Filed under: Utilities, Features, Windows, Microsoft
A bunch of fun and productivity-boosting gadgets for Windows 7
by Sebastian Anthony Oct 29th 2009 at 5:00PM
Note: If you're going to be installing third-party gadgets, you'll be faced with a confirmation dialogue before they can install:
Just hit 'Install'! With that out of the way, on with the show!
Some gadget niches are missing; most notably: an RSS reader! There are still relatively few gadgets compared to other computer customisations and, perhaps surprisingly, there are no decent RSS readers as a result.
The only good one seems to be Google's own gadget which only works with Google Desktop. If someone out there wants to design an RSS feed-reading gadget that can log into Google Reader... you'd be a very popular man.
The best I can offer you is a system-tray notifier called GRaiN that was featured over on Lifehacker in July. Or, if you want to subscribe to a few individual feeds, the Hermes RSS reader gadget might satisfy you.
I've also not mentioned the thousands of system-diagnostic gadgets, or the Google Search gadgets -- I figured I would try and show you some new gadgets that you might not have seen before!
 1. Weather Bug: One of the things you'll soon notice about the gadgets I'm sharing here is that they all do one specific thing, and they do it well. I hate feature-creep. If I want to know the current weather -- then show me the damn weather. Weather Bug lets you select a nearby weather station and shows you everything you might need to know: current temperature (Celsius or Fahrenheit), forecasted high and low, wind speed, and the current cloudiness (or lack of). There's also a link for extended website-based information, and even a webcam stream if your weather station has one! |
 2. UEFA Informer: Here's one for the non-Americans (do Canadians like soccer?) -- a football gadget! Keep track of every major football (soccer) league in Europe, from Italian to English to even the Champion's League.The greatest thing about this gadget is you can even pull up the recent results and upcoming matches in a given league, or for your favourite/most hated team. There's an option in the settings to show even more leagues, so I assume it will be be kept updated -- perhaps to show the World Cup when that finally ticks around next summer? |
 3. Gmail Reader: There isn't really much I can say about this one. It tells you when you receive new mail. It tells you how many unread mail you currently have. It shows you the subject and sender of your unread mail.What more do you want? |
 4. TweetZ: Apparently created to do away with the annoyances inherent to Twadget, TweetZ is a full-featured Twitter tool disguised as a desktop gadget. Unfortunately its default setting is to tweet some birdsong annoyingly every time someone twits, but it's easy to turn off. As you can see in the screenshot, links are replaced with [link], and you can mouse-over them to see where they link to -- it even expands the link-shortening services, so you can actually see where you're going! And it doesn't seem to steal away all of your CPU cycles like Tweetdeck does... |
 5.Facebook Explorer: Now you can stalk your friends without constantly alt-tabbing back to your Facebook browser tab! Not only can you see pending friend requests or event invitations but you can also see if you've been poked -- life-altering, I know! All of your friend's updates are here too, with a break-out box popping-up to give you more details if you click on an update.You can't seem to comment on or 'like' anything though -- perhaps that will come at a later date? Or maybe this gadget has been designed with the idea of improving your productivity at work...? So there is a God... Either way, confining Facebook to a gadget would seem like a sensible thing to do. I imagine most of us know what it feels like to be sucked into the Facebook Void, sometimes never to resurface. |
Some gadget niches are missing; most notably: an RSS reader! There are still relatively few gadgets compared to other computer customisations and, perhaps surprisingly, there are no decent RSS readers as a result.
The only good one seems to be Google's own gadget which only works with Google Desktop. If someone out there wants to design an RSS feed-reading gadget that can log into Google Reader... you'd be a very popular man.
The best I can offer you is a system-tray notifier called GRaiN that was featured over on Lifehacker in July. Or, if you want to subscribe to a few individual feeds, the Hermes RSS reader gadget might satisfy you.
I've also not mentioned the thousands of system-diagnostic gadgets, or the Google Search gadgets -- I figured I would try and show you some new gadgets that you might not have seen before!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dracula Jones said 5:12PM on 10-29-2009
I'd love to find a good use for W7 gadgets, but even the ones listed here are better handled by other apps in a similar fashion. Digsby handles Facebook and Twitter accounts and alerts beautifully from the systray. And the Weatherbug Firefox addon looks like it actually gives you more info in 1/10th the space.
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Sebastian Anthony said 5:18PM on 10-29-2009
Yup, you're not wrong. Apparently the Windows widget interfacing/code is a bit nasty to play with, thus the lack of development.
Some are OK though! But yes... in most cases, I think there might be better standalone apps.
Evolyptic said 9:29PM on 10-29-2009
Which is why I jumped ship from Widgets; Except for a few rainmeter ones; to Adobe Air applications.
Josh said 5:58PM on 10-29-2009
My fav is the Pandora gadget. I don't think many people know about it.
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Sebastian Anthony said 6:12PM on 10-29-2009
Link it!
Josh said 9:30PM on 10-29-2009
http://www.pandora.com/on-windowsgadget
novettam said 6:56PM on 10-29-2009
I'm only using 4 gadgets right now:
MSN weather 2.0 - i like it because it is shiny ofc :D and the 4 day forecast at a glance and dynamic background that reflects current weather conditions.
Wired Network Meter - just to get the network stats, like network traffic i made since i booted up the pc.
Hattrick Gadget - To monitor my "fantasy soccer" team :D
Eve Online SkillWatch - To monitor the training progress of my EVE Online character.
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Sebastian Anthony said 6:57PM on 10-29-2009
Ooh, I like the sound of the EVE one! That's quite clever. If only other MMOs had offline skill training...
There are an awful lot of resource-manager gadgets. Seriously, pages and pages of your-fan-speed-is-X-rpm gadgets. Crazy stuff.
mko said 6:57PM on 10-29-2009
"do Canadians like soccer?"
I'm also curious about that
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sitruc said 10:14AM on 11-02-2009
TFC and all the euro-poseurs suck.
Sam J said 10:09PM on 10-29-2009
Not seeing anything remotely productivity-boosting here...
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Sebastian Anthony said 10:16PM on 10-29-2009
Less time spent on Facebook! Less time searching for the weather at your summer house!
Less time hammering refresh on your Gmail inbox...?
No? I'm all out.
Brian said 12:30AM on 10-30-2009
Hermes is a pretty decent and simple RSS reader. I had a uTorrent monitor too that was slick, I think it's just called uTorrent.
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Rocketboy_X said 8:56AM on 10-30-2009
Oh no, not weatherbug. Have they stopped with the whole spyware/malware yet?
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TurboFool said 1:46PM on 11-02-2009
WheatherBug? Seriously? Anything from WeatherBug's one of the first things I uninstall from a client's systems. Is their gadget any less repugnant?
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Sebastian Anthony said 3:07PM on 11-02-2009
It seems to tell the weather... accurately... and give me more information if I need it...
I guess it passes the test as 'a weather gadget', then :)
TurboFool said 3:12PM on 11-02-2009
Yes, but what it does isn't my issue, it's what malware and background processes it installs with it that's my concern.
Sebastian Anthony said 3:18PM on 11-02-2009
Hehe, it's just a gadget. It's available on the MS site. It's just javascript and formatting as far as I know... nothing 'executable'.
TurboFool said 4:53PM on 11-02-2009
Fair enough, with that in mind I withdraw my complaint. But if you ever recommend the executable, you'll be hearing from me again! ;)
moby said 12:40AM on 11-05-2009
I agree w/Turbofool and Rocketboy, I can't believe you'd recommend a tool of a spam engine like weatherbug.
To all potential users, DON'T! I signed up with a unique email and within 24 hours, my inbox was flooded with spam.
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