This:Poem sidebar gadget
The This:Poem sidebar gadget
Sidebar gadgets are mini-applications that sit in the Windows Vista Sidebar on your desktop doing various useful (and not so useful) stuff.
The This:Poem sidebar gadget lists the current featured poem, alongside its author and associated event. When you add the gadget to the sidebar, and then every 8 hours or so afterwards (or each time you switch on your PC), the gadget checks in with the website to see if a new day - in London - has arrived and a new poem needs to be delivered to your desktop, updating the information automatically.
Then, when you click on the poem's title, the gadget leaps into action to display the complete poem right there on your desktop - like this:
To get rid of the poem, click anywhere outside the gadget's border - the poem will automatically hide itself. Snazzy, huh?
Downloading and installing the This:Poem gadget
You can will be able to get the gadget by downloading it from the Windows Live Gallery - once it's been approved by the MicroSoft bods, of course. In the meantime, you can download the file from this link, unzip it, change the name of the folder to "ThisPoem.gadget" and then copy the lot to the Sidebar folder - usually found somewhere like
C:\users\[yourname]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets
Running the This:Poem sidebar gadget on a Windows XP machine, or an Apple Mac, or some Linux flavour or whatever
Can't be done. Sorry. (Unless you're one of those techy geek people who's already managed to install Vista Sidebar on your machine. In which case: give it a go! It might just work). I'll look into possibily porting the gadget - or something similar to it - over to Yahoo! widgets and|or Google Desktop.
In the meantime, you can always subscribe to this website's RSS feed to get your daily update and a link to the latest poem ...
The This:Poem gadget uses html, css and javascript code to work. It needs an internet connection to reach this website to collect the poem's data and stuff. It does not do anything sneaky like looking at your files or sending your login information to nasty people. Please always be aware of computer safety - if you're not sure about running the gadget on your PC, then subscribe to this webpage's RSS feed instead.
This:Poem RSS feed
Don't want to keep visiting the website to see the day's poem? Subscribe to This:Poem using your favourite RSS feed aggregator. The daily feed delivers the poem's title and author, together with a link direct to the poem.
This:Poem web slice
Web slices are new-fangled thingies that have been introduced with Internet Explorer 8 - to subscribe to a slice of This:Poem, hover your pointer over the poem and locate the little blue slice button to the left of the This:Poem image. Click on it, and follow the instructions.
This:Poem sidebar gadget
The This:Poem Sidebar gadget allows you to see the latest showcased poem without the hassle of opening your browser and visiting the website. For more information on the gadget, click here. Please note that the gadget only works on Windows Vista machines.