OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

[scrivener]

I'm running a little workshop tomorrow for people just getting used to OSX and thought a fun (though perhaps impractical) ten to fifteen minutes could be spent on the dashboard.

So, I'm curious. What have you got in your dashboard, and why?

I've just been playing around a little, and what I currently have is:
The calculator, weather, clock, and calendar that came with it.
A Family Guy random quote generator, a The Simpsons random quote generator, an Albert Einstein random quote generator, a group of webcams from lighthouses, CNN headlines, and a Skype widget. I haven't decided how useful any of this is, but it's fun, and that's good enough.

[Kilinahe]

Re: OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

Calculator, clock, weather forecast for Mililani and Ormond Beach, a sticky with tv quotes and a chili powder recipe I got from some weirdo's online journal (), calendar, and translator, currently displaying the phrase "I have no clue" in French.

[pzarquon]

Re: OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

I pretty much use the stock widgets, but I added "SysStat" for CPU load and temp, the animated satellite weather widget from The Weather Channel (in addition to the basic five-day forecast - so pretty!), and a gas price widget... the accuracy of which I'm beginning to doubt.

The random Simpson quote generator sounds nifty!

[scrivener]

Re: OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

I got all of what I'm looking at right from Apple. The downloads are especially easy, and MacOs recognizes the widgets automatically and asks if you want to install them, then shows you how they'll look in your dashboard, and asks if you'd like to keep or toss. Seamless.

[mel]

Re: OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

If and when I get around to actually installing Tiger, I'd tell you what widgets I use... haha.. but I have 2 computers that are happily married so far to OSX 10.3.9.

That said, I have seen widgets in action and I can tell you this. They are just like those old Desk Accessories from the old System 6 and System 7 days. Remember those things that would drop down from the better old Apple menu? The only thing I see different between the old desk accessories and widgets, is that many widgets depend on an outside net connection and of course they are more colorful and probably more powerful.

Widgets however are not a totally new idea IMO.

[pzarquon]

Re: OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

No, they're certainly not new. Heck, a charitable way of describing them would be "heavily inspired by" (a.k.a. ripped off) the independently developed utility Konfabulator (recently swallowed by Yahoo! and released for both Windows and Mac -- so Windows users can get a taste of widgety goodness). But, they're fun, and very, very elegantly implemented.

[mel]

Re: OSX Tiger: What Have You Got in Your Dashboard?

Apple has a way of adopting other firms' technologies... I remember the big brouhaha when Apple updated the Sherlock searching utility by borrowing ideas used for Karelia's "Watson" which was a shareware program. After the enhanced Sherlock came out, Watson pretty much died.... the company had to give that away for free since Sherlock was free with OSX.

Karelia has since moved on to other things and no longer support the OSX version of "Watson".