From Away

Dashboard has definitely been one of the most useful features of Tiger for me this far. It is also one of the features that has caused the most controversy since it’s announcement last summer. At that time, many parallels had been drawn between Dashboard and Konfabulator. While there are many similarities between the two, and after having used both, I can definitely say that Dashboard is my favorite.

Dashboard

There have been an huge amount of useful widgets released the Dashboard already, even after Tiger only being in the public’s hands for a few weeks.

 

 

ShortStat Widget

Although this one hasn’t been released just yet, I was lucky enough to be a beta tester for this great widget while the guys over at The Big Noob were developing it. ShortStat Widget integrates with Shaun Inman’sShortStat website stats tracking program. After being a ShortStat-aholic (compulsive website stats checker) for quite a while, this widget is definitely a godsend. It displays the current day’s amount of hits (along with uniques) as well as a short list of recent referrers. Definitely saves me a lot of time during the run of a day.

Along with the ShortStat Widget, there are so many other widgets that I use that save me a tremendous amount of time:

• Apple’s Weather Widget - One of the widgets included with the default installation of Tiger, but this is one I use on a very regular basis. It saves me from opening up Safari and heading to The Weather Network every time I want to see the current forecast, or what’s in store for the coming days.
• Air Traffic Control - displays all of the active wireless networks in the vicinity. Definitely a great tool for those of us that have an Airport-equipped Powerbook or iBook and use public wireless networks on a regular basis.
• TV Tracker - I don’t watch a ton of television, but I hate waiting for the blasted cable listings to scroll through on the cable provider’s listing channel.
• IMDB Widget - For any of you movie fans out there who are forever going to IMDB to look up an actor’s name, director, release date, etc. this widget is definitely for you.
• Flidget - created by Rob Mientjes and Anatoly Papirovsky this widget is a must have for any Flickr user.

There are so many more great widgets that have been released and as time goes on, I’ll continue to add to this list. Think of this post as my personal “Widget Repository”.

Next Up

Next on the agenda, will be a look at Spotlight and Smart Folders.