Widgets!
I’ve been hearing about Widgets for months. Konfabulator, Mac, Vista, Google, everybody has a Widget/Gadget host. Today, I’ll go check out this Widget thing. Wow, lots of widgets. Most of them useless. Looking for the latest deals on Amazon, Woot, etc. Getting stock prices. Checking the weather. These things don’t appeal to me. But I did find a few Widget and even new programs.
My search put me at Mac/Downloads. Microsoft royally sucks at providing a list of alternative vendors. Apple really excels a this. There are probably hundreds of Widgets and Programs. Each with a screenshot, description, and link to the download or website. I pulled about seven.
- MarsEdit that will let you write blog entries in a simple text editor and then post them to your blog.
- Wikipedia widget does a search on Wikipedia and presents a tree view of found pages.
- A Mac a Day tip looked helpful for learning Mac features.
- YouTube for quick searching YouTube videos.
- WordPress Dashboard for posting to the Stephen’s Garden Blog or perhaps to Stephen’s Personal Blog.
- CocoaConnect for getting to Network Shares easy.
You get to the Widgets by pressing F12. The desktop dims and the Widgets come out of the sides of the screen. Use them, move them, organize them, and then press F12 again to put them away. The Mac comes with a dozen or so Widgets.
I unplugged the external DVD burner from last night and plugged in the Epson 3590 Scanner. After downloading the drivers from Epson again, a little wierdness with the install, I got it working just fine. The Epson printer needs to be checked next, but it’s a little far away. I doubt it will have any problems.
I use a non-name USB adapter for SD memory cards to transfer pictures in the computer. It worked the same as Windows. I still have to get the Mac Flickr Uploader, but I’m rethinking this. The XP box has many large hard drives and should store this. So, maybe I’ll only carry a few pics with no need to upload to Flickr.
There were some excellent pics from the garden this summer. A Hibiscus with two blossoms in bloom, a red, green, white, and black Caladium surrounded by plants, and close up of a sedum looking very arboreal growing in a tree trunk. These are now my backgrounds. It changes pics once a day. I’ll add more pics to this until it’s quite large.
I like the Mac and have begun thinking about getting rid of the big Vista box. Tomorrow, the MacBook is unhooked from the wall outlet and travels to Canadian. It’s first use as a laptop.