Blogger Gadgets

Today in class we were instructed to explore Blogger's gadgets feature. A gadget on Blogger is a special tool designed to improve user experience or provide entertainment. It is an external feature that can be added to your blog, and easily changed or removed. While searching through the gadgets, I found many things, especially clocks and timers, daily quotes, and virtual pets. I personally added the Google Translate gadget for convenience, and the Digital Clock - DWR gadget for precise time measurement. It also provides you with a way to catch up with me when you are not in my time zone. Gadgets can be very useful in portraying information, or simply just adding something fun and interesting to your blog.

Google Translate gadget.

FEEDJIT Live Traffic gadget.

List gadget.

Digital Clock - DWR gadget.

Flag Counter gadget.

To add a gadget to your blog, you must go to your blog's settings, and choose template. There will be white bars with "Add Gadget" written in blue.

Click on that, and a new window will open. It will ask you to choose a gadget from the provided Blogger list, choose a gadget from the user-provided list, or upload your own gadget. When you have chosen a gadget, click the blue plus sign to add it to your blog. Some gadgets will allow customization, others may not.
Once your gadget is on your blog, you can go back in and edit or remove it by clicking on the wrench and screwdriver tool, shown below.

Five honorable mentions that I have found in my search include the Google Translate gadget, the Digital Clock - DWR gadget, the Daily Spock Quote gadget, the HTML gadget, which I will speak about later, and the Wikipedia gadget.

I added the Digital Clock - DWR gadget, the Google Translate gadget, and many HTML gadgets to my blog. Examples of HTML gadgets include the FEEDJIT Live Traffic gadget, and the Flag Counter gadget. When you choose an HTML gadget, a box will appear where you type in the HTML code. You can also use this function to use gadgets from other sites that give you the HTML code for their product. I did not add the Wikipedia gadget due to lack of usage on my blog, and I did not add the Daily Spock Quote gadget solely because this is meant to be a school blog. Sorry. I added the Digital Clock - DWR gadget to my blog for the purpose of keeping precise time, and to allow users to catch up or slow down to my time zone as to keep up with my post times, along with adding a basis for translating time from wherever the user is to CDT. All it does is keep track of time, as with a watch or such device. I added the Google Translate gadget to allow users to translate my blog into their native language. The user can utilize a drop-down bar to select a language, and every word on the blog is instantly translated into their selected language. The Wikipedia gadget does as it says, and allows you to search Wikipedia from the blog. The Spock Quotes gadget lists off random Spock quotes whenever you refresh the page, despite its name containing the word "Daily".