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sobees posts

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Beta, web 2.0

Sobees desktop widget engine launches public beta

Windowsby Brad Linder Oct 23rd 2008

Sobees
Sobees, a desktop widget engine that's been in private beta since March is now open to the public. The public beta version includes a ton of updates, and I have to say the new Sobees look a lot nicer than the version I looked at earlier this year.

The Sobees platform is designed to let you access web content on your desktop without launching a web browser. There's an RSS reader and a handful of other widgets including a news aggregator and an election 2008 widget that is filled with up to date news on the US presidential election.

There's also a search bar that will let you conduct web searches (using Windows Live Search only for now) without launching a web browser.

The overall platform is rather slick and the widgets are much more attractive than the hexagon-shaped widgets Sobees was showing off in March. But I have to wonder whether it makes that much sense to launch a widget engine whose sole purpose is to provide information that you could easily access with a few clicks in a web browser. Maybe I'm wrong, but I imagine most people using internet-connected computers these days have a web browser open more often than it's closed, which makes Sobees rather redundant, no matter how slick it looks.

Tags: sobees, widgets

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Beta, web 2.0

Get your Sobees invites right here

by Brad Linder Mar 31st 2008

SobeesYesterday we told you about a new desktop widget engine called Sobees which is in private beta. We also told you that if you wanted in on the private beta you had to sign up at the Sobees homepage. But Francois from the Sobees team has been kind enough to share 10 invites with Download Squad readers. Just be one of the first ten people to leave a comment on this post and we'll email you an invitation.

Keep in mind, this is beta software. And not beta like Gmail is still in beta. While the widget engine is fairly impressive, it's also sluggish and a memory hog. But we suspect both of these problems will diminish over time. And if you want to keep an eye on the application's progress, and are willing to share feedback with the developers, just leave a comment below.

Update: And we've got our winners. We've turned off the comments for this post and will be sending out the invite codes momentarily. Thanks for playing!

Tags: gadgets, sobees, widget-engine, widgets

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Web services, Beta, web 2.0

Sobees widget engine launches private beta

Windowsby Brad Linder Mar 30th 2008

While we often find ourselves thinking "the last thing this world needs is another desktop widget engine," we might be willing to make an exception for Sobees. While we'd forgive you if you mistook Sobees as nothing but a desktop widget engine like Google Desktop, Yahoo! Widget Engine, or Vista's gadgets and the Dashboard in OS X, it's actually much more.

First of all, yes, Sobees does let you load modules on your desktop for doing things like making notes, showing the time and date, or interacting with the web. There are also nifty RSS and Twitter clients, and a web browser with a built in web search feature that lest you sort results by images or text links.

But there are at least three things that set Sobees apart from most other desktop widget applications.
  1. Sobees widgets are highly customizable. You can resize any widget by clicking on a portion of the edge and dragging it in or out. You can also make widgets translucent or opaque, and choose from a variety of options for each widget.
  2. Sobees widgets interact with one another, and you can share content from widgets with your contacts. For example, you can save an item from an RSS feed and share it with other Sobees users.
  3. Your data is synchronized with a remote server, which means you can install Sobees on multiple computers and changes to one will be reflected on another. If you'd like to have a separate setup for your work and home computers, there's no problem though, because you can set up multiple desktops.
Sobees is currently Windows only, but according to CenterNetworks, a Mac client is in the works. An API will also be released eventually which should dramatically increase the number of widgets available. Sobees is quite clearly still beta software. It takes a fairly long time to load the application, it freezes up periodically, and it uses close to 200MB of RAM. But Sobees is worth keeping an eye on. If you want to help test the software, you an sign up to participate in the private beta.

Tags: gadgets, sobees, widget-engine, widgets

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