Desktop Widgets: Small and Powerful

Ever had a problem monitoring computing activities of your laptop? Or do you want your laptop to look the way you want it to? You can go beyond the standards of desktop appearances by using widgets, which are tiny programs designed to do specific tasks like monitor your laptop battery life or give you a 5-day weather report.

A free plug-in that you can download from Yahoo, here are a few widgets that can help you improve your desktop activities:

WiFi Monitor

A simple widget, this helps you monitor your current wireless signal. It displays the name of the router that you are currently connected to and there is also one widget available to monitor battery life.

Neon Clock Cube

This simple widget gives off a neon lighting effect. The cube displays time in both 12 and 24-hour formats, current date and the day. Colors of the cube can be customized to suit user-preferences. This is particular useful for those who dislike the provided and very small clock found on the bottom right of their desktop.

Shortcut Dock

Don't have space on your start bar because of the million shortcuts that you have placed on it? You can lose the whole shortcuts tab completely by using a docking widget instead. It mimics the program dock found on a Mac and whatever is found on your shortcuts menu will be displayed in the dock. The dock can be moved around any part of the screen in a horizontal display with large icons which will be easy on users' eyes.

Dual Processor Monitor

One of the most simple of widgets, this one is designed to monitor the activity of dual processors. This is particularly useful for laptops that run on the Intel Centrino Duo standard, or laptops that use two processors. The widget is a black and white resizable meter that displays usage of the processors by percentage.

Yahoo Weather Widget

If you are a traveler who goes online in each of your destinations and need a report on whether or not it will rain the next few days, this widget is very useful. It connects to the ever-reliable Yahoo Weather website and automatically downloads a 5-day report in the location of your choosing. It can also automatically display weather at your current location without you having to choose the location manually.

Picture Frame

Want to look at a slideshow of your family pictures while you are working to ease your stress? With this widget, you have the option of displaying pictures that you have uploaded onto your Flickr account or you can also access pictures on your local drive. Another nifty option is that you can also pull down random pictures from the net (through services other than, and including, Flickr). Don't spend your whole day watching the slideshow, though. You know you have work to do.

There are thousands of widgets that have been designed for the Yahoo Widget plug-in. Some of them can be really useful as far as information is concerned. And then there are widgets that are extremely useless. You want a widget that is designed just to say a few stupid lines when you click it? That's available. Do you want a widget that allows you to play an Atari-style game of pong? That's available too.

If you are a good programmer, you can also design your own widgets. None of them are commercial. They can all be downloaded for free and activated almost immediately and since they are such small programs, they do not drain a lot of your computing resources. This is true even for the widgets that download data from the Internet. So, if you are looking for an alternate look for your laptop or your Mac (many of the widgets are compatible for both platforms), then check out Yahoo Widgets today. Download and install it into your boring desktop today.