Ultimate Word-of-the-Day

To help me prepare for the SAT, I wrote a "Word of the Day" desktop widget that consolidated the word-of-the-days from several different websites. (This was before I switched to Linux during my senior year of high school, and when I used Konfabulator (later Yahoo!) Widgets on Windows XP.)

It was a phenomenal success! My widget received over 20,000 downloads. No piece of code I have written before or after has spawned so much love and devotion. I do not actively develop it anymore, but I have updated it on occasion when people tell me the dictionary sources are broken. In fact, some of the highest reviews I have gotten have been from people pleading with me to fix the sources because they love this software so much. Last time I checked (2011-11-01), it was still available for download at http://widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/ultimate-wotd/ Yahoo! discontinued the Yahoo! Widget platform in March 2012.

Ultimate WOTD by William Hilton. This Widget grabs the Word of the Day from multiple sources, and provides the pronunciations(s), definition(s), usage examples, etymology, and even audio pronunciations when available! It also provides a link back to the source's webpage. This is a great way to increase your vocabulary, especially if you are preparing for the SAT or PSAT!
A screenshot of my widget in the Yahoo! Widget Gallery

Here are some of the raving reviews people wrote, in reverse chronological order:

Simply phenomenal. Don't even bother with the other dictionary widgets; this is the only one you'll ever need. It is perfect in every way. Thank you William for fixing it!

This is a really great widget. It's really unfortunate that it has been abandoned. Dictionary.com and Mirriam Webster are not working for me. I decided to use the whole yahoo widget software instead of the windows vista sidebar just for this particular widget. I am hoping that these will somehow get fixed especially the dictionary.com

This sir, is an awesome widget. It's a logophile's wet dream and my favorite widget by far! I am so disappointed you won't be continuing it. Is there any chance you would reconsider? Please? PLEASE?!? ...

Great widget! The variety of selection, and ease of use make it the ultimate utility for any widget collection. Thank you for providing this widget!

The success of this widget has led me to contemplate making a phone app version. However, I am not pursuing that at this time.