it has been some time since my last post as I have been creating and managing my own empire in the world of Russ.

Actually, I have been busy managing other blogs as after the success of this one, I was approached to write and edit for several other blogs which I have sealed my lips to mention. Suffice it to say I help develop and make successful some of the top blogs on the Internet, only to stuff the wallets of my superiors. OOOO how I hate the word "superiors"!

Don’t get me wrong, I loved….no…liked my bosses a bunch and appreciate the opportunity they gave me, but it’s just not the same as running your own blog(s) and having the freedom to say exactly what I want to say, when I want to say it. Therefore, after a long hiatus, I am back to give you more of what you want in the widget world.

It appears Microsoft still hasn’t learned that a widget is a widget and not a gadget. I guess some habits are hard to break, but I will not buck the system and the choice of the people and continue to call these little suckers widgets, though I may not capitalize the word as if it were a person any longer. That’s right! I have accepted the fact that my friend the Widget, (oops, I capitalized him/her again) is not a person but only much more reliable and fun to hang around.

Enough of the hoopla!

That’s all for now, as I only wanted you to know I am back with plans to post as often as necessary to keep you informed of how widgets can change your life. OK….maybe a stretch, but widgets certainly make your online web design life easier and I look forward to getting this puppy rolling again.

In the mean time, feel free to peruse the site and widget your little heart out.

Don’t forget to sign up for the latest RSS feeds so you’ll know whenever I add new content.

Off I go to find a dating widget so I don’t have to spend the holidays alone.

I’m not certain Vista for everyone at this point due to the fact that you have to download EXTRA (lots of EXTRA) software to get most of your programs to work. Though I have to admit, even after three days of downloads, for me, it was well worth it.

One thing I did notice is those monkeys at Microsoft are still calling widgets,”gadgets”. Sure, they’re basically the same thing, only widgets are cooler. Wake up Microsoft and get your wording right!

Anyway…

In the process I even found a few really cool widgets just for Vista. I know, I know! This post is useless to those using XP or any other operating system. However, not only did a find some really cool Vista widgets for YouTube, games, and the usual stuff , I found some really cool preinstalled software which is helping me write this post now. Yep! I’m using speech recognition which is pretty darned cool, except when you just read darned, I really said, darn. But it’s pretty cool anyway! Kind of funny too! Though this sucker is light years ahead of what was available only a few years ago it took me about 30 minutes just to get it to recognize the word sex. Somehow, this thing was trying to guess my size and kept saying six. Little did it know, it was way off base.

Enough of that!

What I found interesting was Microsoft comes preinstalled with widgets. Nothing really jaw dropping, but certainly a sign of the times. In fact, and in my opinion, there’s no really not a whole lot to choose from. At least, not in comparison to what available for web page widgets. Regardless, I’m excited about the future of widgets.

Here are a couple of Microsoft Vista Widget links which will help you get started quickly putting Microsoft Vista Gadgets (oops!, I said gadget) on your desktop. I mean, it’s really cool to have a web site with widgets, but for those task that you use every single day it’s nice to have it conveniently located right on the desktop. Admittedly, I have very limited experience creating desktop widgets, but I’m certain I will have more to offer very soon. In the meantime, here’s one of the resources I used to learn more about desktop widgets.

If you are interested in developing Microsoft Sidebar Widgets and submitting them for others to use, you may find this Microsoft Widget Resource useful.

And….if you really want to get involved, check out the Microsoft Widget Forum. Yeah, yeah….gadget, Widget…whatever. Just notice Widget is capitalized here, though I do not know for how long, because this speech recognition makes me keep taking further steps to make it CAP.

What’s funnier to me is the speech recognition software made by Microsoft can’t even recognize the word "Vista". It wants to say "beast of". Could this be a sign? Is it an omen???

And that’s all for my first speech recognition post… Now go check on your widget!