What ones do you have other than the freebies?

My screen looks like a Post-it shop at the moment! Post screenshots of your layouts! I'll do it later.

If you are talking about Dashboard widgets, the only essential one I have is the function to turn the dashboard off completely.

In my experience (and I found this with Konfabulator as well), the first time you try it out it's like "Ooh, a weather one! Ohh, my TV times! Ooh etc etc" and it rapidly wears off and you pretty much find out that for all practical intents and purposes most of them are pretty useless.

It's cool it's there if you need it, I'm sure some people love it, and it's great you can develop your own widgets if you want to something bespoke (like setup little monitor applications for servers or your website and stuff), but otherwise Dashboard is disabled on my machine.

If you are talking about more general Mac utilities, then my absolute all-time number-one-can't-use-a-Mac-without-it is Launchbar. It's indispensable for me and has changed my Mac life.

I also rely on Codetec's Virtual Desktop, Windowshade, Menumeters, and a whole bunch of other utilties.

The most useful, practical workflow enhancing tools for me would be Launchbar, Virtual Desktop and Windowshade - they would be the first three things I'd install on any Mac...

And the only icons on my desktop are the mounted drives - I can't stand messy icon-strewn workspaces...

Edited by desmond (29/01/07 02:00 PM)

I actually came to dashboard the other way around.

Pre Tiger, and when dashboard was first demoed, I was like "oh my god that is [ ****** ], and yet another way to waste computer resources". So the first thing i did when I installed tiger is i disabled it via the terminal. I had other ways of doing all those things, and was perfectly used to doing it.

Only recently I was like, hang on, I dont want to keep opening safari and going to the wikipedia to do searches. same with dictionary, i don't want to always have to find it in the application folder, and that calculator, now i can do really quick maths! this is actually pretty nifty! The Big Blue Lounge tool is great too - a tap tempo button in your dashboard! And stickies for whenever I need to post notes/reminders, and I'm always curious about the weather.

One widget I can't live without is the AccuWeather widget. When I'm sat here working or bored I just hit F12 and 2 pop up, Larnaca in Cyprus, (where I live now) and London UK.

Many a time I've thought to myself, "I wonder how my mates are doing back home, oh look it's currently p***ing down in London but it's 82F here, I think I might nip down to the beach for a swim!" and a great big grin appears on my face!

Yep, that's one widget I definitely can't live without!

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www.thinkootb.com

Quote Big_al:

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One widget I can't live without is the AccuWeather widget. When I'm sat here working or bored I just hit F12 and 2 pop up, Larnaca in Cyprus, (where I live now) and London UK.

Many a time I've thought to myself, "I wonder how my mates are doing back home, oh look it's currently p***ing down in London but it's 82F here, I think I might nip down to the beach for a swim!" and a great big grin appears on my face!

Yep, that's one widget I definitely can't live without!

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- its grey and cloudy here now.

Quote E D:

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I actually came to dashboard the other way around.

Pre Tiger, and when dashboard was first demoed, I was like "oh my god that is [ ****** ], and yet another way to waste computer resources". So the first thing i did when I installed tiger is i disabled it via the terminal. I had other ways of doing all those things, and was perfectly used to doing it.

Only recently I was like, hang on, I dont want to keep opening safari and going to the wikipedia to do searches. same with dictionary, i don't want to always have to find it in the application folder, and that calculator, now i can do really quick maths! this is actually pretty nifty! The Big Blue Lounge tool is great too - a tap tempo button in your dashboard! And stickies for whenever I need to post notes/reminders, and I'm always curious about the weather.

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What is launch bar?

Quote TFOM:

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What is launch bar?

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It's where you have launch.

Quote TFOM:

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What is launch bar?

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It is similar to a sports bar, only for astronauts.

Quote TFOM:

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What is launch bar?

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http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html

I use the following widgets almost every day:

Calendar
Dictionary/Thesaurus
Currency Converter
Translation

my faves are:

istat pro
screenshot plus
stickies
weather
calender

all very handy.

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check out my tunes - www.myspace.com/jamesjackson711

why use Launchbar when spotlight is already there and less obtrusive? I us spotlight to find things and to open apps - it's excellent!!

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check out my tunes - www.myspace.com/jamesjackson711

Because Launchbar does a hundred things that spotlight can't.

Spotlight is a search tool. Launchbar is an app/file launcher, but it can do a ton of cool stuff in addition to that. Spotlight is not an app launcher.

The dashboard widgets seem to use the same amount of memory whether the dashboard is active or not, so I only use a few that I find really handy, ie: The Oxford Dictionary/Thesaurus, a clock to see what time it is in Brisbane (where my brother is) and a Wikipedia widget. I can live without the ski weather report and the puzzle of a tiger's face!

Tom

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My Little Project

The three I use most are-

the virtual Oblique Strategies cards(Eno)

tap tempo jobbie (just tap it and it tells you the tempo you're tapping)

beats to milliseconds (and back) converter

there's a stats job that gives you the lowdown on your computer's current state that's pretty useful too

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

Actually spotlight is an apps launcher, I use it all the time

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check out my tunes - www.myspace.com/jamesjackson711

Well, the boundaries are a little blurred. I would have to type safari, wait for the search results to come in, locate the app in the list... with Launchbar I would be running Safari before Spotlights search results had started to come in.

Launchbar is much better and can do so much more, it learns what you use, you "L" could run Logic, "S" Safari, and so on, you can setup web search templates, pickup multiple finder selections and send them all you your text editor, and so much more.

In any case, if you don't want to try it or it's not for you that's fine - for me, it's absolutely essential and any Mac without it feels like wading through treacle... it's the single utility that most changed my computing experience...

What's the betting it'll be in the next OS X

Still, between the Dock, Spotlight and Recent Items, I'm perfectly content with what I have.

Paul

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Oh, dear, why do we bovver?

Additionally the dashboard itself uses no measurable processor resources itself. I went through a period of disabling it completely, then actually looked into it further, and found that it was anything but the 'resource hog' some sites would have you believe.

Widgets I use: Gmail, thesaurus, dictionary. Tube line status & JamCam can be handy if travelling to central London, a multiple clipboard thingy I can't remember the name of, TV schedules and live train times.

My most-used favourites:
Piano Chords - displays chord names. I don't actually use it that much, but it can be useful sometimes.

Audio Calculator - useful for quickly working out delay times.

WordPress Dash - for quickly posting comments on my WordPress blog.

Radio Tuner - internet radio tuner. Compatible with Real and Windows media.
Bean Counter - I occasionally use this for tracking and calculating fees I need to charge to customers.

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Imagination is more important than knowledge - A. Einstein

I was bored here's a picture of my widgets



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Teenage dreams so hard to beat

This made my Christmas cool.

Paul

I have :

BBC News
London Underground - Live tube info
a couple of different weather widgets
a addition to the stickies gives a new stickie with a single click
UK travel news (Roads)
Cyberduck FTP for getting my tracks onto my website.

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www.sounds-and-images.co.uk
http://twitter.com/soundsandimages

Quote Libertine:

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I was bored here's a picture of my widgets

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Nice Widgets Libertine, but where did you find the "Girl with a particulrly nice cleavege" widget? I've been searching for one for ages.

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My Little Project