The Shortcut - Local Disk

Gadgets represent one of the new features Windows Vista brought about, but it’s not just Microsoft which developed such an engine. Google, and Yahoo! followed up, with dedicated desktop objects to be used. For instance The Shortcut - Local Disk wants to provide a comfortable way to access a local disk drive.

This gadget is specially created to integrate itself in Yahoo! Widget Engine, so it needs to be installed on the target computer. Once launched, the gadget shows up in the sidebar, with a predefined location to serve as an example.

Just to leave desktop space for more important tasks, the gadget can’t be moved from the sidebar. This means it’s only accessed from there, but simply launching the gadget file later on has the same effect. What’s more, it doesn’t benefit from opacity options, size, or staying on top of everything else.

The name can be rather deceiving, but this isn’t in a bad way. The widget comes with its own set of options, which makes it possible to change the predefined location. Moreover, there’s no restriction to the actual location itself, meaning it can be any folder, coming in handy for creating a quick access point for external devices which frequently get plugged in.