Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Dashboard Widgets I Use 3

This is an update to the post I did 2 years ago, Dashboard Widgets I Use. I had stopped using Dashboard because it used too much memory. With Leopard the widgets share a process and use much less memory. I also stopped because with Quicksilver I could get to anything on the web with a keystroke. I still have no need for widgets that just allow you to enter searches to appear in a browser window (again I use Quicksilver for that). So this is what I'm running now with Leopard:

  • Weather - I probably check the weather 3 times a day and this Apple widget remembers where I am, shows a lot of info, in a little space, and is very pretty.
  • RadarInMotion - This is a great addition to the Weather widget. I have it cycle between a radar and satellite view. It uses a lot of memory but it lets me know if that 30% chance of rain will actually happen where I am.
  • Stocks - Just like the weather, it's easy to check several stocks a few times a day
  • Calendar - Nice to see a calendar in easy reach without having to open iCal. Since the clock in the menubar doesn't show the date, this is an easy solution. There is a 3rd pane you can open to see a list of todays events. The iCal Events widgets can show a list of several days worth of events.
  • iStat nano - This is the best of the system status widgets. It's very small and the overview shows CPU, Memory, and Disk Usage, network throughput, and temperature.
  • Minutes - I keep looking for a good simple timer widget and this is the one I'm currently using.
  • StatCounter - I use to monitor hits on this blog.
  • Delivery Status - When I have a package coming I open this widget and enter the tracking number and I have easy access to see where my stuff is. Several times I have found out my stuff has arrived by seeing it in the widget even when I'm home when it's delivered (they don't ring the bell anymore).
  • Sports Fan - is a pretty awesome scoreboard widget that shows the standings for US baseball, football, hockey and backetball. It also shows todays schedule and scores with lots of rollover details and letting you click to get to a web page with more. I don't even follow sports much and I like this widget.
  • Widget Updater - This widget checks your installed widgets on various sites to see if there have been newer versions posted and will let you download them. Easy and great.

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