Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, web 2.0
The history of widgets
Widgets, most people use them now on their social network pages, blogs, or even on desktops. But where did they originate and how did they come to be? Niall Kennedy, the widget guru, answers that in his brief history of the widget.Where did it all begin? Back in 1981 when the graphical user interface was first designed for home use. Netscape pushed the widget along its journey in 1996 with the Navigator browser and PowerStart. This Netscape technology showed the latest stock quotes, weather and started using other dynamic web content. It wasn't until 2003 when Konfabulator hit the scene to bring OSX users fancy desktop widgets.
Now we have handy widgets everywhere, and they are such common place on everything from mobile devices, desktops, and websites. Niall has also created a widget timeline available here.
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With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carlos said 5:02PM on 9-28-2007
Cool, so Apple is finaly credited with the original widgets known back in 1984 as "Desk Accessories".
From the time line - Original accessories included calculator, calendar, clock, note pad, and games.
Konfabulator should be credited for bringing them back to the modern day OS (OSX & XP/Vista)
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martin said 4:18AM on 9-29-2007
Back in 1999 I used to build my own widgets with multimedia builder. That was fun :)
Thanks for this interesting post!
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