TOP TEN WINDOWS 7 DESKTOP GADGETS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Windows 7 gadgets offer added functionality and convenience in a variety of
ways. Here are a few you may want to add to your desktop.

1:
All CPU Meter

All CPU Meter
supports up to eight cores. All CPU Meter isn’t as complex as some, but the
simplicity works in its favor. All CPU Meter monitors your memory usage as well
as CPUs, and it packs a lot of information into a small space. I also like that
you can change the background color to match your preferences. 

All CPU Meter really does monitor all of your CPU cores
— up to eight of them.

2:
Windows Orb Clock

During all the time I used Vista and
the first year I used Windows 7, my analog clock gadget of choice was the
electric blue version of the one that comes with the operating system. But now
I’ve switched to a much cooler model: the Vista Orb Clock.
Of course, the same orb is also on the Windows 7 Start menu. I love its clean
look and the nice symmetry of having it just across from my Start Menu orb
(since I have my Taskbar set to the vertical position.

After years with the electric blue clock gadget, I’ve
replaced it with the Windows Orb.

3:
Clipboard Manager

I’ve also replaced the Clipboard
gadget I was using with Vista. I liked being able to access previous Clipboard
items — without opening an Office app — but the old one was a little cheesy
looking and limited in its functionality. Clipboard Manager looks slick and is
feature-rich. You can customize the background to fit your desktop, and not
just the color; you can use a photo as the background if you prefer.

You
can save up to 999 clips (that’s a lot of clips!) and you can delete any clip
or send it to the Clipboard or to your Favorites list with a right click. The
Favorites feature lets you create boilerplate text you use often. I also like
the ability to mark clips with timestamps. And unlike the old Clipboard gadget,
this one supports images as well as text. It even has a privacy mode, which
prevents clips from being displayed on the main gadget so that passers-by who
glance at your desktop can’t see what you’ve saved to the clipboard.

This little gadget has a big fly-out that packs a lot of functionality
into a small package.

4:
Facebook Explorer

One big change in my online life
since 2008 is that I’ve become thoroughly immersed in social networking. Much
of the discourse that used to take place through email discussion lists now
occurs via Facebook. A Facebook gadget seemed like almost a necessity, but the
first one I tried (Facebook Sidebar 1.5) didn’t work. It never picked up my
info even though it said it was connected. So I tried Facebook Explorer,
which worked nicely. It can be configured to run in a smaller or larger width
and one of three heights, and you can specify how often you want updates (from everyone
to 60 minutes). It gives you a compact view of your own status and information
or friends’. It can also update your status in the flyout.

Facebook Explorer can be adjusted to the size that best fits
your desktop.

5:
Ultimate Explorer

Ultimate Explorer
lets you search popular sites from your desktop without having to go to those
sites first in your browser. It’s a compact little gadget which you can use to search
Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, Digg, and many more. You can make it
larger if you have plenty of desktop real estate, and you can select up to
eight search sites for “snap search,” which enables you to “snap” quickly from
one search engine to another. It also includes a flyout calendar and events
feature. And unlike the vast majority of gadgets, it even has a flyout Help
section.

Ultimate Explorer lets you search many sites quickly and
easily.

6:
App Launcher

One aspect of Windows 7 that annoyed
and frustrated many users was the omission of the Quick Launch toolbar. If
you’re like me, for years you’ve relied on the Quick Launch bar to access your
frequently used programs. There is a way to get Quick Launch back,
but unlike with previous versions of Windows, you can’t separate the Quick
Launch bar from the main Taskbar. That means it takes up precious space on the
Taskbar that you might need for open programs, system tray items, etc.

Enter
the App Launcher gadget. It
serves the same purpose as the Quick Launch bar but can be placed anywhere you
want on the desktop. You can add whatever programs you want by dragging them to
the gadget, configure the number of icons to display per row and whether to
center them, and change the background image.

App Launcher v3 makes a nice little replacement for the
missing Quick Launch toolbar.

7:
MiniTV

Want to take a break and catch up on
the news? The MiniTV gadget
allows you to choose from a number of stations (many of which I’ve never heard
of, as well as familiar ones, such as NBC News and C-SPAN). You can watch the
program in the tiny gadget window or you can double-click it to display full
screen. Just double-click again to get out of full screen mode.

MiniTV lets you watch television in a tiny gadget window or full
screen.

8:
Traffic by Bing Maps

Traffic is a
simple little gadget that can be useful if you’re about to head out into the
big, bad world. I don’t use it as much as some dudes would, since I work from
home. But I still have to venture onto the major freeways now and then, and
it’s nice to know in advance if there are going to be problems along a
particular route. One caveat is that you need to live in (or be traveling in) a
major metro area to use it. You can zoom in or out, and clicking the traffic
info button will take you to a full sized map of the area on Bing Maps,
complete with the traffic data.

Traffic by Bing Maps helps you avoid congestion when
venturing into metro areas.

9:
Magic Folder

Okay, granted, the icon isn’t the
most professional looking, and many folks won’t like the idea of having a
folder make decisions about where to save their files. But for those who always
seem to end up with dozens of files sitting on the desktop because they never
get around to moving them into appropriate folders, Magic Folder
could be a godsend. You just drag your files to the magic folder and it
examines the file extensions and sends the files to the “right” folder. For
example, .doc files go to the Documents folder; .jpg, .gif, and other image
files go to the Pictures folder. The nice thing is that you can add or remove
the file extensions recognized by the gadget, change where specific extensions
should be put, and you add your own folder locations. If you want to maintain
more control, you can set the gadget to prompt you before it moves a file to a
folder. Oh, and you can also change the appearance of the folder icon to
something a little less…  magical.

The Magic Folder gadget might have a goofy looking default
icon, but it can help disorganized people get more organized.

10:
Open/Close DVD

Open/Close DVD
is utterly simple. But it’s handy to have if your computer is sitting under
your desk like mine, making it difficult to get to the button for opening the
DVD drive door. Just click the open button and it opens; click the Close button
(the up-pointing arrow) and it shuts. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. One
thing to watch for: If you have more than one drive attached, it will
open/close both of them — there is no option to select a particular drive.

The Open/Close DVD gadget does exactly what its name says,
no more and no less.