Maria’s Guides

A few good widgets.

I subscribed to the Apple Computer Dashboard widget RSS feed a few months ago. What amazes me is how many new widgets are released each week. I like to check out the new offerings periodically and share information about the ones I think have a kind of universal appeal. Here’s this week’s batch.

Word of the Day Calendar

This is a great little widget for word lovers or anyone interested in improving their vocabulary. When opened, it queries the Dictionary.com Web site and pulls up a random word with definitions. The word is refreshed daily, but you can force a refresh by clicking the widget’s title area. You can also click the tiny arrow in the title area to see words from previous days.

Word of the Day Calendar is by Net Ingredients.

Symbol Caddy

One of the difficulties of hand coding Web pages is remembering the HTML codes for all the special characters you may want to include on pages. I’m referring to © for © and ∑ for ∑.

Symbol Caddy can help. This little widget displays a categorized palette of those special symbols. Click the button for the symbol category, then click the category you want. Symbol Caddy copies the corresponding HTML code to the clipboard. You can then close the widget and paste the code into your document. Or simply configure the widget to close automatically after clicking a symbol.

The version of Symbol Caddy I looked at (1.0) had a few display quirks when you click a symbol, but it appears to work just fine. It’s developed by Brian Haslanger.

Tweetahead Dashboard Widget

Are you addicted to Twitter? Do you worry that your friends will think you fell off the face of the earth if you don’t post tweets throughout the day? If the answer to either question is yes, then the Tweetahead widget is for you.

This widget makes it possible to schedule your tweets. You fill out a simple form with the time of your tweet and the text you want to appear. Click Schedule Tweet and the twitter post is sent to Twitter’s server, to appear at the appropriate time. This makes it possible to actually have a life while keeping everyone up-to-date about it.

Just don’t forget to configure it with your login and time zone info before you start tweeting ahead.

Tweetahead is by Chris24.ca.