How to install Google Gadgets?

"Ga-Ga for gadgets".. I hear that a lot lately. One time i heard it was on the Google Developer Day occasion, when Mihai Ionescu, software engineer, shows us the first steps to take to become a Google Desktop gadget developer. Another place i heard it is the Google Gadget Ventures announcement, which tells us that if we're good enough, we can even make money for creating and maintaining web gadgets. But before that, you probably want to know what are these gadgets? Widgets, plugins, and so on and so forth? What are we going ga-ga about? Well, it's better said going GG about something, because GG is a file extension that stands for Google Gadget. That's how an offline gadget looks like (on the left).





If the icon looks like on the right, then it means you don't have Google Desktop installed (remember you got to have it installed because you need to interpret these offline gadgets somehow, you have to have a program to open them - the online gadgets, also called universal gadgets, are 'installed' directly online when you add them, on your iGoogle page, formerly known as Google Homepage).

So, now that you have Google Desktop, you can either keep your gadgets in the sidebar, or floating anywhere you want on your desktop. To start adding your preferred content, you have 2 ways: the Add Gadgets dialog or the Gadget Gallery site.

You can pop-up the Add Gadgets dialog by clicking the + button, like shown on the left.



























Then, once it shows up, you can select something to add, but before that, when you hover your mouse over a pic you get extra info about that gadget.

















The other way is to just download it from an online page. For example, below is shown my Digiwatch gadget page from the Google Desktop gallery. If you click the 'Learn more' link on that page, you will be taken to my personal page dedicated to this gadget.














There are a lot of people who go to third-party developers' sites that way ('Learn more' links or from the Add Gadgets dialog) so it can pay off to be a webmaster and make gadgets. As another incentive for developers (except Gadget Ventures :-) , or at least GD fans, Google Desktop has been recently made available for Linux. But you don't just have Windows or Linux, you also have a version for the Mac.

So, here are a bunch of helpful links and resources:
*Users
- Google Desktop Official Site
- version for Windows
- version for Mac
- version for Linux
-Inside Google Desktop (official blog)

*Developers
- Create and share desktop gadgets

Now, those are about desktop gadgets (i worked a lot on those so you'll find more about them on my site and blog), but you can also try experimenting with universal gadgets:
- iGoogle is where they are used (you can choose stuff to add here)
- Developing universal gadgets