Tip #2617 - Widgets
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Widgets
Welcome to the wonderful
world of widgets! What are widgets, you may ask? Well, they are basically
small applications that are attached to your desktop that allow you to
have the Internet at your fingertips! What am I talking about? Well, widgets
allow you to access different forms of multimedia, view local sports scores,
check the weather and lots more. The best part is, you can do all of this
without ever opening up a program.
Are you interested?
I thought you might be!
Well, before you start
downloading the widgets that you want, you need a special engine designed
just for widget downloads. You can download that engine here: http://widgets.yahoo.com/.
When the download
is complete, an installation wizard will appear on your screen. Just follow
the wizard instructions to complete the installation. (Click Next when
you're done with each section). After the tutorial is complete, you will
see a few of the different widget types floating around on your desktop.
Cool, huh?!
What I suggest you
do is clear all of your regular icons off to the sides off your desktop
so you will have some space for the widgets. Another good idea is to have
a solid background so that everything is more visible. You can choose
one by right clicking on your desktop and choosing Properties.
Once in there, click on the Desktop tab and you can then
find a more solid colored background for your wallpaper. You can obviously
keep the background you had before if you want, but you might not be able
to see the widgets as well. Just keep that in mind. The background I chose
(the one in the below screenshot) can be found here.
You can use this same one if you would like.
As you already know, there are some widgets on your desktop and the files
for those can be found in your My Documents folder. To view more widget
choices and to download more, go to http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/.
This Web site has thousands of widgets for just about anything, from stock
quotes to mood rings. You can just browse through the different choices
and find which ones you would like to put on your desktop. The ones I
put in the above screenshot can also be found on this site.
Once you have a widget
downloaded, you can run it by simply double clicking the icon. If you
ever want to remove a widget from your desktop or change the settings,
just right click on it and follow the steps. Not a shabby deal, huh?!
Now that you know
all about widgets, have fun and download some that express you the best!
~ Neil Patel
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