The Windows Vista Sidebar can display a number of so called gadgets that display all kind of information such as pictures, news or other information like eBay auctions. Some users really like the Windows Vista Sidebar although it uses a large portion of the computer memory.
Windows Vista does not really come with an option to [...]

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Ever wondered what and how the Windows Search Indexer is indexing your files in Windows Vista ? Wonder no more the Indexer Status Gadget displays information about the current indexing status and the number of indexed files in the Windows Vista sidebar. Don’t be surprised to see 100K or even more items in the index.
The [...]

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I’m not a huge fan of gadgets on the desktop. Does not really matter if they are implemented in the operating system or added by using a Widget engine. Placing gadgets on my desktop does not make lots of sense for me. Take a look at the available Gadgets at the Windows Live Gallery and [...]

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I have talked to several Windows Vista users and all told me that they did not use the Vista sidebar because of the lack of good gadgets that could be shown there. Sure, some are really nice but the majority is utterly useless. Why would I want another clock in there for instance ?

The Amnesty Generator (Windows, Macintosh) tries to fill this gap by providing a clever way to convert thousands of web widgets to Vista gadgets that can be placed in the sidebar. The program is free and absolutely easy to use. All it needs is the html code of the widget to automatically convert it into a Vista sidebar gadget. The html code is displayed when you select a widget from the many databases that offer them.

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I always thought that the Windows Vista sidebar was nice to look at but not very useful. It uses system resources to display a clock or some other gadgets that have pretty much no value at all in my daily routine. I did not want to just remove the sidebar without researching if there were gadgets that were actually that useful that I decided to keep the sidebar and use at least some of the gadgets all the time. Space is limited and I run some all of the time and some only if I need that information.

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