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Archive for December, 2009

ifate.com Mystical widgets aplenty

December 17th, 2009

If you’re into Fortune Telling, Tarot, Astrology and the like…ifate.com is a great site to locate what you are looking for.

I wouldn’t be writing about them if they didn’t have some decent widgets to paste into your sites! (These widgets use the WidgetBox platform and all have the ability to embedded as either JavaScript or Flash.) They can also be added to your Facebook page, MySpace, iGoogle and many more with a simple click or two!

Widgets include:

Zodiac signs

Tarot Card of the Day

Rune of the Day

I-Ching of the Day

What the heck is I-Ching?

This I-Ching hexagram gives insight into the forces, people, events or spiritual states that will have significance today. The relevance of this hexagram may reference a general trend for the entire day, or a specific event which occurs at some point within a 24 hour period.

I really like the design of the Zodiac widgets. There is a small animation around the image of your sign that indicates a sort of mystical quality. All 12 Zodiac widgets include a definition of that sign’s characteristics. Each Zodiac widget measures 160 px X 400 px. This size should fit nicely into any sidebar.

One problem I found.
The Pisces widget has no link to the embed code when I was viewing the Zodiac gallery. So I went to WidgetBox directly and found the link for you Pisces out there.
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/pisceswidget

All ifate widgets are FREE to use and require no registration. (more features I like!)

2 comments »

Posted in Misc, Widgets

Tags: tarot

Google NexusOne news widget

December 14th, 2009

The net is abuzz with news about the Google Phone “NexusOne”. This news won’t subside anytime soon, as we have seen with the still rumored Apple Tablet.

Here is a completely customizable widget that will deliver the latest “NexusOne” buzz as it happens.

Follow this link to create your own custom “Google NexusOne” news widget.

No comments »

Posted in News, Widgets

Tags: Google nexusone phone

Whatever happened to website counters?

December 13th, 2009

free hits counter

Somewhere along the way, website counters kinda died out. I mean they are still available but the use of them fell by the wayside for some reason.

A few years back (2004) everybody had some type of counter on their site. Something that simply registered how many visits your page received.

Then the counters morphed into a semi detailed widget that included where your visitors came from. Some even included country of origin flags for a convenient “at a glance” idea of where your traffic was coming from. Others included a mini world map with markers that indicated the origins of a visit.
Then things advanced even more to include detailed metrics about visits to your site. Number of “unique visits”, “page loads”, what was clicked on, how long they stayed on your site, where they came from, what browser they used etc.

Statcounter.com is one site that provided these services and they included a counter for your site. As I remember, Statcounter’s site counter was pretty plain.

Knowing where people come from (how they found your site) and what search terms they might have used, is very helpful in indicating where and how you should be promoting your site.

Google Analytics is one of the best tools for measuring these metrics. However, it seems there is no reliable Google Analytics based counter for your sites. Boo!
If you are a Mac user, Dashalytics offers a cool Dashboard widget that displays your Google Analytics.

Some reliable sites for FREE website counters:

http://guestscounter.com/ (the corny apple counter at the top)
http://24counter.com/ (Flag counter in post)
http://www.pax.com/free-counters.html (requires registration)
http://www.blogpatrol.com/signup.php (requires registration–offers colorful “chic-let style” counters)
http://www.widgipedia.com/widgets/search/tag/counter (No custom options)
http://whos.amung.us/showcase/ (Custom color options)
http://www.flagcounter.com/index.html (Custom color and layout options)
http://feedjit.com/joinjs/ (Many options–Also a Twitter widget showing Tweets & replies)
http://www.clustrmaps.com/ (requires registration)

1 comment »

Posted in Misc, Widgets

Tags: hit counter traffic

ConveyThis translate widget now supports 52 languages

December 9th, 2009

conveythis_logo ConveyThis.com offers a simple “copy & paste” widget that, when clicked, will translate your website into 52 different languages. This simple JavaScript widget comes in two small form bars that pop open to reveal the eight most popular languages that ConveyThis translates. There is a small link for access to the rest of the 52 total languages. Grab the widget!
conveythis_widgets

from the ConveyThis blog:

We’ve just updated ConveyThis to support over 50 languages–52, to be exact! The addition of some major languages (including Persian, Irish, Malay, Macedonian, and nearly ten others) means that your site can now reach even more visitors from around the world.
And don’t worry, there’s no need to update your buttons or change your code–all the changes were made on our end, so you don’t need to lift a finger to reap the benefits.
Language is the last barrier of the internet, and together we can all be a part of breaking that barrier down. With any luck, these new changes might just make the internet a little bit “smaller!”

ConveyThis translation uses major online translators such as Google Translate, BabelFish, Microsoft Bing Traslator, and Promt to translate your website quickly and efficiently!

History:
Widgetslab used the ConveyThis widget for a long time on the old template. Somehow it did not make the transition to the new Widgetslab. I have corrected this error by adding the widget to the sidebar on the right. I know that we may not see many international visitors, but I know they are out there. What better way to make them feel at home, than with a convenient option to put our words into their language of choice.