14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Vista is out for some time now and besides the ease of use, functionality and cool looks, it also brought the world of gadgets on our desktops. You know those cool, nifty looking (in most of cases) stuff that generally just sits on your desktop and whose activity is mostly limited to doing a single thing of more or less importance.
They have reached such a development stage that they can now provide you the most varied information, from simply displaying an elegant digital clock on the desktop, offering you sticky notes, games shrunk to fit their small window, quotes that change every day to more serious stuff like resolving host names and supplying with all sort of info.
The little devils are all over the place and despite the fact that they are very small and in some cases quite useless, they tend to eat up more computer resources than we're inclined to belive. Anyway, nothing is free in this world, not even the freeware applications.
I am quite sure that your collection of gadgets is quite impressive and Vista Sidebar is definitely filled with these applications. Well, it contains all the 11 gadgets available for now. Adding more items to the sidebar is indeed a challenge and getting the available gadgets on Microsoft's website does not sound like a good idea as there aren't too many possibilities there. So what can you do? Google provides a similar application for you to stick to the desktop screen and which may be a good idea.
But what if you could add any of the gadgets you find on the web to Vista Sidebar? For some of you this may sound difficult. The job is in fact extremely simple. And you don't even need to know a single string of code. In fact, all you need to do is copy paste the right line of code into the right window. Everything else is automatic.
The tool for the task is Amnesty Generator, a freeware designed to let you "convert the millions of web widgets, games and videos - designed to live on home pages, blogs or MySpace - into gadgets to your Sidebar". I know it sounds amazing.
The single window interface does not require any adjustment from your part and the WYSIWYG makes it hyper-easy to work with. There are only three steps to the job and two of them are automatic. So that leaves you with only one operation to make.
First of all you have to find the web widget you want to convert into an element capable of integrating into Vista's Gadget Gallery. You don't have to break your back for this, as the extensive list of websites providing widgets supplies plenty of possibilities. Doming the list, the Google Gadgets and the items available in this web location are more than enough for some of you.
For the websites that require registration there will be a small asterisk symbol at the end of the name. But most of them do no ask for a user name and password to grant access to their widgetry. However, don't be confined to the locations provided by Amnesty Generator and look for other places as well. There is no restriction to that. The only condition is that the gadget should have the code line for embedding into a web page.
Next step is pasting the above-mentioned HTML line of code into Amnesty Generator's window. These being said, you realize that you can add a lot of other stuff into the sidebar. Playlists from Imeem, videos from MySpace, YouTube! or Google Video, practically anything that can be embedded in a web page via HTML code can be appended to the sidebar.
The final step deals with customizing the new gadget. You get to baptize it to your own wishes, set its limits in what concerns the width and height (careful here, as Vista Sidebar cannot be resized and wider gadgets will give an aesthetically challenged appearance) and add an image that best defines the gadget (GIF, JPG or PNG only).
All this being done, get to generating the gadget and teleporting it to the Gadget Gallery. A few seconds later, the widget is ready to be added to the sidebar. In my case, the whole deal lasted for about 10 seconds per added gadget. It took longer to find something useful to add than the actual process.
The Good
The application is stable and very easy to use. The three-step task to add new gadgets to the sidebar should not take longer than 20 seconds for each item.
The list of websites where you can search for gadgets is extensive, but you don't have to limit to that. Every web item that provides an HTML code to be embedded in a web page can be imported into Vista Sidebar.
The Bad
All the baddies are not because of the application. There are no settings for the appended gadgets, but that is not Amnesty Generator's fault.
The Truth
It is a hassle-free way to enrich the gadget list available in Vista Sidebar. The greatest effort from your part will be finding a gadget to your taste and copy-pasting its code in Amnesty Generator.
The application is absolutely free and there are no limits to the number of widgets you can generate.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
