Filed under: Design, Windows, Freeware, Mods
Get the Vista sidebar in XP
by Jason Clarke Nov 17th 2008 at 11:00AM
While Vista has now been available for almost two years now, there are a lot of people that are happily sticking with XP, myself included. And while there aren't enough flashy features to tempt me to switch to Vista, one that I do like the look of is the Vista sidebar. Happily, deviantart user joshoon has posted a package that allows you to install the real Vista sidebar on your Windows XP computer. Installing the sidebar consists of installing three packages: Alky for Applications, Windows Sidebar Installer, and Gadget Extractor. Alky for Applications is where the magic happens allowing Vista-specific software to run under XP. An interesting side-effect of installing the Windows Sidebar Installer is that the Vista-specific fonts are added to your XP installation.
Because this is an XP-compatible version of the actual Vista sidebar rather than a copy, all of the widgets that you could install in Vista will work on XP.
[via Lifehacker]
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jack said 12:03PM on 11-17-2008
There is always the free Yahoo! Widget Engine that I use...anything beats a Microsoft product
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Superevil said 12:12PM on 11-17-2008
A couple years back I used to use Desktop Sidebar. Actually a bit better than the Vista Sidebar IMO.
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/
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Adam Maras said 12:18AM on 11-18-2008
Just an FYI: Alky for Application is brought to you in part by the same fellow that's been digging up the shiny new hidden features in Windows 7.
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Wil said 9:46AM on 11-18-2008
XP has been able to do this for several years now. It's called Yahoo! Widgets and Google Desktop Sidebar.
Neither is very useful, but both look better than the Windows version (which also isn't very useful). These sidebars are just a way to fill all that space provided by the new widescreen monitors.
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Bryce said 3:28AM on 1-21-2009
Side bar works great EXCEPT the "Currency" gadget does not work - the one that shows the exchamge rate between 2 currencies. Any ideas on how to get it working?
Bryce
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