Exploring Widgets

While bouncing around the news on another site I discovered a cool widget. So I thought I'd add it to my blog. Then I found there were more. So I tried out two. Both were USA Today, one for Top News and the other was Green News. Wow, they looked good except that they were too wide for the column. So I moved them to the other side. That looked better but still too wide. So I started looking for widgets for 3 column templates. I found a few that were closer, but not one that fits yet.

Google has news widgets that would probably fit just right. I just don't want to use Google widgets. For some reason I feel that Google is kind of invasive. Not as bad as Yahoo is getting, but they are headed in that direction. That's just my NSH opinion.

Anyway, back to widgets. I found one that was for Rueters. It doesn't have the cool display that the USA Today ones had, but it does seem to be keeping up with the latest news. And it fits better. Then I found another one for National Geographic. I love NG so that one I may keep even though it doesn't fit perfectly. If it sounds like I'm trying to avoid template editing work, I am. Hopefully I won't have to do any of that.

So, the upshot of all this is, I will be exploring widgets for the next few days/weeks/whatever. There are so many different kinds out there. I found one for books, but it wasn't customizable. There was one with the NYT Bestseller list. Maybe? Hopefully I'll find lots of cool things to add that will entertain and provide good content. If you have one you want to recommend, or like one of the ones I'm trying out, please let me know.