Tools, Gadgets, and Widgets

I am especially fond of desktop widgets. Widgets are small programs that run in the background on your computer. One widget I rely heavily on is called Due and written for Yahoo Widgets. Due is that predominately blue Venetian blind looking thing on the left of my desktop.

Blog topics, reminders for phone calls, and when to pay my bills and my dad's bills all go into the mix. The widget can be customized with type face and colors to flag up coming and overdue tasks or items. My code is blue for future items, yellow as a warning that an item is coming up soon, and red for past due.

The widget can be visible on your desktop or hidden in the Yahoo Widget dock, that block in the bottom center of my computer screen. For me, if I don't see the widget, I'm apt to forget what needs to be paid or get done, so Due is visible when I boot up my system.

Yahoo has lots of great widgets: calendars, clocks, to do lists, email notifiers, weather. The dock can be positioned along any edge of your computer screen.  One downside of the Yahoo widgets, is the dock doesn't display them neatly and uniform in size as the Vista/Windows 7 Sideshow gadgets. Some of the widgets can be quite large. Overall, they are functional and look good.

I haven't had a problem using the Yahoo Widgets written and authorized by Yahoo.  Other widgets like Due, come from third party app writers so caution should be taken before downloading and running these programs.