n01getsout

If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, you may as well find some decent sidebar gadgets to replace the rather pathetic ones that Microsoft gave you. Here are a few I use to get you started. If you have any others that you think should have made this list, please let me know in the comments.

Pandora Radio Sidebar Gadget - Listen to music from Pandora Radio without a web browser. This gadget can do pretty much everything you can do from the Pandora website: it allows you to rate or skip songs, change and create stations, and see why it decided to play the current song. It does seem to display ads at the bottom, which presumably would be turned off if you have a paid Pandora account.

Digital Dutch Clock - An improved version of the original Windows Vista Clock with digital clock, date and day options. It also has some nice animations that you can watch anytime by double-clicking on it. The author claims it uses less CPU resources than the Windows Vista clock.

Multi Meter - This allows you to monitor CPU utilization, RAM usage, network, disk space, WiFi signal, battery charge, and much more. It may take you a while to configure this gadget, but you will end up with a nice looking, personalized system monitor that can have as much or as little information on it as you want. The picture below is how I have mine set up right now, and you can download my configuration here.

Weather Underground -A cool weather gadget from a cool weather site that features a built-in animated radar and weather cam viewer. Provides a three day forecast at a glance and will display severe weather warnings.

Wireless Network - Simple and powerful gadget that shows your wireless network connection. Sure there are many others like this one, but I think this one is the best. What more can I say?

WP-Corp Mail Checker - Checks your email on up to 5 different accounts. If you *really* need more, you can always put two of them in you sidebar. Supports POP3 and IMAP, mail preview for each account, and supports checking different accounts at different time intervals.

NASA TV - A tiny little NASA TV feed for your sidebar. This is probably one of the most useless gadgets that has ever been made, but it is cool.