Sidebars
Of all the new features set to debut in
Windows Vista, we think the on-again, off-
again sidebar is one of the coolest. (For a
while, the sidebar fell off of the Vista fea-
tures list, but it seems to be back, at least
for the time being.) For the uninitiated,
the sidebar is exactly what it sounds like:
a long bar down the side of your screen
that can display all sorts of fun and use-
ful information, such as weather forecasts
(useful), RSS news feeds (also useful),
and photos of your hamster (fun). This
is similar to the concept of widgets; the
sidebar simply provides a convenient and
prominently visible place to display useful
or entertaining info.
And guess what? You don’t have to
wait for Vista to get in on the hot sidebar
action. Since Microsoft fi rst demoed the
concept several years ago, numerous free
third-party sidebar applications have been
created. Our top pick is Desktop Sidebar
( http://www.desktopsidebar.com ), which is fast,
stable, and boasts a solid library of skins
and plugins. Some of our favorites include
the ABC BitTorrent Panel, which lets you
monitor your BitTorrent downloads; the
DSiTunesController plugin, which allows
you to control iTunes even if it’s mini-
mized; and the Calendar Panel, which dis-
plays your upcoming appointments from
Outlook. All of these plugins and more are
either included with Desktop Sidebar or
freely downloadable from the program’s
website.
Of course, if you’re already using
Google Desktop Search on your computer,
you might simply want to use the sidebar
that’s included with it. Google’s sidebar
comes stocked with a bevy of plugins,
many of which are related to Google ser-vices. For example, the default installation
includes a newsfeed from Google News,
a rotating display of maps from Google
Maps, and a GMail plugin. You also get
conveniences such as a to-do list and a
web/desktop search box. Dozens of addi-
tional plugins are available online ( http://
desktop.google.com/plugins ); most of them
offer functionality similar to the plugins
available for Desktop Sidebar.PDF Technology
If you’ve used a Mac recently, you may
already know that newer versions of
OS X offer built-in support for Adobe’s
ubiquitous PDF fi le format—any app that
can print can create PDFs. Meanwhile,
Windows users are stuck viewing PDFs in
the slow and bloated Adobe Reader appli-
cation, and have no easy way to produce
their own PDF fi les. Right?
Wrong! Denizens of Windowsland do
in fact have recourse from Adobe’s PDF
monopoly. For viewing PDFs, we recom-
mend ditching Adobe Reader for the lean
and mean Foxit Reader ( http://www.foxitsoftware.
com ). This program is the most polished
and complete alternative PDF view-
er we’ve seen here at Maximum PC.
It’s free, requires no installer, and
leaves a footprint of less than 3MB
on your hard drive. Best of all, it
supports all the most important fea-
tures of Adobe Reader , yet boasts a
startup time that’s measured in sec-
onds instead of weeks (yes, Adobe,
that’s a dig).
What about those of us who need
to produce our own PDFs? You could
shell out the big bucks for a profes-
sional PDF-creation program—or you
could just download the free, easy to
use PDFCreator ( http://www.sourceforge.net/
projects/pdfcreator ). This simple open-
source tool installs as a printer driverin Windows. That means you
specify output settings (resolution,
paper size, etc.) through Windows
XP’s Printers and Faxes utility.
Conveniently, it also means you
can produce PDF fi les from any
Windows program that’s capable
of printing.
When you want to export
a document to PDF from a
program, just use the usual
Print command and select
“PDFCreator” as your printer. A
dialog box will pop up asking you
to specify a fi lename and optional
information such as an author and
subject. Simply enter the requisite informa-
tion, click Save, and choose a location for
the fi le. That’s all—it’s really that easy!Monitor stock prices, check the weather, and
keep up on the news—all from the side of
your computer screen with Desktop Sidebar.With the free open-source
PDFCreator tool, you can create
your own PDFs from any pro-
gram that supports printing.Foxit Reader is a fast, streamlined
alternative for viewing PDF files.38 MA XIMUMPC MARCH 2006
MODERNIZE
WINDOWS XP
Google also bundles a sidebar with its desktop
search application. It ain’t original, but it gets the
job done.Continued on page 40 Ë