I’ve been using Windows since verstion 3.0 and I’m sure I’ve used just about every free gadget, dock, launcher, desktop enhancer, etc. out there over the years. I even bought the whole Stardock / Desktop X / Object Desktop / WindowBlinds / etc. Suite.
Generally, using those apps goes something like…
1. Wow, that looks cool!
2. Let me customize it and make it look even cooler.
3. Hmmm… it’s kind of getting in my way.
4. Hmmm… it’s killing my cpu.
5. This doesn’t actually enhance my day to day workflow at all.
6. Uninstall.
A while back though, I got wind of Desktop Sidebar. I’ve had it installed for several months now. It’s a keeper. Why?
1. It’s free.
2. It looks cool and you can skin it to make it look cooler.
3. It doesn’t get in the way at all. Apparently it is modeled after the side bar that will be in Longhorn. It sits off to the side of the screen. You can make it autohide or hid it via a click on its tray icon.
4. No noticeable CPU hit.
5. It is very useful.
More on #5. There are all sorts of panels you can download for this thing. The ones it installs with are great already. You can have a clock, performance meters, weather panel, slide show, various IM panels, media control panels, stocks, news, command line, Google search. It also has a whole set of panels that hooks into Outlook, so you can see your mail, calendar, contacts, etc. right there.
It has a built in MSN chat panel, and Miranda IM panel. This is really useful for me, as Miranda supports MSN, AIM, Yahoo, etc. and even Jabber, which we use at work. So all my contacts are always sitting there in the sidebar.
If you are on a pc, check this one out. Give yourself a few days to get used to it. You’ll love it.
I’ve been using Desktop Sidebar too. Another thing that is cool about it is the ability to embed a swf in the sidebar. So we can all re-use our Flash skills to build little tools to use day-to-day. Also, another one you might want to check out is konfabulator, they released a windows version and it runs great. You can write your own widgets using just javascript and xml 😉
Same as you, I’ve also tried the other producs and none of them seemed really useful.
you might, if you have a machine or maybe even a user account spare, want to try out “LiteStep” – http://www.litestep.net
It’s had stuff like the desktop sidebar for some time now, as well as a lot of other ways to customize your desktop / shell.
Another vote for litestep.. I’ve been using it for about 5 years now. It’s worth it just for the virtual desktops and reduced memory requirements compared to the regular explorer shell.
I’ve used litestep a number of times and always wound up uninstalling it. something always seemed to be going wrong with it and I felt like I was spending too much time tweaking and fixing it, resetting settings over and over because they wouldn’t stick, etc. It’s a cool product, but even up to a few months ago when I last tried it, it just wasn’t stable enough.
Ever tried rainlendar (http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=projects&project=rainlendar)? it’s a calendar/notes/events thingy that sits on the desktop. About 6k of memory, and looks really slick with the moderna skin (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/8681387/).
Fair warning – I’m probably biased, being a WindowBlinds skinner and future Stardock employee. I try not to be, though. 🙂
Chances are, the CPU hit was caused by DesktopX. There were a few rather silly things in the default theme, like a CPU monitor that used up 15% CPU for some people (because it updated 5 times a second).
I personally find WindowBlinds is all I need to use, day-to-day (with the Blackcomb Dark subskin of Blackcomb). Some people like more eye candy, but if you don’t the OD package can sill be useful with things like Keyboard Launchpad and IconDeveloper. I agree it’s gone more towards the “cool” side of things, and ideally there would be an option for people who want all “useful” stuff. Trust me, we’re working on it!
Sidebar looks interesting! I’m using Samurize currently (http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/) which can be configured, scripted and designed completely by ones self, even made my own panel for it (http://www.samurize.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=2202), but I’m a freak for desktop enhancements so I wanna give Sidebar a try. Been using WindowBlinds and ObjectDock too since a long time and I’m very happy with it. Cannot stand the WinXP default look, it’s ugly like the night!
Quite good
I’m interested in your life, dear…