Vista/7 Sidebar Gadgets

[Ivo]

Any opinions on these things?

I ask because I have the weather gadget running continuously, and I repeatedly wonder what the point is. It often gets its facts wrong, but today has been an altogether different proposition. All day, it has said we have had bright sunshine. Instead, it was overcast in the morning and has now been snowing for several hours - and is currently about 4cm deep.

Anyone else think they can sometimes be pretty useless?

I have to say though, the National Rail is pretty handy

 

[deltic1989]

I have that weather one up at the moment. I'm sitting in my mrs's parents house in Nottingham but it thinks I'm still in Lincoln, and it recokns its lovely sunshine too. I find that the most useful out of the gadgets is the CPU meter, lets me know when im over taxing the inards of my laptop.

 

[chris89]

Depends on monitor size really. When my laptop was working i only used the National rail one on it.

On my desktop though they are very handy, Got Weather ones for were i live and where my girlfriend lives, national rail app set to Wolverhampton station.

Also now CPU Meter 3rd party one from Addgadget.com which also informs me of ram useage, temp and load on the cores of the processor.

For gaming though, i've set many games to disable Aero as a very big process hog.

Chris

 

[Eagle]

It often gets its facts wrong, but today has been an altogether different proposition. All day, it has said we have had bright sunshine. Instead, it was overcast in the morning and has now been snowing for several hours - and is currently about 4cm deep.

I'm using that gadget and it's been spot on all day (even the temperatures were within a couple of degrees)... are you sure you haven't set it to the wrong location?

The other ones I have are an analogue clock and the news ticker (which I rewired to point to the BBC).

 

[Ivo]

I also have the CPU one running - very useful indeed!

I'm using that gadget and it's been spot on all day (even the temperatures were within a couple of degrees)... are you sure you haven't set it to the wrong location?

Lemme check a second...

0°, Moon (clear night sky), Bath GBR

Actual (gone outside to check):

~3° (est.), Rain (but with snow on the ground from earlier)

I think it may be set to Filton because there is a weather monitoring station in the MoD site there, but you would think that either something nearer would be available or at the very least it and Bath would have the same weather for at least some of the day! :roll:

 

[Eagle]

Lemme check a second...

0°, Moon (clear night sky), Bath GBR

Actual:

~3° (est.), Rain

0°, moderate snow, Kenilworth

Actual (temperature taken from the Met Office's reporting station): –1°, moderate snow

One thing I will say is it changes from "day" to "night" pictures exactly at sunrise and sundown rather than when it actually gets dark.

 

[Schnellzug]

The one I've got, at the top of the screen, says "3o, rain early." Well, it actually rained later on, but apart from that it seems reasonably accurate.

It also says
Trending Now
Thermal underwear
Engagement rings
so make of that what you like.

 

[Lampshade]

I have five on W7; the Clock, Slide Show, CPU Meter, Feed Headlines and National Rail Enquiries.

I don't use them, I just prefer having something on the right hand side of the screen.

 

[generalvegitable]

I used to use them, I thought that they were pretty gimmicky and rubbish so I stopped using them. but I recently came across Rainmeter which does pretty much the same job as the windows sidebar gadgets but its far more customisable, its open source and very popular with power users. I have seen some truly amazing desktops made with it (see here for some good examples: http://www.flickr.com/groups/lifehacker-desktop-showandtell/). if you want to customise your PC and make your actual desktop useful rather than juts a pretty picture with some random icons all over it I would completely recommend trying it.