UCalgary Widget for MacOSX Dashboard
There are posters and stickers all over campus right now, pointing people to the new UNow.ca site. The goal is to provide easy ways for people to keep up to date on news and events on campus. There's even a downloadable widget available.
But, this widget isn't a Widget. It's a Windows .exe application. Leaving us MacOSX users out in the dark.
Except, we already have Widgets, and they're easy to use and create. I recreated the basic functionality of the Windows widget in under 2 minutes, including the time to find, download, and figure out the configuration of the Widget. Here's how:
- Download RSSBean from Apple's Dashboard Downloads site.
- Configure it with this RSS feed, taken from the new UofCZine site (which is what I think the Windows widget is using as at least part of its data source).
- There is no step 3.
UCalgary Dashboard Widget
I could have taken some time to customize a new Widget based on RSSBean, including UCalgary colours and graphics, but that isn't necessary. And might have taken an extra 10 minutes. Also, this Widget is free, required no committees, and involves no licensing fees or software maintenance contracts with consultants (I'm not sure if any of those apply to the Windows widget).
Update: I took a few minutes to whip up a more robust Widget. It's based on the News Reader Widget, and all I did was replace the default feeds. I've added a few of the Gauntlet student paper feeds as well, but 2 of them are currently invalid RSS so they won't display. I'll leave them in, just in case the Gauntlet folks fix the feeds. Here's a screenshot, and the downloadable version is attached to this post.
UCalgary News Reader Widget
By the way, by FAR the longest part of this process was just finding RSS feeds for stuff on campus. Hopefully that will change as more sites get using Drupal (and the template is fixed to expose RSS feeds).
Marc – I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. The widget I assembled (for MacOSX) is merely an interface on top of publicly available RSS feeds. That’s pretty open, and standard representation of data.
As for the Microsoft machine – it hasn’t steamrolled this campus (at least entirely). Our webservers are mostly linux (the ones I use are all MacOSX Server). But – the right tool for the job. As much as it hurts me to say it, people do need to be able to use Windows at least some of the time. True, someone was talked into licensing a Windows application to call the official “widget” – but so what? It’s extremely easy for us to reproduce the thing using open standards. What does it matter if someone also provides an easy application for those that use Windows?
Nice generalizations, though.
dnorman: I’m afraid you’re going to redefine “best” and “flexible” for your statement to be true. Although trying to read between the lines, perhaps that was, in fact, your intent. What is it with universities, whom you would think had a few more braincells available than your typical business, that insist on forcing people to purchase software from a company that has been proven (in several courts, in several countries) to be an unethical, corrupt predator? Whatever happened to DATA based standards? Specify the non-proprietary data standard, let people use that data using whatever tools suits their needs. UofC used to be more flexible when I attended. I guess the Microsoft machine managed to buy a few more university administrators? Pity they sell themselves so cheaply.
Yes, I prefer the more robust version that you suggested. But, good work at tracking down the RSS feed for the UNow.ca mag!
Regards.
well… Windows is the default supported by IT because it’s the best, most flexible solution out there, no? I’m sure there are at least a few MCSE grads sitting on campus who would agree with that.
The ease with which you produced this lays bare the “Windows” only bias of UofC IT. Never mind facutly and staff who use other platforms, a casual survey of laptops in any student lounge makes it clear that the designers of the UofC Widget were content to leave a sizeable number of students out of the loop.
Thanks, Paul. Some scouring of the UCalgary websites didn’t pull up any matches. I even tried cracking open the .exe files that get installed on Windows – no luck there (but I didn’t try very hard).
The funny thing is – would anyone actually USE this on a Mac? There are other built-in ways (other Dashboard widgets) that we don’t really need Yet Another Slightly Modified Dashboard Widget…
I dunno man, you’re the one who built it!
The Windows version also has hotlinks to various pages on campus, including HR, MyUofC, Admin. And there’s a separate one for students, but I have no idea where the links on that one go, having not downloaded it. If it popped up with new information and if I wasn’t an RSS junkie, the yeah, I could see how such a widget could be useful to the average campus person. Possibly even a welcome way to receive notices instead of via email. Rumour has it future versions will be more customizable to the departmental level, so you could choose to receive updates from the Biology dept, if you so chose. Just another option, I guess.
well, yeah… but wouldn’t a properly designed website serve a better purpose, providing this stuff from any computer, whether a widget is installed or not?
D’Arcy, you’re close, but the Windows widget is also pulling info from sources other than the ones you’ve found, and sadly I don’t think they’re RSS feeds (at least not all of them). I’ll scout about and let you know what I can find out