Download Gadget Manager (click ‘save as’ to save the program somewhere to run it from…no installation is necessary)

Here’s a little helper app for the sidebar. The main purpose of this first version is for easily switching the sidebar between 32 bit and 64 bit modes. We may add more functionality to this app later if there is a need. We also threw in a link to “view a list of running gadgets” since this menu is not as easy to find in Win7 as in Vista.

You’ll also notice there is an option to always run the sidebar in 32 bit mode. This is an experimental feature that will basically hijack the sidebar anytime it’s started(like when Windows restarts) and make it run the 32 bit version instead. This can be very handy so you don’t have to always manually reset the sidebar to 32 bit mode. Make sure however if you check this box, not to delete the Gadget Manager program since it’s required to handle this feature.

If you ever get an error like “Windows cannot find ”. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.” that means the sidebar is set to always run in 32 bit mode, but on startup, it couldn’t find Gadget Manager to do this. This can happen if you move or delete the Gadget Manager.exe file. The solution is just to start up the Gadget Manager from wherever it is located(redownload the file if you’ve deleted it) and it should automatically reset the settings to handle the 32 bit sidebar again.

The program can also be run with command line arguments(useful if you want to create shortcuts). Here are the arguments:
/rac – Run a command and then close the gadget manager(without this the manager window stays open)
/go64 – Switch sidebar to 64 bit mode
/go32 – Switch sidebar to 32 bit mode

So “Gadget Manager.exe /rac /go32″ will switch the sidebar into 32 bit mode.

Ok sorry about the quick re-release here but we had a few quick bugs to address.

- First of all we had an alarm issue causing alarms to stop functioning if the last alarm played was not a repeating one. Hopefully this is fixed now and the alarms should work correctly.
- We also changed the alarm handling slightly to allow duplicate alarms to sound at the scheduled time(they’ll sound one after the other). This only works for talking alarms and no repeating alarms. A more involved solution that includes sound files and repeating alarms will be implemented later.
- Fixed an issue with the settings pages not hiding the OK/Cancel buttons properly
- Added hotkey support for the clock(Enter – Talk | M – Mute | Up/Down – Volume)

Well hopefully we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of the issue we’ve had recently with some people not being able to view the newer gadgets. A small coding difference was causing the problems on some machines for a still unknown reason. In any event we’ve modified the gadget so hopefully it will now work for all of you. If anyone is continuing to have the issue of nothing appearing when they run the gadget, or any other problems, let us know!

Thanks to user input we’ve fixed the following issues:
- Clock not displaying at all for some people
- Lithuanian day/month names
- %time/%date spoken twice or more if entered into a string more than once
- Time zone issue where incorrect times are displayed when other time zones are selected

We’ve added the following features to the new version:
- Ability to use wav files for alarms instead of just spoken text
- Option to repeat the alarm sound or text until the clock is clicked
- Option to make the clock flash when an alarm goes off until the clock is clicked.

As many of you know, our latest gadgets haven’t been properly appearing for some of you. We’ve been racking our brains trying to figure out the cause and now are hoping you guys can help us. This post is for anyone who can successfully install and use Talking Clock 1.31 but Talking Clock 1.4 doesn’t show up. We’re hoping you can test a few things out for us and let us know what works and what doesn’t.

We’ve created a step by step transition from version 1.31 to 1.4. So step1 is basically Talking Clock 1.31 and step12 is basically Talking Clock 1.4. If you’re interested in helping us we would very much appreciate your time in this matter so we could get this issue solved once and for all. Just start at step one and install each of them until you find the first one that doesn’t install properly for you and let us know which one it was. That will tell us where exactly the problem is occurring so we can fix it. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to do this!

(step1)TalkingClock.gadget
(step2)TalkingClock.gadget
(step3)TalkingClock.gadget
(step4)TalkingClock.gadget
(step5)TalkingClock.gadget
(step6)TalkingClock.gadget
(step7)TalkingClock.gadget
(step8)TalkingClock.gadget
(step9)TalkingClock.gadget
(step10)TalkingClock.gadget
(step11)TalkingClock.gadget
(step12)TalkingClock.gadget

Remember to go back and uninstall them as all of these versions will install as seperate gadgets in your gadget list.

***UPDATE***
With some help from users we think we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of the issue. If you want to test the fix we’ve created and let us know if it works for you, there are two we’ve posted(fix11,fix12) at the bottom of the comments.

Many of you have been experiencing complete failures of our new versions of gadgets and we’re working on figuring that problem out. Obviously it’s one of our new modules and we’re trying to pinpoint exactly where the error is occuring. Since we don’t want to remove the newer features, we’re hoping to find the source of the problem and fix it rather than getting rid of the new modules. It’s taking longer than we had hoped, but hopefully soon we’ll have things smoothed out. We’re holding off on all updates until we can solve this problem once and for all. Please bear with us.

UPDATE: If you have not been able to get this version to show up but the previous version works for you, this is a common problem. We’ve been working on this for awhile and have now uploaded a few test versions for people to try out. If you’re having problems, please try out the tests here and let us know if any of them work for you. Thanks for your patience!

Not a huge update as far as functional changes. We mainly released this update right now only because someone pointed out a major bug to us. The alarm was failing to go off at all if you had it set for specific days of the week. So we’ve fixed that bug and released it now with the few other updates we’ve gotten in so far.

We switched the settings pages over to our new style. This should make things easier since the clock has so many settings pages(even more now).

We also updated the date/time file to the one we created for our Custom Calendar. Now you have the option of over 60 languages to choose from to display the date.(Day/Month names)

That’s about it for changes other than a couple other minor bug fixes. You may have also noticed we recently posted some info for getting more voices. It’s not the most comprehensive list but it’s the best we could do after many hours searching around for free available voices. The post with instructions on getting them is here. As always, questions and comments are welcome. Let us know if we screwed anything up!

We’ve had numerous requests for more voices for our Talking Clock. Unfortunately as many of you are aware, Windows typically comes with just one voice installed(Anna). There are many voices out there available but are expensive. Well we’ve scoured the interwebs for free voices and have come up fairly dry. If you’re looking for a voice that sounds better than the default voice Anna, you’re probably out of luck. If you’re just looking for something different, or capable of other languages, you might find something here you like. We’ve listed what we’ve found but if anyone has any additions for the list, please let us know.

Lili – Chinese/English
1: Download this file. When given the option, you can either choose open, or save as(and then open later).
2: With the zip file open, drag the “zh-CHS” folder into the folder “C:\Program Files\Common Files\SpeechEngines\Microsoft” on your computer.
3: Download and execute this file.

Emily – English(UK)
Download and run this file to install.

Isabel – Spanish
Download and run this file to install.

Virginie – French
Download and run this file to install.

Steffi – German
Download and run this file to install. Thanks to andreas for finding this one.

The first voice is a Microsoft voice for their Chinese Windows versions. Fortunately, this voice also seems to speak English. Emily also speaks English and is probably the best alternative to Anna if you’re looking for an English speaking voice. The others are mostly only good if you’re trying to get the clock to speak in the respective language.

If anyone finds another Sapi 5 voice out there, please post here or email us so we can post it for others.

We didn’t post any of these files and can’t speak as to the legality of them so download at your own risk.

***UPDATE***
As far as we know, all of these voices are only available as 32 bit voices. If you’ve installed any of them but they still don’t appear in the list of voices to choose from, chances are you’re running a 64 bit sidebar that can’t use 32 bit voices. The only solution is to run the sidebar in 32 bit mode. We’ve created a simple app that will allow you to do this called Gadget Manager. Use it to switch the sidebar into 32 bit mode to see the extra voices. If you want them to always be available, you should select “Always start in 32 bit mode”. Let us know if everything works ok!

I finally got into fantasy football this year and when I saw that there aren’t any gadgets out there I figured I’d whip up one for our site. I wanted to be able to keep track of current standings and points without having to check the site all the time so there’s an auto refresh feature that keeps the page updated at whatever rate you want. I was hoping to be able to add the functionality to change your roster and write messages but unfortunately Yahoo is very protective of certain information and functionalities.

To access your teams, you need to log into your Yahoo account and agree to share your information. After doing this, they’ll give you a code to enter back into Fantasy Sidekick. After you’ve done this, it should take you right to your roster. If you have more than one league you can choose from them in the “My Leagues” page. This page and others are available from the dropdown menu that appears when you click the heading at the top of the page.

As is right now, you can view rosters, messages, transactions, standings, and matchups for any league. We’ve only tested on football and basketball, but it should work with any fantasy sport available at Yahoo. Hopefully we’ll be able to add more data and functions as Yahoo expands their API, allowing us further access.

If anyone has any suggestions on what you’d like to see in a future release, or if something’s not working quite right, please let us know. Good luck with your fantasy teams!

Quick update here. Had a suggestion to add a favorites list so we’ve added that as well as a search page. Choose between the icons on the top right of the gadget to either view all gadgets, view favorites or search gadgets. Right click a gadget to add/remove it from the favorites list.

We changed the background method to show icons so that should speed the gadget up a bit. Also you now have an option to display large icons.

Just a mini update here. We added a loading progress bar when you first open and the gadget list is loading.

The Gadget Launcher got rejected in Windows Live Gallery on the first attempt, so our assumption is that it might be freezing their computer since they probably have hundreds or thousands of gadgets installed that this is trying to load.