Microsoft doesn’t release official sidebar gadgets too often. They actually managed to remove a few handy sidebar gadgets that were shipped with Windows Vista, from Windows 7 such as Notes Gadget and Contacts Gadget. Recently, Microsoft released a new gadget for Windows Vista and 7 named Online Services gadget.  Read more...

Permalink: Download Windows Live Online Services sidebar gadget by Microsoft

I recently stumbled across this official gadget by Microsoft for Bing. As excited as I was, I was disappointed to find out that it’s a very simple gadget that only shows suggestions and opens up the search results in the browser. The drop down suggestions aren’t even visual, i.e. you wont see image suggestions or the weather by typing in ‘New York weather’ like you get in Internet Explorer 8’s search box.  Read more...

Permalink: Download the Bing Sidebar Gadget for Windows 7

I’m one of those who firmly believe that Windows 7 is Microsoft’s best operating system ever. Hell, it’s the best operating system out there. But, Microsoft has done some little blunders with it such as the removal of the calendar application that was introduced in Vista ( I know Windows Live Mail has a calendar but it’s for Windows Live users ), and the removal of some very useful sidebar gadgets such as the Notes and Contacts gadgets. I had put up the notes gadget for download long ago, now I’ve finally managed to get off my bum and extract the Contacts gadget from Vista.  Read more...

Permalink: Download Vista Contacts gadget for Windows 7

If you all can take out the issues you had with Windows Vista out of your mind for a minute and think hard, you’ll remember it had a very useful sidebar gadget called Notes. It let you quickly scribble down ideas, phone numbers and all sorts of texts and looked just like real sticky notes. It also had a few options for different fonts, font sizes and stick note color.  Read more...

Permalink: Get the Vista Sticky Notes Sidebar Gadget for Windows 7

So, finally there’s a new gadget published by Microsoft for Windows Live ‘What’s New’ feed, and it’s not the best of efforts I have to say.

The Windows Live What’s New Sidebar Gadget (Beta) is a Vista gadget that displays your Windows Live “What’s New” feed on your desktop. You can receive real-time updates on what your friends are doing across multiple social networks right from your desktop. Be the first to know when your friends upload photos, add new friends to their networks, change their status messages and post comments. It’s quick and easy to add the Windows Live What’s New Sidebar Gadget (Beta).

The gadget is plain, and looks like it’s from the 90’s. Unlike the what’s new feed in Windows Live, the gadget doesn’t show user thumbnails or web page images. It also seems very rough around the edges. It doesn’t even look it’s part of Windows Live! And when you undock the gadget, it enlarges exponentially. I’m all up for having access to information at the tips of your fingers, but this is the least innovative way to bring it close. If you use Windows Live Messenger, you won’t need this gadget at all, as messenger provides a much better ‘What’s New’ feed at the bottom of the main window.  Read more...

Permalink: New Windows Live sidebar gadget, and it’s not that good

That was quick by Microsoft. The Windows 7 customization website, also accessible from the personalize window is now up and running. It contains themes, backgrounds, desktop gadgets and sideshow gadgets. The last 2 things can be found at Windows Live Gallery as we, so why the duplication? Weird, I know. But they had to fill it up with something. Even the 12 themes they’ve put up are less than the 22 I’ve made so far. ( hint: check back this weekend again, that number might change ). The themes on the Windows 7 Personalize website are mostly regional apart from a few nature related ones. So, head over to the website and give them a try, if you don’t like them, you can always come back to ithinkdiff themes for more.

Permalink: Official Windows 7 Themes from Microsoft available now

Call it the best feature or worst of Windows Vista, but the Sidebar is undeniably very useful. I find it more useful than OS X’s Dashboard or Yahoo Widgets to an extent. Although, it’s a fact that the sidebar takes a lot of memory in Vista and slows down the boot so it’s better kept disabled at startup. In 7, the sidebar is integrated into the shell, and no longer as a separate application. Also, it seems to run faster and doesn’t slow down boot.

One gadget I’ve always liked since I started using Vista has been Network Utilization meter. It’s a nifty little gadget that beats all its competitors by a long mile due to its features and ease of use. It’s so useful that it should be available in the default gadgets for Windows 7. The network utilization gadget does exactly what it says. It shows you how much transfer speed you are getting from your network, whether it’s Ethernet, Wireless or Bluetooth. It’s great to have the current transfer speed of your network or Internet connection at your fingertips, and it can also be used to shut up those ‘innocent’ ISP support dudes who just load up Google or Yahoo and claim your Internet is working fine, when it’s not.

This gadget includes both bar and line graphs, with different interval choices, as well as a bar view that shows on double clicking the gadget. The update interval/refresh rate of the gadget can be changed through the options as well. I personally keep mine at 0.5 seconds which is the minimum it offers, 10 seconds being the maximum. The Scale can be changed from 56kbps to an STM-1 connection and all different types in between. If you’ve got multiple network adapters, you can manually select the currently active one too. If you click on the resize button, it can also double up to its size. Even that option is configurable as you can change the size from 50% to 200% of its original size.  Read more...

Permalink: Network Utilization Gadget for Windows Vista and 7