Go wild with widgets

What a desktop companion can do for you

The 'total information awareness' dashboard

The White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, NASA, network security centers, CNN and other organizations maintain "situation rooms," where teams of specialists monitor information in real time, coming from a variety of sources.

You can create your own, mini-situation room for doing exactly the same thing, thanks to cheap computers, the Internet and the wonderful world of widgets.

Create this info-nirvana by taking advantage of four underused resources:

- Your laptop or a spare, old or unused PC;

- Your operating system's multiple user accounts feature;

- The full range of widget engines; and

- Your imagination.

Use your extra PC

Most Computerworld.com readers own more than one computer -- a main desktop system, plus a laptop used only for travel or an older desktop PC.

If you don't have an extra PC, get one. You can buy a complete, brand-new system for less than US$300 or a used one for less than that. It doesn't need to be a screamer, just capable of running a recent version of your operating system.

Running widgets on a separate computer enables you to optimize the system's interface for widgets, use every inch of real estate for your info and won't bog down your main system. Best of all, "using" widgets requires nothing more than simply glancing at the extra screen.

Use the 'User Accounts' feature

Both Windows PCs and Macs support multiple user accounts, a feature designed to enable each person using a system to set up a custom configuration. Create multiple dashboards (more on that below) and give each its own user account.

Use more than one widget engine

Some think of widget engines as mutually exclusive -- that you have to choose, for example, between Yahoo Widgets or Google Desktop. But when you dedicate a machine to widgets, you can run two, three, four or more widget engines at the same time without risk of slowing or crashing your main machine.

The idea is to avoid being boxed into the limited offerings of one platform. Just go "shopping" on all the widget application sites to look for widgets that suit your needs. Then download and install whatever software you need to run the widgets of your choice. Mix and match -- don't allow yourself to get locked in. And don't forget the Active Desktop. It's still there and still lets you instantly add Web pages to your desktop.

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