/paste) the code wherever you want. That list is SWEET!

And bloggers- here’s another way you can have your readers check you out and connect with you in other places.
Pros:

• Installs in a breeze
• Can include more than 20 of your 2.0 links, including your blog
• Can add your own customized 2.0 link, if it’s not in the list
• Can upload your widget to more than 20 social sites.
• Only one small, unobtrusive share link at the bottom

Cons:

• Embeddable code is large
• Links open in same window, not a new window (this is fixable in the embedded code, if you want)

Coolness factor: 4/5
Engine required: None. Either upload to a social site, and/or embed the code into any Web page.
Get the widget here: ShareYourself widget

It all started this morning when my office mate, an ardent eBay watcher, said she’d like to have an eBay widget that would monitor her auction watch list.

I can’t resist a challenge, so here’s what I found.

The good:

• eBayAuction Watch by Ty Kroll (for iGoogle or Google Desktop)
• eBay by Patrick Vallaeys (for iGoogle or embedded in a Web page)
• My Ebay, aka eBay Auctions (for Netvibes)

Why good: They all automatically find and update your eBay watch list.

The bad:

• eBay To Go by eBay (only embeddable in a Web page)
• EbayWatch by Peter Maloy (for iGoogle or embedded in Web page)
• Ebay Watch Them (for Netvibes or embedded in a Web page)

Why bad: They all require you to manually enter the items you are watching.

The ugly:

•Official eBay Gadget (for iGoogle or embedded in a Web page)

Why ugly: It’s dead; does not work. And thousands of unsuspecting people are downloading this widget!

Runner up for ugly: Any eBay widget that does ONLY SEARCHES eBay (so lame, so sad)

Not reviewed: eBay Watcher for Mac by Hawk Innovations/Jordy, iPhone myEbay by SilkSystem Solutions.

Our Favorite:

eBayAuction Watch (for iGoogle or Google Desktop)

Pros:

• Easy to install, with Google’s install platform.
• Automatically signs in to eBay and automatically refreshes your eBay watch list, including a count-down timer.
• Tons of custom options, including notification sounds and pop-ups.
• Shows item pictures, if they are available.
• The desktop version is not tied to a Web page.

Cons:

• The desktop version requires installation of the Google Desktop engine.

Coolness factor: 5/5

Engine required: None for the iGoogle version. For the standalone version, install the Google Desktop engine.

Get the iGoogle widget here.

Standalone version:

1. After installing the Google Desktop Engine, open the “Add gadgets…” menu (see picture on right).

2. In the “Add gadgets” window (see picture below), search for eBay and then add the EbayAuction watch widget (gadget).

If you’re like me, you like to copy and paste. As a blogger, I’d like to share my clippings effortlessly, including those with multimedia content.

With the ClipCast widget from Clipmarks, you’re on the path to this ideal. The learning curve is steep and can take some time, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a good shortcut for clipping and sharing.

To use this widget, you’ll need to install their “Clip mode” button to your browser’s toolbar and put their widget on your site.

Then, when you are back to browsing online and see something you want to clip and share, click the “Clip mode” button on your browser’s toolbar to access the Clipmarks clipping tools. Once you’ve clipped something (text, pictures, video), you’ll have the option of saving it to your ClipCast widget or posting the ClipCast to your blog.

Voila! Your readers are now seeing what you deem as clip-worthy.

You can see a sample of ClipCast as a blog post, down below. Please make sure you also look at ClipCast as a widget, located in our right sidebar at the very bottom.

Pros:

• The widget itself is chock-full of neat interactive tools:
  • Add comments to clips
  • View clips with a slide-show button
  • View clips in auto-play mode
  • Vote for clips you like
• The widget supports links and plays any video in a clip.

Cons:

• My widget version is 200 pixels wide, which makes the back-arrow disappear. That means once you’ve cycled through all the clips, there’s no going back to the beginning without a screen refresh. Ouch!
• The actual clipping of content itself can be very clunky until you get the hang of it.
• The essential Clip mode button is only supported on IE, Firefox and Flock. Opera users are out of luck.
• The Clipmarks online clip management system can be hard to figure out, e.g. I wanted to delete a second ClipCast I had made and I still can’t figure out how to do that.
• You can’t select which of the ClipCast’s interactive tools are shown on the screen; all are always shown.

Engine required: None, but you need to install Clickmarks’ “Clip mode” button, and then embed the code for the widget.

If you have a need for, or simply enjoy, tracking news trends on the Web, you’ll like this widget from Daylife. They are an online news site with outstanding page layouts and search functions, but it’s their news indexing feature that really grabbed my attention.

Daylife sets themselves apart by giving you the actual number of Internet articles on any given news topic. The service allows you to enter several topics of your choice for tracking data that quantifies how those topics stack up against each other. The data reflects the number of articles on the Internet on a this-week vs. last-week comparison. Raw numbers and trending scores reveal what’s hot and what seems to be cooling in the Internet news universe. It’s like seeing the results of a virtual popularity contest.

AND, Daylife offers a widget — the “News Index” widget — that does the same thing, for you to put on your Web pages. You build your own customized version of the widget (by adding news topics, or people in the news, etc., ), and then you are given the option of getting the code or uploading it to your choice of popular social sites.

I built a news index widget that compares the number of Internet articles about some of the popular social networks.

This widget will be very valuable for people like me, who do a lot of Web tracking. Or for people who just like to see the amount of news buzz that, say, Halle Berry’s baby is getting versus the Fed Reserve meeting.

Pros: Very easy to build and customize. Easy to see the numbers of stories for each topic, and their percentage of growth (or decline) from the previous week to the current week. When you click a story’s “more” button you are taken to Daylife’s very rich results page.

Cons: Only one or two recent stories can be seen, so clicking the “more” button is often another necessary click; it would be nice if they let you set the number of articles that pop down. Also, it’s not clear at first what happens when you click on any one of the rows. I thought I was clicking on individual items in the row, to get more details on the numbers and score, but all that happens is that the row pops down to reveal recent stories on the topic

Coolness factor: 3/5

Engine required: None. Just copy and paste code into your Web site, or follow instructions to insert into one of the popular social sites.

Build and get the widget here: Daylife Custom News Index

“News by Keywords” is a Google-based news aggregator, made by Apexoft. This gadget (widget) caught my eye because of its advertised ability to filter news by user-defined keywords.

I downloaded the trial to test it on feeding me news with the word “widgets.” Before entering my keyword, my first impression was good based on its cool looks- news was ticking across its little black screen in a retro-NY-Times-Square style. It even puts your current time at the bottom of its window.

Then I tried to add my keyword “widgets,” and major disappointment set in. Get this- you can open the options window but you CANNOT CHANGE ANY ONE of the options without “registering,” which turns out to mean buying the license for $10.00 USD. Talk about feeling duped. I totally understand that widget developers need to earn a living, but demo widgets should let you play with (i.e. customize) them A LITTLE.

I sat there staring at this useless demo for a good while, trying to decide what to do next. Finally, for 10 bucks, I bit the bullet.

After I added my “widgets” keyword, I was pleasantly soothed. A bunch of “widgets” news started ticking across its little window. You click anywhere on the news item and the item opens up in your browser. For 10 bucks you are now able to add multiple keywords, change speed of ticking and a few other minor options. You cannot select which news sources are searched.

Pros: Looks cool in a retro way; can filter news down to one word; good amount of foreign news.

Cons: Can’t really check it out with your own keywords until coughing up $10.00 USD; even after buying the license, no option to change colors or font size; can’t change date range, and as a result, often get days-old news; too easy to click the top or bottom of the widget window and accidentally open a browser page; difficult to move the widget without minimizing it.

Engine required: Google Desktop

Download gadget (widget) here: News by Keywords

True Apple geeks- and you know who you are- understand that when the online Apple Store is shut down for maintenance, it’s often a signal that Apple is putting up a major new product or a major update.

So, the folks at pingdom, who specialize in server and Web site monitoring services, have created a clever little widget that monitors the Apple Store’s status for you.

Their site even shows a chart that correlates store shutdowns with major Apple product announcements.

So get this widget and then keep your eye on it. When it shows the store as closed, get yourself psyched for a possible major Apple product announcement!

Pros: Simple to install; does just one thing.

Cons: No desktop version- can only be installed on a Web page.

Coolness factor: 5/5

Engine required: None. Just copy and paste code into your own independent Web site.

Get widget code here: Apple Store Status