The Amnesty Generator (Windows, Macintosh) tries to fill this gap by providing a clever way to convert thousands of web widgets to Vista gadgets that can be placed in the sidebar. The program is free and absolutely easy to use. All it needs is the html code of the widget to automatically convert it into a Vista sidebar gadget. The html code is displayed when you select a widget from the many databases that offer them.

It is for instance possible to add Google Gadgets, feed from Grazr, Youtube videos or games from several arcades to the Vista sidebar.

The Amnesty Generator has a large list of websites that offer web widgets which can be accessed by visiting them in your default browser. All you need to do is find the code to embed the widget into your own website and copy that code from the website.

Paste it into Step 2 of the Generator and customize the Sidebar gadget further by assigning a name and width & height for it. Those values are filled out automatically but you can change them if you want. Last but not least you can add an image which can be used to recognize the vista gadget in the gadget browser.

source: Windows Vista Tweaks