Handpicked Software

The steady parade of new Dashboard widgets has become my latest hit parade, with my favorite widgets taking a prominent position on my screen, then falling out of favor to make room for the new. Here’s a handful of new widgets that are front and center on my Dashboard.

Actually, this first one I mention only because of the many visitors to this site who are in search of “os x nude widget,” “beautiful nude widget women,” and “naked women widget.” This widget may or may not be workplace safe, depending on your workplace (I work at home). The OhBad widget displays the Lessons of Seduction from Aubade on your desktop. Aubade is a lingerie company, and the OhBad widget displays images of their scantily-clad models and their lessons, such as “Cultiver la mystére.” The photographs are quite nice, but the widget is small and the lessons, in French, almost impossible to read (at least on my 30″ Cinema Display). I also suspect it’s full of copyright violations. But if you’re interested in this kind of thing, now you know. I only found it because the same developer makes InGrid, noted below…

The DailyTao (pictured above) displays a different chapter of the Tao Te Ching each day, taking passages from the Stephen Mitchell translation. This ancient text by Lao-tsu, who may have been a contemporary of Confucius, is, according to Mitchell, “the classic manual on the art of living, written in a style of gemlike lucidity, radiant with humor and grace and largeheartedness and deep wisdom: one of the wonders of the world.” If he’d had the chance, Lao-tzu would have written it on a Mac.

iChrono is a simple stopwatch, a handy one-trick pony. Occasionally, I need to time something I’m testing. If you have a use for this kind of thing, iChrono does the job.

If your Dashboard is not only cluttered, but looks like a strong breeze blew in your window and scattered your widgets at random, InGrid can help you restore some sense of order. Launch the InGrid widget and it superimposes a grid over your Dashboard. Drag it to the top left corner so it covers your entire screen, then drag new widgets over the grid to align them. It’s not an ideal solution—you have to quit already open widgets and relaunch them to align them, and they don’t snap into place—but if you have some patience, it’s a worthwhile aide. Apple should implement something like Keynote’s alignment guides for the Dashboard, but until then there’s InGrid.

I use My Yahoo! as my home page, so with the My Yahoo! widget, Package Tracker widget, and the Stock Quotes widget, I have almost everything I need from my home page right on my Dashboard. The My Yahoo! widget grabs the latest headlines from all of your My Yahoo! news sources and you can toggle source, time, and summary displays. There’s a Yahoo! search box at the bottom of the widget, along with notification of new emails if you use Yahoo! mail.

Stats for AdSense is a handy little widget, but I think it should be shaped like a piggy bank. It automatically updates your stats from AdSense at an interval of your choosing (anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes) and shows your earnings for the week, including the current day. Clicking on the Stats logo also logs you directly into your AdSense account so you can view extended reports. Now if only someone would create a widget that does the same thing for my site logs.

The Wikipedia Widget lets you browse Wikipedia. You can search Wikipedia and view the results within the widget. Click the ? and the widget displays a special random entry. Click again for another entry. My random entry today: “Stephenie LaGrossa (born December 6, 1979) is a contestant in Survivor: Palau who was the last Ulong member standing before she was subsumed into Koror.” You never know what you’ll learn!

DailyTao 1.1
Bottom Line: A bit of ancient wisdom to start your day.
From: GlenSoft
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh

iChrono 1.1
Bottom Line: An elegant stopwatch.
From: TOSSEN
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh

InGrid 1.3
Bottom Line: Restore order to your Dashboard.
From: Skalp & DrakeDave Inc.
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh

My Yahoo! 1.0
Bottom Line: Better than a My Yahoo! home page.
From: Yahoo Inc.
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh

OhBad 0.2
Bottom Line: You, too, can learn the Lessons of Seduction!
From: Skalp & DrakeDave Inc.
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh

Stats for AdSense 1.0
Bottom Line: Count those pennies!
From: TigerWidgets.co.uk
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh

Wikipedia Widget 0.8.6b
Bottom Line: The perfect Dictionary companion.
From: Sean Billig
Price: Free
Platform: Macintosh