What is the technical (functional) different between a Gadget and a Widget? - widget

Already I found this "Widget" or "Gadget"? related to this question,
But I'm looking really for the technical/ Functional differences between those two.

Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/gadgets/ and read this:
Gadgets powered by Google are miniature objects made by Google users
like you that offer cool and dynamic content that can be placed on
any page on the web.
So any gadget like Google Gadgets can be placed on any page on the web

Related

New Google Sites Announcements and Recent Post Methods

I am currently working on a project that involves upgrading an intranet running Classic Google Sites to new Google Sites. It appears that when upgrading we will lose the announcements and recent post functionality if we upgrade. I am having difficulty locating an example of this functionality being used within new Google Sites on the web. How are developers working around this issue in new Google Sites? Are they working around this issue?
Specific problems:
New Google Sites does not support the gadgets that classic Sites used, so these will be lost.
This includes content you added via an iframe because the iframe was a gadget.
You can add content in iframes and make your own gadgets
As per the last list item, can anyone chime in on a preferred gadget for this purpose or point to gadget development source examples that achieves the old announcements functionality seen in classic sites?
Edit: Looking at this deeper, it appears we can achieve similar functionality by adding announcements as a blog post or some other block content. It looks like we can embed HTML. However, linked content need to come from a secure url. I suppose what we are looking for were people to weigh in on their experience using these sort of workarounds.

Using google apps script to manage a google site

I have been playing around with the Sites Services in GAS lately. I was hoping that there would be a way to add or edit embedded spreadsheets and charts. However, I have found the Sites services to be very limited. I have looked and am still wrapping my head around the Google charts API but I do not think this is geared towards integrating with a Google site.
My question is first, is it possible with the current services and if so what is a good starting point?
Thanks for any and all advice!
Regarding embedding charts - see this blog post - particularly the code snippet around addHostedAttachment
Couple of other resources in the developer docs that might be useful around sites examples -
This tutorial contains examples on how you can push list items from a spreadsheet to a Google Site.
Another tutorial shows how you can embed UI into a Google Site. You can use the same technique to embed chart.

Looking for an existing iGoogle/OpenSocial gadget comparable to iGoogle's default native RSS gadget

iGoogle's standard RSS feed gadget is not OpenSocial, so it can't be embedded in other web sites. So I am hoping there is an alternative solution already available somewhere.
In iGoogle's gadget list there are other RSS gadgets, but none of them seem as nice as the default one by Google which is native to iGoogle.
The main difference between the standard gadget and most others is the ability to expand a headline and see more of the article by clicking the arrow next to the story. Also a clean layout.
It must be a widget/gadget that is OpenSocial compatible.
(I am aware that iGoogle will be closing, that is not relevant to my needs.)
MyYahoo:
Appears overall best alternative to iGoogle in terms of setup speed, "just working", and widgets for average or novice users.
appears not to import opml, but can support rss feeds
by hand can setup the same rss feeds as igoogle or netvibes
supports upto 9 tabs. every tab has an advertisement
only supports Yahoo search
appears no wikipedia search widget
good support for display of stock portfolio quotes in widgets provided by Yahoo
several good yahoo widgets provided, e.g. tv guide, local movies
can have different theme for each tab, or all the same.
can use uploaded image for wallpaper.
can make backgrounds transparent.
can set background and text colors for all parts of a theme, separately.
has spectrum chooser for colors. cannot type in hex codes.
very user friendly interface for configuring themes.
supports user-created applications (widgets) for MyYahoo tabs.
This is how to get started with it
Try Skim.Me as an alternative to embedding iGoogle's RSS gadget

How to embed itunes preview of podcast on website

So I'm using wordpress to manage a website.
I would like to have the itunes listing displayed in the website.
I saw a site that did this here: http://gungormusic.com/#!/music/
any idea how to do this:
?
I'm looking for the same thing. so far the closest i've seen is this: I'm actually looking too.
http://widgets.itunes.apple.com/builder/
It's too small of a widget for what we want to use though, but it's a start.
The layout and UI above was designed by that website owner. Apple doesn't provide this drop-in functionality.
Check out the iTunes Affiliate program for access to the metadata and tools for linking to iTunes content and access to album art:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/
The Search API will get you pretty close to the metadata you need for displaying the podcast you are interested in:
http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=498833764
It seems they are making it themselves, in wordpress with custom post types and meta fields... here's the iframe link on the example I gave: http://gungormusic.com/wp-content/themes/skortheme/itunes_iframe.php?s=false&collection_id=562515255
Seems to be a simple hand made solution!

HTML: How to get my subpages listed on a google search

When you go to Google and perform a search, it will return either one of two type of results:
just the title of your webpage, or
the title of your web-page plus, lists subpages it found on that web site
Here is an example of option #2: http://37assets.s3.amazonaws.com/svn/grub-ellis-googlelisting.png
My website on a google.com search only lists my web page title (option #1), how do I get google to list my subpages on the search results (option #2)?
Is is an HTML issue? How do I get Google to know what my subpages are so that it can also list those on a google search.
Those are called "sitelinks" and are automated but you can partially configure them in Google's webmaster's tools. In webmaster's tools, click "sitelinks" in the navigation menu on the left. From the sitelinks page:
Sitelinks are links to a site's interior pages. Not all sites have sitelinks. Google generates these links automatically, but you can remove sitelinks you don't want.
Here is another Google page explaining sitelinks.
You should add a site-map using the Google webmaster tools site, or by maintaining your own. For explanation check out Sitelinks page.
Google has not generated any sitelinks
for your site. Sitelinks are
completely automated, and we show them
only if we think they'll be useful to
the user. If your site's structure
doesn't allow our algorithms to find
good sitelinks, or we don't think that
the sitelinks are relevant to the
user's query, we won't show them.
However, we are always working to
improve how we find and display
sitelinks.
You can also directly enable sitelinks (you don’t have to get lucky) in Google’s Pay-Per-Click platform (AdWords), and it will have a similar very positive impact on your clickthrough rate.
You need to create XML sitemap. Here is all you need to know. Check if your open-source CMS has plugin/add-on/module to do this automatically, there must be generators somewhere too.
http://www.google.lv/search?q=XML+sitemap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184
You are describing "Search Engine Optimization" with your question. If you have a small site, the best thing you can hope for is to ensure every page has a unique title, links back to your home page, you have a good "site map" so search engines can easily discover ALL of your pages, and most important, your pages are THE definitive place for information about whatever you're selling.
Content is king and once you become the authority, your page will pop up in the 1st 1-2 links.
Contact some local SEO folks in your area and ask for a site evaluation. Many will do it for free with their automated tools. You can use the webmaster tools from bing or google if you're on a tight budget.