NZMac.com - Supporting the New Zealand Mac community

The NZMac.com widget featured the talent of two very creative people (and I just tagged along for the ride) and we've welcomed others taking up using the widget and/or making use of the code that we'd included and released under the "Creative Commons License".

One such widget to come from the NZMac.com gene pool has just been listed on the Apple.com website as their "Featured Widget" and Jeff from the Podcast Shuffle Show (www.podcastshuffle.com) got in touch to say thanks.

Those unfamiliar with  the "Creative Commons License" might like to take a look at the website (creativecommons.org). It's a no-nonsense, straightforward way of indicating how you expect your source code to be used, credited etc if people take it and make use of it.

As those of you that have read the NZMac.com Forum recently will know, not everyone that takes the NZMac.com widget makes the most appropriate use of it, so we're very pleased to see that not only has Jeff taken and made great use of the code (and congrats for being featured on the Apple site) by that he's not claimed copyright or anything like that....but instead, given credit on the back of the widget to NZMac.com...thanks Jeff!

This is what the Mac community and the Creative Commons Licenses encourages. It's Ok to ask for support...and get it...but it's important to give back to the community in the same way. And it's also important to acknowledge those that helped with your contribution.

We're getting a lot of great comments from people around the world about the widget and it's great to be able to feed back into a community that's supportive, encouraging and that recognises everyone's contribution, as much as I acknowledge Cian and Craig's contribution.

I have no doubt that the thing that makes the NZMac.com widget catch everyone's eye is that it just looks so darn good. The fact that it works so well once you start using it, just makes me even more pleased to see it out there and being used.

I've just bought myself the electronic version of the "Mac OS X Technology Guide to Dashboard" (www.spiderworks.com/books/dashboard.php) as I really enjoyed the experience of starting the widget, doing a little coding and then having Cian and Craig come on board and fix things up (what am I silly?...I shouldn't have bought the book at all and just get them to do it all!!). I am literally 18 pages into the 228 page book and already it's proving to have some great advice, so I'm really pleased.

I'm going to spend some time reading and who knows, we may see a more refined, maybe smaller(?) and more versatile widget in the future...but who knows? In the meantime folks...help yourself, read the license in the code, congrats to Jeff again....and enjoy.

[Update 1]
A search of the Apple site produces some interesting widgets that have been based partly on the NZMac.com widget...

• FilmTotaal 
• Games4Mac Widget
• MacOSX.nl
  

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