I will write more about this later, but I purchased a brand new HP Pavillion laptop today that had Windows Vista on it. And as I was checking out the features, I started looking for more Gadgets (the same thing as the widgets on a Mac, except Windows shows it on the right hand side of the desktop), and I ran across some interesting stuff.

Windows offers a developers section for everybody to learn how to create new gadgets for the Windows sidebar, and many other things. I was pleasantly surprised. If these things existed for the longest time, please excuse my ignorance, but Microsoft certainly did not market it so well over the last few years. Everybody knew Firefox could be extended by countless add-ons made by developers all over the world, and the same thing applied to the Mac OSX’s widgets. And even Wordpress is famous for its ability to handle plug-ins. However. The only SDK (Software Development Kit) I’ve ever handled from Microsoft was the Microsoft Live Local Maps SDK (which, by the way, kicked Google Map API SDK’s ASS! This SDK was so much easier to understand and experiment with!).

Here is the API/SDK guide to Microsoft Gadgets and much more. 

If you are a developer who enjoys developing your own add-ons and what not, this might be a good opportunity.

Now that I think of it, the MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) has been around for a while, but I just did not feel that it got enough light as other API guides and SDKs, only because Microsoft did not market them very well, as I already mentioned. The coolest addons I saw on Windows XP were the Windows XP Powertoys (which were quite handy, by the way) but addons, gadgets and what not were pretty much non-existent, and people were unaware of it.

The new Windows Vista, however, has caught up with Mac and Firefox when it comes to the extendability of software and functionalities. Of course there are those who criticize Microsoft for copying from Macs, but hey, if it’s good, you follow it. I say Microsoft did a fine job with Vista, and if they had tried to go their own way again and try to make it too different, it may have ended up in a product with lower quality than what it is.

I will write further about my new laptop, and Windows Vista.