The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Best sidebar gadgets?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by alkaeda, Sep 15, 2007.

  1. alkaeda

    alkaeda Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    14
    Messages:
    418
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Currently i have the default weather, clock, cpu usage, film trailers, a random pic gadget, rss news feeds and a mail gadget.

    what do you use on ur sidebar? what would you recommend?
     
  2. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Mime with Tourette's

    Reputations:
    1,163
    Messages:
    3,017
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    The Windows Sidebar is rather like gadgets in Opera, fun to play with, sometime useful, often more trouble than they are worth.

    I'm currently only running the Calendar, Clock, and AccuWeather.
     

    Attached Files:

  3. Gintoki

    Gintoki Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    2,886
    Messages:
    6,566
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    I agree that windows sidebar gadgets are more trouble than their worth. I used to have it active with 3 gadgets, the weather checker, cpu reader, and calender but then i noticed that it was using a lot of cpu, and ram even though i have a good processor and 2gb ram it slowed me down pretty bad. After i disabled it i got a lot faster. Though i'd haver to say the one sidebar gadget i really liked was the cpu reader. If you like reading your system stats it's very helpful.
     
  4. Valkyrie

    Valkyrie Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    43
    Messages:
    191
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I use a Desktop Wallpaper gadget which changes my Wallpaper based on my Pictures collection every few minutes (Customizable).
    In addition, I use Presto's clock gadget. It has a clean simple date and time.
    The reason I use the clock gadget is because I have my taskbar on top, and sometimes the taskbar clock interferes with the close/minimize buttons.
     
  5. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Mime with Tourette's

    Reputations:
    1,163
    Messages:
    3,017
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    I downloaded and tried WeatherBug ... Kind of like it.

    I also downloaded something called Date, and I kind of liked the color and presentation, too bad it only had about a third or a fourth of the functionality it claimed to have. Deinstalled.
     
  6. CalebSchmerge

    CalebSchmerge Woof NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    1,126
    Messages:
    2,395
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    55
    My sidebar is using about 30MBs of memory, and not much processor (it occasionally uses 10% or less, for less than a second, at a 5-6 second interval). That isn't enough to stop me from using it. I have an outlook info gadget, weather gadget, hard drive monitor, memory and cpu monitor, quick launcher (i use this instead of the desktop, which now has no icons), and a digital clock.
     
  7. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Mime with Tourette's

    Reputations:
    1,163
    Messages:
    3,017
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    I looked at those. I also have no icons on my desktop, never have had any. But I decided I preferred using a custom toolbar. Nice to have options and choices, though! picture