Silly me. Just a couple of months ago, I wrote about my preference for Yahoo! Widgets over Google Gadgets. Recently, however, I’ve decided to turn off Yahoo! Widgets and run Google Desktop alone as my widget/gadget/cluttered-thingies engine.

My primary reason would be simplicity and ease of access. Yes, I wrote before that Google Desktop had tacky design and I hated the fact that you could only see your gadgets on your dock. Well, I was wrong. Or at least developments through the course of a few weeks led Google Gadgets to look better and become more accessible.

For one, I started to undock my gadgets. And Google Desktop now supports easy access to gadgets by double-tapping either Shift key (much like how you can easily access the search bar by double-tapping either Control key).

Which is easier to tap? The F8 key or the Shift key? I don’t need an ergonomics expert to tell me that the Shift keys are closer to my fingers than F8 (okay, this can be changed). And as for aesthetics, well, Gadgets’ plain color and text schemes kind of suit me well right now. It’s not eye candy, but you get the useful information you need at a glance, such as the following screencap (it’s widescreen as I’m using my spanking new Compaq Presario V2000).

I like cluttering my gadgets around on the desktop where I can see them all at a tap of a button (or two, actually), much like how Mac OS X’s Exposé would show you all your relevant windows with the press of an F key (F9 to F12).

My only gripes are the limited Gadget set (like, there’s no weather gadget that can get the info for my city). There are thousands for Konfabulator/YWE but only a few hundred for Google Gadgets. And no, the built-in clock has no chimes (as with all other available clock Gadgets)!

I’l probably be turning on Yahoo! Widgets again, but this time I know better. I’ll use Gadgets for information and Widgets for eye candy.

Related posts:

Yahoo! Widgets vs. Google Gadgets
The $5,000 Google Gadget Contest
Google adds “Widgets” to Google Homepage
Google Releases Desktop 4
Yahoo! Buys Konfabulator

Hope you like that post!

Forever Geek is a resource for all things geek. You can stay tuned by having the latest FG news delivered to you for free via RSS.