I have the official Wimbledon 2008 Widget :( just 1*/5

I just found the official Wimbledon 2008 Widget for the Tennis Championships:
It is distributed by Clearspring.com and sponsored by IMB. And it gives scores, news and palyer info.

But this Widget does not work properly with Netvibes and my FF3 even with the dedicated Netvibes download option.
Sizes are not working properly (as they look inverted) and there is no way to move in the widget area as no scroll is available :(
Are they using UWA ? Not sure...



NetEx Rating: 1*/5
The worst possible result for a Widget : Just a big Ad and no way to use the widget :(

If somebody want to test the widget and try to fix it, click here :

New Netvibes' Summize widget to search all Twitter posts: NetEx rating=4*/5

I was testing a new "real time" search service, called SUMMIZE, that searches all public posts of TWITTER the cool and trendy Instant Messaging that you can use with your mobile or the web.

Now, Netvibes has just published a clean Summize Widget with the search already setted on "netvibes" ;) Of course, you can put what you want: your name, your city, your country, ...

You do not need to have registred with Twitter unless you want to write something yourself.

You can not leave the search blanck (and hope to follow Twitter on line) as the widget will reinstall "netvibes".

It is nice that with this Netvibes Summize widget you can star and comment in your Netvibes a Twitter message of someone you are not following with Twitter.

There is also an option by which you can select a user and get all the posts he made with that search string.


NetEx Rating: 4*/5

For this new, clean and simple Netvibes' Widget that let's you follow on Twitter the subject that you are interested in. (Would love to have a count message read and the possibility to change the title to include the search string ;) )

Install this widget by clicking here :
and It will be added in my REAL ESSENTIAL WIDGETS (and extensions) Tab on my Universe.

Ze REMIXED FEED READER Widget for Netvibes: the best and most complete feeds reader 5*/5

This Remixed Feed Reader Widget is the best and most complete Feed Reader Widget on the market!

It is ZE FEED READER ! You try it and you will never change it !

His creator is once again, already distinguished, Tristan Groléat .
I have already introduced this widget to you, but let me show you its huge advantages.

1) "Normal Netvibes Reader" vs "Remixed Feed Reader"

Check the image up there, on the left in blue, the "Normal Netvibes Reader" that is at the base of Netvibes succes . Very few options: maximum 25 posts, details or not, posting date but no way to change the title.

In the center, the "Remixed Feed Reader" with the same settings to act as the Normal Netvibes:it looks just a little bit bigger.

Now check the widget on the right is the same "Remixer Feed Reader" but with the "show small images (thumbnails))" option on.

With Ze "Remixed Feed Reader" you can things that your "normal feed reader" can not as:

1. choose to show up to 50 posts,
2. show posts on 1- 2-3-4 or 5 columns
3. change the title or show the original one
4. filter the results with keyword
5. show thumbnails images

but did I mentioned that :

6. an audio and a video player are integrated in the widget
7. you can merge more than one feed ?

Is it not perfect ? And of course you can star (share your favorites) any post.

I will show you exemples of Merge and Filter in future posts.

Only thing to improve: its name , a little dull ;)

Keep watching because the combination of this Remixed Feed Widget with the All Feeds one, also by Tristan Groléat, will give us a definitive new Netvibes experience.

NetEx Rating: 5*****/5

The perfect Feeds Reader Widget, all in one: simple, clear, easy and working !

Netvibes should place it immediately in their Essential Widgets.

Already added to my collection of REALLY ESSENTIAL WIDGETS that you can check in my Netvibes' Universe.

You can also get here:



This Widget is an UWA widget that means that it is usable also on: iGoogle, Apple Dashboard, Opera, Windows Vista, Windows Live ... but why would you do that ? ;)

New STAR IT! widget: share and favorite any URL : 5*/5

STAR IT ! this fresh and hot new widget from Maurice Svay of the Netvibes team is one that all Ginger users were waiting for.

With this easy widget, just copy the URL of any post, image, video, webpage, ... you want to star (make favorite) , click STAR and you have your favorite.
You can now choose to send it to your Private or your Public activities. You can add also a comment.

Just perfect ! It works on your Private page and on your public Universe.

To be improved: nothing on the widget, but we will need some kind of Star Box with appropriate tools to use and recover past starred items.

UPDATE: If a FireFox Star it! plug-in was to become available that would make a huge increase for Netvibes appeal ;)


NetEx Rating: 5*****/5

I have add it in my list of REALLY Essential Widgets on my Universe were you can get it directly to your own Netvibes page or you can get it here

My Community: Another Really Essential Widget for Netvibes

Now that all Netvibes users are upgrading to the Ginger release, let's examine the MY COMMUNITY widget created by the Netvibes team.

The idea is to get connected to your Friends by showing in real time your Friends activities, your own public activities and having a view over who are your friends and who is following you.

The real plus offered by Netvibes is that you can star (Share as favorite) and comment also the activities of your friends !! (and not only your news feeds). That way all your friends and followers will see it and, if they want, they can also share it with others ...

You can also copy/paste in the writing box and that is cool if you need a "specific" text and you can also write url that will open in a new page. That is useful if you want to give a link to another page. Images and other contnent can only be sent by their url.

As you can see from the capture you have limited editing possibilities.

What could be improved is to give the user the possibility :

1. to star also the Friends' Update : if George wrotes: "I am a new Dad" well it could be useful to be able to share it as favorite to "send it" to other friends that perhaps are not connected with George
2. to send a message to your own private activity: If I want to write : "Send a bottle to George but not the same as the one for peter" I do not want to show that to all ;)
3. to reply to someone with @name and not show that in the profile (is not a statement)
4. to have an option for a larger window to write text
5. to have an empty option to have an empty window
6. to mix my own public activities with my friends' one: it is easier to follow discussions
7. to add an image in the field (like in Twitxr.com), not just an image url as now.
8. to be able to import here other Social Messaging activities like Twitter. A special little icon would signify that a friend messaging me is not from Netvibes, but with an option I could answer him from Netvibes. That way I will have just one Social messaging tool.
9. to modify the icon of the message sender to know if it is a Friend or a Follower (perhaps with a different border or size) : if you have many friends and followers, very often they are not the same, you could reply to persons that do not see your messages :(
   
10. to change name of the widget.

MORE GENERAL REQUEST concerning Activities:

1. I would like to come back to a way to have 2 separate activities fields: private and public. In Beta there was an option to move an activity from private to public and viceversa and I liked it. It was opening new ways to use Netvibes and the Web ;)
2. Would be nice to be able to message directly to Friend or follower, not in public
   

NetEx rating : 4****/5

An essential widget that works immediatly and that allows you to really benefit from the social side of Netvibes.

I have add it in my list of REALLY Essential Widgets on my Universe, but the full version is only available in the personal page.

This widgets comes now as default in Ginger (the new version of Netvibes) but if you need another copy, you can get it from: Add Content/Assential Widgets/My Community

NetEx Tip: get the MY WALL widget to let others write you on your Netvibes Universe

With the new Widget called MY WALL you can let others (friends or at least Netvibes users) to write a Message (1000 signs) on your Message Board.

It was conceived for your Netvibes Universe (public) page but you can send a copy to your private page and check from there your Wall. You can also write yourself from there.

Some friends , (as Fiuz ;) ) have copied My own Wall to their Netvibes page and by doing so are able to write from there on My Wall ;)

A nice and long waited (since Ginger testing) widget.

You can of course edit: title, number of messages, dedicated image, short comment.

What is missing ? Perhaps the possibility to include a little image ...

NetEx Rating : 4****/5 so I publish it here on my my Really ESSENTIAL WIDGETS tab in my Universe where you can get it by "SEND TO MY PRIVATE PAGE" option or
by clicking here:

New Parser Widget perfect for my Airport Flight information tab on my Netvibes Universe

I was expecting this widget since the beginning of my Netvibes page.

I wanted to grab a just a piece of a website page. In fact I was looking for the Arrivals or Departures from a chosen airport. But I just needed the landings not the ads ;) or the multiple options for travel fares, car rentals, ...

I could not use the Page Web widget from Netvibes because the data I was looking for were not in the upper left corner ... and this widget has no "padding" option. (And when I requsted if it could be added, Netvibes answered me that they had more urgent matters)

So , I could just get my links and check manually outside Netvibes :(

But this new Widget: AUTOMATIC PARSER from Twisterss is simply what I needed !

So easy to use, and I have tried many "self-called" magic widgets!

For me it is a 5*****/5 Widget : a must have if you need frequent updated data not available sous RSS feed.: graphs, timetables,...

UPDATE: here is an other very positive review from Widgetlab.com:

If this reads as something familiar or known is because it is..this is the way Clipmarks or Listas from Live Labs work.

The only difference is that they do not have the High Spread Distribution model offered by the UWA platform from netvibes and that is reason enough for this to triumph over them and also because neither Clipmarks or Listas Offer any comparable Widget to users from the data collected in their respective services.

This Widget generator service is just the kind of thing that could finally lure some users from their competition and it is now just a matter of seeing how the new Netvibes Engine (ginger) works for them.

Here is the description on the Netvibes Developers Blog who has introduced it to me ;)

"Built by Netvibes user Tristan “Twisterss” Groléat, it features a state-of-the-art HTML parser that allows users to pull just about anything out of any web-page, as long as it can be found using the DOM.

The instructions are sparse, and the usage is quick to grok:

1. Enter the URL of the webpage
2. Select the information you are interested in on the preview of the page: one block or many blocks of the same type
3. Check that the widget really selects what you want
4. Confirm your selection
5. The widget displays the information you want, and refreshs it automatically every 20 minutes."

The only modifications I can ask at the moment are:

1. the option for a SCROLLING up & down for a web page to long like my London Heatrow
2. the option for a SIZE (W x L) for the final widget
   

Of course, it depends on the original page to work. So I have arranged an INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FLIGHT INFORMATION Tab on my Universe:

At the moment I have: New York JFK Airport Arrivals, Brussels National Airport Arrivals and London Heatrow Arrivals. I am not able to get the French Paris CDG .
If NY and Brussels are Ok, the London Heatrow is too big and not well centered but is working.