Widget of the Week

Metal History

May 3, 2006

I cannot believe someone made a widget about metal history. I cannot believe someone included Megadeth in a widget about metal history. They are deserving, of course, I just can't believe my good fortune. I feel like it's a widget made just for me; like a present from some thoughtful programmer or something! Instead, it's a present from my friend and colleague Kelly Thompson of iStockphoto.com. Thank you Kelly!!! I owe you a chocolate martini :)

Okay so about the widget. Download Metal History and choose from a somewhat limited list of bands to view myriad facts like their start date, band members (as if you don't already know that part), and a brief history. Various years are displayed at the bottom, which upon clicking, reveal important events. You can even view the bands entire discography complete with album covers.

It's amusing to note that the improvements for this particular release include bands being added without the user knowing it, and I quote, "A better done button."

*giggling* I still can't believe Megadeth is in it. Whee! The gods do love me after all.

TheDailyGrind

April 26, 2006

Are you a freelancer? Do you have to keep track of hours you spend on several different projects? Do you find yourself jotting the start and end times down on a sticky note (either digital or analog), Excel spreadsheet, etc.? Do you experience a panic attack when you can't find said sticky note or forgot to put anything into the Excel spreadsheet?! If you answered yes to any of these questions, TheDailyGrind widget might be for you.

TheDailyGrind (no spaces in the name) let's you create multiple timers which you can start and stop. Each one comes with a play button for activation and the familiar OS X Action menu sprocket.

Click the sprocket icon to produce a cute little menu drawer wherein you may assign a color code to your timer, reset it, delete it altogether, or copy your precious hours to the clipoard for pasting into the invoicing tool of your choice. I'm really hoping this will help me get better at tracking my hours because, well, I suck at it. I'll keep you posted!

The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

"You can't free a fish from water." No, I suppose you can't. "Never lie too soon after a promotion." Excellent advice! "Wounds heal but debt is forever." True indeed! These jewels of wisdom and more can be yours for only... (oh wait, it's free) for FREE! That's right, just pop over to Apple's download page and snatch up this week's featured widget, The Rules of Acquisition. Ring any bells? Ah yes, straight from the Grand Nagus himself (dang I miss DS9), this widget displays a new rule each time you pop into Dashboard (or every time you click the Ferengi insignia, or press Command + R to refresh). Just think of the possibilities! You'll never have to hunt around for an amusing (though wise!) quote to tack onto your email signatures ever again!

TIP: To close any widget without opening the Dashboard control panel, simply hold down the Option key and mouse over the widget to produce a circled X in the top left corner (as shown below). Click it once to send the widget packin'.

MacGyverisms

I really liked MacGyver. As a teenage girl, I enjoyed not only his cuteness but his extaordinary ability to escape any jam and certain death by creatively assemblying the contents of his pockets. This brilliant, quick-thinking secret agent never even carried a gun. Ever!

Now, for the first time, you too can reap the benefits of MacGyver's vast scientific knowledge. Download the MacGyverisms widget and learn a new trick with every press of the forward arrow. So the next time you need to conjure up some tear gas on the fly, you'll be prepared. (Just grab the nearest bamboo pipe, and mix some ash with alcohol, of course!)

Though this widget can most certainly be classified as bloody useless, you never know when it might save your hide! I mean, who knew that you could use rosary beads to focus sunlight thus triggering a slingshot?!

Thanks to Nanther for sending along such entertaining widget goodness :)

WeatherBug Local Weather

If Apple's global weather widgets leave you longing for more, check out WeatherBug Local Weather. This colorful little widget features detailed forecasts, a gorgeous (though small) radar, news and even severe weather alerts from WeatherBug’s community of neighborhood weather stations.

It's a terrific way to get a quick look at the weather conditions, and especially useful if you're on the lookout for SNOW. (sigh) Unfortunately, as you can see the sky here in Nashville couldn't be more clear. Arg :(

ColorBurn

Want to get a totally new, beautiful color palette delivered to your Mac each and every day? Sure you do. For those who are a wee bit challenged in the realm of color theory (that means most of us), ColorBurn is a gift from the gods.

Each daily palette features four colors, perfectly fit for use on any web site, as the hex numbers appear beneath the swatches. Choose to view these swatches on either a black or white background, and by clicking the date pop-up menu, you can view yesterdays palette or any other palette you've seen in the past week.

If you've ever been vexed by color picking, this widget is for you!

Super Rule

This one's for the web developers. Here's a handy widget that you can use to measure the pixel width and height of anything on your screen, which is super handy for developing web graphics.

It's expandable to any size on your screen, and features extended lines in red at 100th marks, and gray at 50th marks.

Not much else to say about this one other than, that motorcycle tire appears to be right at 200 x 200 pixels ;)

Download Super Rule today!

Couple O' Cool Countdown Widgets

This week I just have to share two gloriously useless widgets that shall bring me immense joy over the next month. Up first because it's the coolest, is the MacWorld Expo 2006 Countdown widget. If you live for this one week each year like I do, you're gonna to love it. Period. 'Nuff said and all that. I'll even admit that I may have squealed with joy when I saw it. However, for some reason, installation overwrote my Einstein random quote widget. Arg. Oh well, one must have priorities.

Along those same useless lines, though with perhaps a slightly wider appeal, is the Christmas Is Coming widget. As you'd expect, it tallies your remaining shopping hours in a bright and shiny red ornament. It's prettier -- see the reflection of the Christmas tree on the left? Very nice Photoshop job -- but not nearly as cool.

Google Maps

Need directions of someone in your address book? Don't go to Googlemaps.com, download the Google Maps widget instead! This handy widget hooks right into the contents of your OS X Address Book.

Once it's installed, you can either enter an address to find a map, or click on the little red pin at the top left of the widget to get the exanded view. From there you can click the Address Book option at the bottom and a drawer pops out containing the names of friends, family, and collegues. You also have the option of viewing either a regular or satellite map.

OnTheAir

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and waited with baited breath for the disc jockey to say the band name and song title? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. It would seem they just don't care, and more often than not, you're left in the dark to scour the radio waves in the hopes of hearing it again.

As with so many things, that problem has been solved by the owning a Mac. Kidding, well kinda of, it's been solved by a new widget called OnTheAir.

This handy little widget lets you view the last five songs played on over 2,500 radio stations across the US. If you find that you can't live without a particular song, owning it is as easy as pressing the iTunes link to make your purchase.

TNG Calendar 1.6

Calling all Trekkies! Spice up your calendar in Dashboard by downloading the TNG Calendar widget. This starship-worthy calendar is a nice addition to the System 47 screen saver I downloaded a few months back, and galaxies better than the standard red/white offering by Apple <insert yawn here>.

Like most calendars, the current day is highlighted in a different color. You can choose from six different fonts and even change the language (I didn't see Klingon listed). Skip to and fro in months easily using the up and down arrows on the left. Jump back to the current day at warp speed by clicking the diamond button in between.

All I need now is a Star Trek skin for the entire OS ;)

Lorem Ipsum Widget

Need some placeholder text for a print or web design comp? Meet your new best friend: the Lorem Ipsum Widget.

This little jewel does exactly what it says it will do: Generate random chunks of realistic textual gibberish that just begs to be stuffed in a text box deep within your favorite page layout or WYSIWYG web editor. It will even *look* real because this widget creates words, sentences, and paragraphs of varying lengths, which is very much unlike:

"Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here. Insert body copy here..."

You get the picture :)

A slider control gives you the power to select a piece of placeholder text, or you can copy a random paragraph, sentence, or word to the clipboard for use in any software which accepts text. Whee! It's a super-handy way to mock up a design with copy when you don't actually *have* any copy to work with.

Froggster

It's been a gloriously fun week. I spent the weekend cruising around on a motorcycle with my fiance enjoying the beautifully green hills of Nashville, made a guest appearance on his podcast, TrashTalk, on Monday, I'm packing to spend a weekend camping with my girlfriends in Houston, and today I found the Froggster widget! Oh. My. Gawd. This is clearly the most fun a person can have sans an Atari 2600 with Pitfall.

I squeeled with delight playing Frogger as a kid and it's a huge joy to have it back--complete with original music!--available at my beck and call through Dashboard. You young whipper snappers out there who haven't played this game just have to give it a try. You have *no* idea how much fun using arrow keys to steer delicate frogs across a busy highway and logging stream can be. Enjoy!

And Jaberg, where the heck *is* that Atari 2600 you promised me?! ;)

Family Guy Random Quote Generator

This widget really doesn't need any explanation. If you're a fan of The Family Guy, then you're smiling already. If you can't get enough of the show, just download the Family Guy Random Quote Generator and it'll spit out a random blurb of nonsense that's sure to make you giggle. This absolutely falls into the category of It's So Stupid It's Funny. Ah, but it's a great way to get a laugh, IF YOU'VE GOT THE GRAPES! >:)

BBC Radio

Ready for some audio enlightenment? Want to expand your musical horizons? Keep up with news abroad perhaps? Do you like being read to? If the answer is yes to any of those questions, run don't walk to PhantomGorilla's web site and download the BBC Radio widget.

Tune-in to all your favorite BBC stations like Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, Radio 5 Live, BBC 6 Music, BBC 7, 1Xtra, 5 Live Sports Extra, Asian Network, and World Service. If that's not enough diversity for you, give Radio Scotland, Wales, or Ulster a go. Just zip over to the BBC Music web site to get the scoop on what each station offers. For example, BBC Radio 2, the most listened to station in the UK, combines popular music and culture with a diverse range of specialist music, features, documentaries, light entertainment and readings.

BBC Radio is a petite little widget, and purports to sleep when you're not listening so as not to waste CPU cycles. It couldn't be easier to use, though it'd be nice if it kept playing while switching stations. Alas, one must click the little i, choose a new station, click Done, then click again on the play button on the front. Ah, tis but a small inconvenience for such a broad range in audio entertainment. Enjoy!

dreamDeals

If you're a shopper and looking for a distraction during the day, you've just found one: the dreamDeals widget. It automatically refreshes itself every few seconds with the best of Amazon's deals, complete with spinning, mesmerizing 3-D graphics.

Preferences let you choose what product categories you're interested in (oh boy!), as well as limit the savings, in percents, for the products shown.

This thing may be more distracted than iChat, and certainly more hazardous to your checkbook. Oy ;)

Calendar Clock

Behold the breathtaking beauty of the Calendar Clock widget! That's right folks, today's widget is all about pretty. There is no way I could have *not* chosen this widget once I gazed upon its ethereal interface. This thing could have been predicting the likelihood of elves floating past my window and I wouldn't have cared. Actually, it's about that useful (kidding, though only slightly).

Calendar Clock allows you to enter the birthdays of friends and family and beloveds on its back (just click the little i in its mesmerizing, deep blue... er... in the middle). Gently flip this mesmerizing widget over, and you'll be treated to spherical sapphires reflecting the birthdays, enabling one to easily spot which sign of the Zodiak that person was born in. A softly glowing, golden orb marks the passage of our sun throughout the year.

AirCompare

Want a faster way to compare airline prices rather than going to Orbitz, Travelocity, etc.? Just download AirCompare, a new widget that compares tons of flights from tons of websites at one time. It's got a cute little interface where you can enter the departing and arrival cities (it also accepts three digit city codes). Choose a date for each from the pop-up menu then click the Find Fares button at the top right.

You'll find yourself transported to a web site which lists the findings, where you can also purchase tickets:

This certainly doesn't mean it always finds the best rates, but for me it's a faster way of getting an idea what flights are running. On this particular flight, I found the best rate on American's web site. It's a good rule of thumb to always check the airlines themselves, as one should never trust the deal sites completely :)

EasyEnvelopes

The guys over at Ambrosia Software have done it again! They've invented yet another piece of software that's so incredibly useful that we won't be able to live without it (i.e. SnapzPro). Just take a peek at their new widget EasyEnvelopes.

No longer will you have to fight with your word processor to set up an envelope correctly, nor will you need to fuss with a label maker. Just pop open EasyEnvelopes and it'll do the job for you, quickly and efficiently.

Integration with the Address Book allows you to quickly find someone's address and pump out an envelope for it. As an added bonus, it handles USPS bar codes for both 5 and 9 digit bar codes, let's you control the size of your envelope, custom format the return and mailing addresses, and much more. Printing envelopes has never been so easy and so much fun ;)

CharacterPal

I don't know about you, but I'm always forgetting the right key combination for the copyright, trademark, and registration symbols. I just don't use them enough to commit them to memory (or else there's no space left in which to put them--grin).

That's why I like the CharacterPal widget from Freeverse. Quickly and easily, I can hover over any character and it displays the keyboard combination at the bottom of the interface. It doesn't get much easier than that!

Download CharacterPal today and free up brain space for something really important: like the release date for Serenity, the upcoming Firefly movie ;)

Type Cast

Sometimes it's hard to decide which font to use for a particular project, though this week's widget makes that job just a little bit easier. Using Type Cast, you can preview any font on your system. Simply type in a sentence of your choice and use your keyboard to zoom quickly through different font families, styles, and sizes. Just hold down the Command key while using the down arrow to cycle through different styles. Type Cast can even reveal font files in the Finder.

I, like my girlfriend Sarah Friedlander who turned me onto this glorious little widget, find this a much easier and faster way to preview a font before using it. Dashboard pops up instantly, and the ability to scroll through fonts with your keyboard just makes this a much faster option than anything else I've seen.

Download Type Cast today and see how much fun choosing fonts can be.

Video Poker

Do you dream of playing the World Series of Poker? Do you quiver at the sight of casino video poker machines? If either of these is true, then the Video Poker widget could be for you.

It's got a cute and compact little interface complete with rules on the back. Just click the tiny little i to see which card combinations beat what. You can also change your betting preference between $1-$5.

For me, this is the *perfect* way to get in some much needed practice before visiting my Mom who lives near Shreveport. She loves heading out to the casino to have some fun and get her mind off things. Now, if I can only win a few bucks it'd be even more fun! I'll keep you posted and let you know if my skill level improves ;)

Widget Update

Lord of the Widgets!!! One widget to rule them all... :)

Want to ensure that all the Widgets in your Dashboard wonderland are up to date? Then download Widget Update. It will automatically scan the appropriate widget directories and then connect to both www.dashboardwidgets.com *and* www.apple.com to see if you have the latest and greatest version. This is a great tool to have because so many widgets (even this one) are still in Beta (i.e. 'testing mode').

After the widget performs its' scanning and connecting, you'll be greeted by a result list, in which you can click the links and jet on over to the appropriate widget update page to read release notes and/or download the newest version.

It's worth noting that the author states that some widgets have an incorrect property in their Info.plist file which doesn't correctly reflect the version number. If that happens, Widget Update will alert you to update, even if it's the current version. Eh, that doesn't seem so bad :)

Thanks to Michael Curtis in the UK for submitting this widget!

NASA

The space buffs will really love this one (myself included): it's the NASA widget! This handy little widget will keep you up-to-date on everything NASA-related, including the latest on the Return to Flight program.

Explore, discover, and (hopefully) understand more than you ever have about Earth and what’s floating around in space.

The latest news appears with a headline and brief description (like an RSS feed). Just click on a headline to read the full story on the NASA web site. Choose your NASA RSS feed on the backside (just click the little i) and select from Breaking news, Flight news, Science@ NASA, Scientific and Technical Information News, NASA Space Research News and NASA Earth Observatory. You can also search the NASA web site by using the little search box on the front.

Gas

Well you can't get more practical and useful than a widget that tells you where the cheapest gas prices live! I think this is truly a briliant idea, especially now that gas prices are so whacky, and AndretheGiant has made it come true.

Simply enter your zip code, press search (sometimes you have to press it twice) and in a few seconds, two gas stations will pop up complete with prices on all four varieties of our favorite consummable. No idea where the gas station actually is? Not a problem. Just click on the address of the gas station below the pricing to be transported to a Google map.

Download the Gas 1.1 widget today and start saving those precious pennies!

Update, July 20, 2005: Fortunately (or unfortunately?) it updates on its own. This morning I was greeted by a lowest price of $2.23 for regular. Arg.

RabbitRadio

Whee! This week's widget makes me so happy because now I can listen to NPR (National Public Radio) right here on my Mac *without* having to keep a web browser open. That's right, the cute little RabbitRadio widget by Llew Mason lets me choose between various "regions" so I can tune into a number of NPR stations. It's got a really cute, really small interface, and it keeps playing when I exit Dashboard.

For people like me who work at home and like having some nice classical music in the background, though who also like to keep up with the news, this is a great way to do it. All without having to turn on the darn teevee :)

June 22, 2005

Slider

Haven't ponied up the money for MacPlay's Bejewled yet? (Pssst! It's on SALE for $5!) No worries, a new widget called Slider has been released that's loads of fun.

The object of the game is to zap groups of same-color pearls to score points. The more pearls in a group, the more points you get (minimum size group for zappage is 3). Move said pearls into same color groups by clicking the triangles at either ends of the rows and columns. Pretty simple. Pretty addictive :)

Zapping black pearls may sometimes ellicit the appearance of *special* pearls which come in a variety of flavors to strategically enhance the game.

Bottomline: Download Slider at your own risk. Serious time wastage and wrist pain may ensue.

June 8, 2005

Amnesty–a widget manager

If you're a widget junkie, then this tool is for you! But first, I confess that Amnesty isn't *really* a widget; it's a widget *manager*. You know what? It's so cool that I don't care ;)

Amnesty is a wonderful little utility that lets you browse and access (key word) your widgets via pull-down in your menu bar. Wait, it gets better – you can access them completely independent of Apple's Dashboard environment!! And, each of the glorious little buggers have their very own preferences, complete with window opacity. Whee!

Thanks to David Pogue for turning me onto this wonderful little gadget manager. I discovered it while doing screen shots for his upcoming book, "Tiger: The Missing Manual."

Download Amnesty and give it a spin for yourself!

iClipLite

In my quest to become ever more productive and efficient, the new iClipLite widget caught my eye this week. iClipLite offers a really cool way to store and organize things that find their way onto your Clipboard. You can store bits o' text, pictures, and URLs in its multiple "clip bins." In fact, you can stick 20 different "clips" into its handy little bins.

It's super simple to use, just press one of the little arrow buttons that face *into* the clip bin to store your current Clipboard contents. Later, if you want to retrieve the clip and place it back on the Clipboard, just click the little arrow which faces *away* from the bin, then paste the item wherever you wish.

In their own words, it was "designed to improve your efficiency and productivity for most tasks you do on your computer." Heck... we all need a little of that!

iTunesLyrics

Big thanks go to my friend Loren Finkelstein for turning me onto this ultra cool Widget! Just download iTunesLyrics and whenever you're playing a song in iTunes, it will automatically try to fetch lyrics from an Internet database. You can even tweak the time between refreshes by clicking the little i at the bottom right.

It's a hit or miss situation with my own library, as so much of it's heavy metal (Megadeth RULES), though when it hits, it's a lot of fun. It had no trouble finding popular Ozzy tunes though. Enjoy!

Flight Tracker

No longer do you have to trek over to an airline's web site to check flight status! With the Flight Tracker widget (this one comes with Tiger) you just enter an airline, departure city, arrival city and BAM! A list of flights are displayed along with their current status.

Hit the Track Flight button at the bottom left and you can actually watch a little representative airplane fly across the globe :)

iYML

Ah, many are the joys of leading a simple life! Lucky for me, listening (and watching!) my favorite Mac Internet radio show, Your Mac Life, just got a little simpler with the release of the iYML Widget. From one cute, little interface I can choose to watch the video stream or listen to the audio stream live on Wednesday nights (7:30 pm Central time), or I can listen to the audio archives on any day of the week, at the time of my choice. Click here to download the iYML Widget.

If you're a Macintosh fan, I highly encourage you to check out the show. What you *won't* find is a boring, uber geek fest. What you *will* find is a fun-filled, informative take on Mac news, and living the Mac lifestyle. Be sure to tune in for my own Graphics Tip of the Week segment!

TV Tracker

Since upgrading to Tiger over the weekend (a new OS for us Mac geeks), I've had a *blast* playing with Dashboard Widgets. Some quality Internet scouring revealed that there are tons of these little jewels out there, with new ones added daily. Hence, the birth of TGR's Widget of the Week. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will :)

TV Tracker has my attention this week since it allows me to easily see what I could be watching if I were parked in front of a television set. Simply enter a zip code and choose a service provider from the pull-down menu and POOF! Tons of channels will appear. I chose to see 4 hours of programming for the following, very important channels: Sci-Fi, Science, UPN & Spike (for Star Trek reruns), Comedy Central (Daily Show & South Park), and VH1 (for the metal documentaries, of course).