Windows Vista Gadgets - The good, the bad and the ugly

Finally something has come to fill the vacant void that lurks on the right-hand side of the desktop - that forbidden expanse where nothing has dared to go before.

Windows Vista’s new Sidebar enables you to make your desktop both functional and fun. At the moment mine looks like the central computer console of a Federation starship, with dials, meters and flashing lights everywhere.

Here are my five most useful (and most pointless) Sidebar gadgets:

MOST USEFUL…

If you like to listen to music while you work, and are bored of Media Player, then you can add BBC Radio to the Sidebar. Choose from all the Beeb’s digital stations, including the fantastic 6 Music.

I’m a self-confessed Wikipedia addict, and this gadget makes it so easy to search, I wept little tears of knowledge when I first tried it out.

Having a memory like a grape used to be a problem for me. Not any more. Write down everything from meetings to greetings with the handy notepad gadget.

The RSS Feed is revolutionising the way we receive news. No longer do we have to go looking for the latest stories, they get beamed straight to our desktop. This handy gadget not only provides you with the full ITN headlines and text, but video and audio as well. There are RSS feeds for most news services now, so get one that suits you.

This gadget will save you so much time, and make you feel so clever, you may decide to take a night course in brain surgery. When you can check your inbox, tasks and calendar appointments - all without having to open Outlook - who could blame you?

We’ve all been there. ‘I’ll just go on the computer for 10 minutes while my dinner cooks.’ Between myspace and your oven, an hour slips by, and dinner looks worse than Gordon Ramsey’s face.

A few of the Sidebar gadgets you can try out

MOST POINTLESS…

You can add a tasty looking apple to your desktop, and from time to time order a chunk of it to be bitten off. Maybe this is a new way of keeping us slim and healthy, by enjoying a calorie-free virtual snack. Or maybe it’s just there to annoy Apple.

This gadget apparently tells you how occupied the CPU is while you’re working away. However, the only time I’ve been bored enough to bother looking, it shows that the CPU isn’t doing a lot. Funny that.

A second-by-second monitor of the current terror alert status in America is just what I’ve always wanted. Today it was amber, meaning there’s only a medium risk of terrorists blowing everyone to bits.

When you pull the little finger on the pointing hand, it emits a rather humorous farting noise. This caused much confusion and amusement in the office…once.

Maybe this isn’t that pointless. Perhaps Bach and Beethoven started their careers tinkling away on a virtual piano that is operated by mouse-clicking one key at a time. Or maybe not.

All these gadgets and hundreds more are available from Microsoft, and can be searched by going to the ‘add gadget’ screen from the Sidebar, and then clicking ‘Get More Gadgets Online.’