What’s New In Widgets? The Free And Not So.

As Tera’s namesake nemesis says, “Size matters.” Screen size matters. It really does.

The number of Dashboard widgets continues to grow, completely covering my Mac’s 20-inch display. There’s only one solution.

Is Apple shrewd, or what? Dashboard widgets number about 2,000 and the number still grows. How many can a single Mac screen handle?

Even with 4 gigs of RAM, the answer is simple: Not enough. At last count I have 32 widgets on my 20-inch Apple Cinema display.

It’s time to upgrade. It’s cheaper to add another 20-inch display and second video card to my PowerMac G5, right? Then I could have another 32 widgets.

Still, that might not be enough. I have 77 widgets in the directory, and I’m adding more each week. I’m doomed. I’m a widgetholic.

This week I added a new Sudoku widget and sent the link to Tera.

She was deep into the book, Sudoku for Dummies book, and chronicled the adventure on TeraTalks.

With barely six weeks to go before mommyhood, I’m deep into food, cooking, and, under doctor’s orders, lower calories.

Calorie Tracker to the rescue.

This new widget is awesome, though it’s the first non-free widget I’ve found to be ‘worthy.’

In a single, small (not much screen space) widget, you can search a database of over 75,000 processed, natural and fast foods. The database was created by the USDA and is maintained in co-operation with the board of health and human resources.

Also new and tops on my list of recent Dashboard widget entries is FareCompare Fare Tracker. With baby due, I’m not doing any traveling soon, but I’m making sure the relatives will be here for diaper duty.

While I was browsing through the recent barrage of new Dashboard widgets, I came across an Egg Timer widget.

At first, I thought, “How silly. Who has a Mac in their kitchen?” Then Tera pointed out that eating for two is one thing, thinking for two is something else again. Yes, the timer can be used for more than eggs.

That’s when I sent her the Sudoku widget.

Also added recently is Sing that iTune which gets lyrics for currently playing songs in iTunes on your Mac, then saves them for use later.

One of my favorite web sites, of course, is Wikipedia, so it’s only natural that I have a Wikipedia widget.

That’s when my Mac’s display exploded.

Seriously, at that point it looked like Dashboard had exploded. I had widgets on top of widgets, under widgets, seemingly within widgets.

When I told my husband we needed a second Apple Cinema display, he asked the strangest question; “Why?” How he can talk and furrow eyebrows so deep you could plant corn is beyond me.

“Alex,” he said, with that little grin men use when they know something they know you don’t know, “why not just get rid of some of the widgets? Wouldn’t that get your screen space back?”

Men. No wonder I’m shaped like an egg timer.

How about you? Got any new Dashboard widgets that get your fancy?

Tera Patricks
The Sudoku widget was NOT appreciated, Alex. I nearly had a brain hernia.

Bambi Hambi
Who’s idea was it to send me a copy of the Body Mass Index Calculator? Not funny.