Wei Kiat's Blog

GooGNews- Good News for Google News Users

A customizable, user-friendly and FREE toolbar that allows you immediate access to the lastest Google headline news, GooGNews is a must-have for users who wants to be constantly updated with the lastest events or happenings, and armed with the lastest piece of information that is made availabe on the Internet.

Why not just go to Google News? Keeping a browser open all the time just to keep abreast of the news is not always practical. GooGNews comes to the rescue! Don't miss out on the news just because you don't want to open a web browser!

With GooGNews, users no longer need manually browse through scrolls of irrevelant news in the Google News to obtain the information they wanted. No longer do they need to check their mail more than frequently to be updated with the lastest headline news. GooGNews do so much work of you, that it makes news browsing seems so easy, fast and convenient.

And it won't take up much space in your desktop. The headline of all Google news are summarized and displayed in just one line, taking up approximately only 5% of your total desktop space!

Moreover, GooGNews comes with a powerful search bar. The bar allows you to search all major search engines and dictionaries. Before is a full list of search engine services that you can access directly through GooGNews Search Bar:
-Google Web
-Google Images
-Google Groups
-Google News
-Open Website (You may enter website address here to open the that website)
-Dictionary.com
-Spell Check (Powered by Dictionary.com)
-Yahoo! Web
-Yahoo! Images
-Yahoo! Directory
-Yahoo! News
-Msn Web
-Msn News
-Msn Dictionary
-Msn Encarta
-Msn Stock Quotes
-Msn Movies
-Msn Shopping
(Users may request the author to add more search services to GooGNews Search Bar by sending a feedback to the author via the built in "Submit Feedback" feature in GooGNews, which can be accessed by Menu -> Help -> Submit Feedback)

Below are detailed breakdown of other features/options found in GooGNews and additional information about their usage.


1)Show Latest News Only
Use: On average, Google News Homepage contains 100++ news articles. It may seem like a good idea to display all of these news on GooGNews. In actual fact, many of the news are actually repeats. Google News works by pushing each related News one "step" down whenever a newer version of the same News is discovered. Hence, by activating "Show Latest News Only" feature, GooGNews automatically filter out older News and display only the latest. This allows you to be constantly updated about what is happening around the world without reading through all the 100++ News.
How to access: Menu->Show Latest News Only

2)Fast Scrolling
Use: Everyone read at a different speed. The default scrolling speed of headlines in GooGNews may be too slow for some, thus there is a need to provide fast readers another options. Enabling Fast Scrolling increases the scrolling speed drastically.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Fast Scrolling

3)Auto Refresh News
Use: News are not static. Updates can appear anytime. Hence, it is necessary to be updated about happenings around the world constantly. Enabling this option will cause GooGNews to automatically "Refresh News" every 30 minutes, which is not long enough for you to miss out any News update, while not short enough for you to finish going through all 100++ News if you want to.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Auto Refresh News

4)Quick View
Use: Whenever you do a search using GooGNews Search bar or click on any scrolling News article, GooGNews will attempt to launch the website. GooGNews gives you the options of viewing the website in your default web browser, or using the built in web browser in GooGNews. Enabling Quick View allows you to launch web pages using the built in browser, while disabling it cause GooGNews to lanuch web pages using your default browser. Quick View is enabled by default, and highly recommended as Quick View saves you the trouble of waiting for your web browser to load.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Quick View

5)Vibration Alert
Use: Whenever GooGNews is ready to start scrolling the latest headlines from Google News, the main GooGNews bar will vibration for a short amount of time, at the same time displaying the number of valid News articles it detected. Vibration alert engage your attention whenever News update is available.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Vibration Alert

6)Google News Home
Use: You may sometime feel the need to visit the Google News Homepage. Clicking on this allows you to do so directly.
How to access: Menu->Google News Home

7)Auto Snap To Screen Edge
Use: If this option is enabled, moving GooGNews near to any of your screen edge will cause GooGNews to automatically dock at the edge.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Auto Snap To Screen Edge

8)Set Transparency
Use: Do you like/dislike the default see-through property of GooGNews bar? Change the transparency of GooGNews by using this option.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Set Transparency

9)Submit Feedback
Use: Feed that you have any suggestions/feedbacks/comments/complaints you want to make to the author? Submit your feedback via the built in Submit Feedback system!
How to access: Menu->Help->Submit Feedback

10)GooGNews Update Manager
Use: This feature is normally hidden. It attempts to check for any GooGNews update whenever GooGNews is used. If no update is found, the update manager will quietly close itself. However, if an update is found, a dialog will be displayed, providing you with relevant information about the update and how to get it.
How to access: Menu->Help->Submit Feedback

11)Notebox
Use: Select Notebox from the menu launches a seemingly useless window which consisted of nothing but an empty textbox and a "Save" button. Infect, Notebox is quite useful. When using Quick View, you can select text from the built in web browser and drag it into the textbox in Notebox window. Pressing the save button allows you to save the textbox's content in either plain text or rich text format.
How to access: Quick View Options->Notebox

12)Spell Check
Use: Need to spell a word and simply can't recall how to spell it? No fear! GooGNew's latest feature, Spell Check allows you to check your spelling directly from the GooGNews Search bar!
How to access: Enter roughly what you think is the correct spelling of the word in the GooGNews Search bar and select "Spell Check" from the drop down list. Press enter. A dialog will shortly appear, telling you if the word is spelled correctly and giving suggestions if it is not. This feature makes use of dictionary.com to do the checking.


13)Open Website
Use: For your convenient, we can now select "Open Website" from the drop down combo of the Search Bar and enter the address of the website you wish to launch and have GooGNews open it for you either via GooGNew's built in browser or your default browser, depending on your settings.
How to access: Select "Open website" from the drop down combo of the search bar and enter the url of the website you want to open into the textbox on the left. Then, press enter.


(Other features/options not mentioned here are pretty much self-explanatory and the user should be able to determine the use of the features/options. If however any help is needed, you may reach Wei Kiat through the built in submit feedback feature.)


GooGNews Version History


Version 2.1b
-Modified the Update Manager so that it will not auto exit when the "Download Latest" button is pressed.
-Fixed a bug that causes scroller to continue scrolling even when it is not supposed to.
-Removed the "beep" sound when enter was when filling up the textbox in GooGnews search bar.
-New better looking "About" dialog.


Version 2.1
-Fixed a bug that causes webpage launch to be possible when GooGNews is vibrating.
-Changed Quick View Options button to "Quick View Menu"
-Built-in spelled check that extracts result from Dictionary.com
-The last search engine used in the previous session of GooGNews will be selected in the next session.
-Added progress bar for quick view browser
-Slightly repositioned "Quick View Menu" button and "^ Close Quick View" button.


Trouble Shooting

If GooGNews is unable to run on your computer, you may try the following solutions:

Problem: When running GooGNews, a "Beep" sound is heard and GooGNews does not excutes.
Solution: Right click on GooGNews.exe, select properties, switch to the "Compability" tab and switch the Compability mode to "Windows 2000"

Problem: "MSVBVM60.DLL" not found error when running GooGNews
Solution: VB6 runtime files are not installed. You may download them from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BF9A24F9-B5C5-48F4-8EDD-CDF2D29A79D5&displaylang=en

Problem: "Msinet.ocx" or "Richtx32.ocx" not found error"
Solution: You need to extract ALL files into the same folder as GooGNews for GooGNews to work. For windows 95 and 98, you need to register Msinet.ocx and Richtx32.ocx on your computer. More information can be found on Microsoft's webpage.

(If you experience any problems not found here and feels that it is not a unqiue case, you may reach Wei Kiat through the built in submit feedback feature.)

Donation

Dear Users,

Don't you just love quality freewares? Freewares that don't include bundled nonsense and advertisements that we don't even look at? I hate such crap as much as you do!! That's why all my freewares come with no string attached!!

You may be wondering, why would creating search a simple freeware incur cost? The answer is simple. To code, you need a computer, and a computer use a large amount of electricity. This is just one of the many examples of how cost is incurred by just creating a freeware.

However, the sad truth is that although this freeware was developed mostly out of interest and passion for programming, some cost are incurred in the process. Thus, although I dislike the idea of covering such costs by bundling nonsenses with my freeware, these costs need to be accounted for in one form or other.

Also, I'm currently only a student schooling in one of the top schools in this country. This means that although I wish to, I just could not find time to get any part time job to add on to my small amount of pocket money. My parents are not rich, and they only make enough to go by. Even this computer I'm using right now is sponsored 100% by my dad's company. Buying a computer is an unthinkable burden, even though computers are getting cheaper and cheaper each day.

To sum it up, I would like a small donation from you if you are generous enough. Any amount would do, as it would be a great help to me. Gifts in the form of electronic products are also welcomed. To protect my privacy, i shall no post any mailing information here. Instead, if you are kind enough to donate, please contact me at tayweikiat@gmail.com

Yours truly,
Tay Wei Kiat
Developer of GooGNews



Special Thanks To:

Koh Poh Wei (Documentation & Alpha Testing)
Koh Poh Kiat (Alpha Testing)
Teh Ming Han (Alpha Testing)
Ee Jin Guan (Alpha Testing)
Mok Li Qian (Alpha Testing)
Teng Eng Kuan (Alpha Testing)
Lim Yang Xiang (Alpha Testing)

And all others whom i have unintentionally left out.



Screenshoot url: http://free.prohosting.com/unignal3/files/screenshot.jpg
Download url: http://free.prohosting.com/unignal3/files/GooGNews.zip