GoogleGet
Note:
I have decided to cease development of GoogleGet. This is mainly due to the fact that Google News now offers RSS feeds of headlines, which renders GoogleGet pretty much obsolete. For now I will leave the last released version of GoogleGet online (all the old info is to the right) but I will not be making any updates or offering any support.
There are many programs available to download RSS feeds, personally I would recommend iPodSoft as being a good place to start if you're interested in that route. I am considering developing my own RSS software, but that will be a fair way off.
Mark, 2005-09-25
Known Issues:
This list details all the known problems with the last released version of GoogleGet.
- News formatting for France, Spain and possibly some other countries is broken. The only work around is to simply set GoogleGet to download US/World news.
- There appears to be a bug when connecting to download weather information. I've not fully looked into this problem.
- There are loads of new localizations on Google that are missing from GoogleGet.
- A while ago I had some reports that Avast! AntiVirus falsely detected GoogleGet as a trojan, I'm not sure if they ever fixed this behaviour or not.
Current Version: 1.3.2
2005-01-23
Introduction:
GoogleGet is a small program designed to download the latest news and weather information from news.google.com (or a local variation) and weatherroom.com in the quickest and simplest way possible.
After a one off configuration you simply run the program and it will instantly connect to Google, download the latest headlines in the categories you specified, format them appropriately and transfer them to your iPod.
Help:
To install, simply download and run the setup program. All the options in GoogleGet are explained within the program. However, you will need to know how to access the Configuration screen. This is done by either running the program with the command line switch '/config' or simply using the shortcut that should have been created in your Start Menu during installation. Check the included FAQ for further information.
Required Files:
GoogleGet is written in Visual Basic and as such requires two ocx objects to be present on your system before it will run - 'mswinsck.ocx' and 'tabctl32.ocx'. Most systems already have these files installed, however if you need either then download the appropriate file here.
To install, simply extract the file to 'C:\Windows\System32' (for XP), 'C:\WINNT\System32' (for 2000/NT) or 'C:\Windows\System' (for 98/95) and register by clicking Start > Run and typing the command 'regsvr32 <filename>', replacing <filename> with either 'mswinsck.ocx' or 'tabctl32.ocx'.
Download:
Download the GoogleGet source code or binary below. The source code is written in Visual Basic 6 and is (reasonably) well commented. If you alter the code or use sections of it in your own project then I expect to be given the appropriate credit. If you produce a new version of GoogleGet or anything else you think I'd be interested in then please let me know.