Very few Dashboard Widgets have an enjoyable UI (User Interface). NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who supplies weather data to every Weather Man on TV, now has an outstanding Dashboard Widget available for OS X. 7 Day Forecast, Current Conditions, Zoom Doppler, and Live Alerts combined with Quartz visual effects makes the weather reporting experience actually enjoyable. The NOAA Weather Center Dashboard Widget is designed by Cobalt Logic. I am excited to see what other offerings this designer has in store for the Dashboard…
Go download the NOAA Weather Center and get trash that default Weather Widget.
More information about the NOAA Weather Center is here.
Apple has included a new Movie Times Widget in the Dashboard. Activate Dashboard by pressing F12 and Add the Movies Widget if it not already visible.
A Widget with Currently Showing Movie Posters will appear, just like at the theater!
If I Click the Widget, it will explode into two columns: Movies and Theaters.
I can adjust the zipcode the Widget is searching in by clicking the i icon in the lower left hand corner of the Widget.
Click a Movie Title to see which theaters it is currently showing at. To view Showtimes in the future, select the date in the upper right hand corner.
Click a Theater Name to view Showtimes.
To watch a trailer of the movie directly inside the widget, click Trailer.>
Click Buy Tickets to purchase tickets via Fandango. I must select a specific Showtime to activate the Buy Tickets option. This feature is only available for certain theaters.
Do you want to be ahead of the curve? Hedi over at MacAmour.com has figured out how to install the Leopard Movie Widget in OS X in 10.4 Tiger! This widget is extremely useful if you want to find movie times, watch trailers, or even purchase movie tickets at your local theater!
Click the Read More link below to Download the Widget from MacAmour.com
read more | digg story
Gas tells me the best prices for gas weather I am driving across country or in my hometown. I simply give the Gas widget my zip code and it will give me the cheapest gas prices in a 15 miles radius. Gas will even link to Google Maps, allow me to single out my preferred grade, and stays up to date thanks to participants over at GasPriceWatch.com.
Download Gas from Apple’s Dashboard Widgets site.
Stac is a puzzle game reminiscent of Dr. Mario or Super Puzzle Fighter. It is very simple. Four of the same shape touching = points and lowers the stac. Shapes fall in combination of threes. High Scores are saved locally. “Requires ingenuity and persistence in solving and assembling,” according to the Stac site. Any Tetris fan will love this game.
The best part is that I can take a short break from working and play a quick game. If I enable zoom in the System Preferences, I can even play Stac full screen by zooming in on the widget with Cmd+Option++.
Download Stac from the Official site.
Anyone interested in Astronomy will probably cite Starry Night Pro as the best application star gazing money can buy. Starry Night recently released a free Dashboard widget for Astronomy enthusiasts that is a solid astronomy widget, linking to images found on Starry Night online.
Download Starry Night widget here.
iStat Pro is a top notch statistics viewer for monitoring practically everything on my Mac. I can monitor processor load, disk space, memory usage, battery life, and network bandwidth. This widget is highly customizable and even has a few skins to choose from. If I haven’t already downloaded iStat Pro for my Mac, now is probably a good time.
iStat Pro can be downloaded on Apple’s Official Dashboard Site:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html
In OS X Leopard, I will be able to take snapshots of any webpage and make a widget. Now I don’t have to wait for this feature, because Dash Clipping does this for me already. Dash Clipping is an easy to use widget. Just enter any website address into the widget and poof! I noticed on my Intel MacBook Pro, I have to reload Dashboard to see the website appear in Dash Clipping. I can drag the website around and resize the window, no scroll bar though.
Now I can stalk Craigslist for free stuff in Dashboard!
Download Dash Clipping at Apple’s Dashboard Widgets Website: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/dashclipping.html
onTour updates my Dashboard with upcoming music performances around my area. The coolest part is that onTour scans my iTunes music library and brings all the bands I like to the top of the search. onTour uses Pollstar, a popular music tour website. Notice the links to purchase tickets and even preview a band in iTunes. This Widget is kinda new and I can’t wait to see how it evolves.
Download onTour from Apple’s Dashboard Downloads
