Friday 30 December 2005
Happy New Year!
The Google Desktop Team would like to wish all our users and developers a very happy and prosperous New Year. See you in 2006!
Wednesday 21 December 2005
Handy plug-ins for everyday use
Having fun with plug-ins lately? Our developers sure do!
Several of the Google Desktop plug-ins we have received combine a
geeky sense of humor with helpful information. Here are some of our
favorites:
- Laundry Timer - Helps you remember when your laundry is done.
- Global Surfari Notifier - Beach wave & wind information for surf trips.
- Lottery Results - Lottery results for your state.
- Blood Pressure Tracker - Displays blood pressure measurements.
- Today's Deity - Displays "Today's Deity" from the Encyclopedia Mythica.
- Hard Disk Life - Displays a disk health indicator and alerts you about
problems before they happen.
Tuesday 13 December 2005
Desktop goes international
About a month ago we released the English out-of-beta version of Google Desktop. Since then we have been working on providing the latest features and enhancements to our non-English language users as well.
Today we're pleased to announce the out-of-beta release of Google Desktop in 16 languages, including Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese/Brazilian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
In addition to stability and performance improvements, this release introduces exciting new features such as an international Weather panel, a Google Maps panel and support for script plug-ins.
Monday 12 December 2005
More plug-ins...
Thanks to our dedicated developers, new Google desktop plugins are available for download:
- Del.icio.us Bookmarks plug-in - View your del.icio.us bookmarks in the Google Sidebar.
- JobSearch plug-in - Search jobs on thousands of job sites, newspapers and company websites. Receive new jobs as they are added.
- Horoscope plug-in (updated version) - Read your daily horoscope.
- Logitechio2 plug-in - Index and find all handwritten notes taken with the Logitech io2 Personal Digital Pen.
- Google Earth plug-in (updated version) - Index and find Google Earth files on your computer.
Tuesday 6 December 2005
Plug-in Checkup
You had a great idea for a plugin which you have already developed. But if you're wondering how to test it before you submit it to us, wonder no more. Here are some tips:
- Your plugin should do what it says it does.
- Make sure that it doesn't crash Google Desktop -- or another plug-in.
- Make sure that it's easy to uninstall.
- If your target audience is global, test to see if your plugin works well in languages other than English.
- Make sure it doesn't hog resources like the processor, memory and network. We recommend that you use asynchronous calls to receive data so that your network activity does not block the sidebar and other plugins.
- If it connects to the Internet, test it without a valid connection to make sure it works well in offline mode.
- Have good online documentation about its installation and use (it will help us test it before publishing).
- In addition to submitting the plugin, plan to post it in the Google Desktop and Google Desktop Developer groups so that a variety of users will try it out and point out potential issues.
Friday 2 December 2005
Plug-in of the Week: Movies
Fridays are for movies...
Now the Sidebar Movies plug-in makes it easier for you to find out which movies are playing in your neighborhood. Showtimes, reviews, and movie theater information are now just one click away. Give it a try!
The Movies plug-in group or the Google Desktop Developer group are good places to submit feedback and suggest further plug-in improvements.
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