By Thomas Ford.
Wednesday, 5. July 2006, 14:29:18
rock and roll, A-ha, journey, johnny cash
...
Ever since VH1's series Behind the Music, I've always rooted for a good comeback. Rock and roll with all its excesses is full of them: Journey, Norway's own A-Ha and Johnny Cash spring to mind. Our little competition is no exception to the great comeback story. After a few weeks out of the spotlight,
Johnnysaucepn has added his second win.
I know the life of a famous widget developer isn't too far from a rock and roll star. The fame, the money, the entourage. Johnnysaucepn fought through all the trappings of widget fame to produce one of his best yet.
hearthePeople is an awesome widget that tracks and plays a variety of podcasts. You can even subscribe to your favorite if you know the URL. Freaking sweet.
Rock on, Johnnysaucepn. Got some
ThinkGeek prizes coming your way!
By Thomas Ford.
Friday, 23. June 2006, 01:08:42
Thinkgeek, prizes, sweet offer
You've seen Holger (2x), Johnnysaucepn and Benjamin (3x) walk away with some excellent
ThinkGeek necessities. But now it's time to lock and load your
AirZooka's my friends because they're coming for us...in a good way.
ThnkGeek has really supported the My Opera widget competition and when they saw we released Opera 9, they wanted to celebrate with us. So now everyone on My Opera has a special deal awaiting them courtesy of ThinkGeek. Aren't these guys cool?
From now until the 4th of July, you can take $5 off of any purchase of $30 or more from
ThinkGeek. Simply use the code "Opera" when you place your order. The fine print mentions that it excludes shipping and handling.
This offer is good for any My Opera community member so go ahead and celebrate the lazy days of summer with some excellent new toys.
By Thomas Ford.
Tuesday, 9. May 2006, 15:51:33
widget, competition, Thinkgeek, prizes
It's a fact: we want widgets. 500 of them to be precise. So tell your friends, lovers and enemies to get ready, cause we want to find the best widget and will go to great lengths to get it.
During the next three months, we're giving away a total of 13 prizes to the developers who create the most impressive widgets. Widgets that excite the imagination with fresh ideas. Widgets that show off cool features. Or widgets that are so much fun, you forget to shower.
Our friends at ThinkGeek 
are offering a grab bag of awesome toys and gadgets to the best widget each week. Just look at their site and tell me there aren't 10 things that would instantly make your life cooler. But we don't stop there, folks. We're giving away Nokia 770s - the portable Internet tablet - to the best widget for each month. And then...the Grand Prize awarded to the Widget Idol as voted on by our judges.
At The Gathering, we gave away the ultimate high performance computer built by the experts at Digital Impuls. That baby was a monster. For this competition we're giving away...
Wait! That surprise needs its own post.
So run through our tutorials, read the documentation and get coding. The first week's prize will be awarded on the 16th. The Small Print
Criteria
We kept it the same as the Gathering. Our panel of expert judges will determine the winner based on the following:
Your widget should:
be very easy to use
have a well defined purpose
comply with standards
look good!
Your widget should not:
have bugs
waste resources
have ugly code
Each of these will be ranked from 0 to 100 (and 0 to -100 for the 'should not' list), and then added. The highest scoring widget each week will win that week's prize by ThinkGeek. The top scoring widget of the month will win the Nokia 770. The overall highest scoring widget will win the mysterious Grand Prize...
To enter
Simply upload a widget from http://my.opera.com/community/customize/widgets/submit/
if it gets posted on our 'New Widgets' Page withing a few days after submission it means that it has been judged, ranked, scored and entered in the competition
Deadline
Submission deadline for each week is Monday morning 10AM CET. The Widget of the Month will be the best widget submitted in the past four weeks.
More chances to win
You can update your widget and still win. If your widget didn't win the prize for its week, update your widget and send a mail to widgetcomp[at]opera.com telling us what you changed. Your widget will then be re-entered into the competition. Everyone has a chance to win. Everyone except Opera employees.
Disclaimer: Opera disclaims all liabilities and responsibilities regarding the widgets submitted as part of this competition. The participant agrees to bear all liabilities and responsibilites with regard to the widgets he/she submits as part of this competition. The authors retain copyright of submitted widgets, but widgets must either have a BSD-compatible license or be placed in the public domain. All judges' decisions remain final.
(55%)
WIDGETIZE