sidebar

The latest version of iTunes seems to have done away with a feature that many people have come to use regularly: the Genius sidebar. Instead of a Genius sidebar with options for finding new songs based on the ones in your library, there is now a Ping sidebar that gives you access to the social network's ratings and purchasing options.

This may be useful for Ping users, but the Genius sidebar was used by many to quickly find new song and artist recommendations and may be frustrated by its absence. The only Genius feature still remaining in the iTunes … Read more

One of the changes Apple made to iTunes that several people have been disappointed with is the app's lack of colors in the sidebar, making the window look out of focus and a bit bland. Some people have looked into hidden settings and other ways to modify iTunes to bring the colors back.

Unfortunately, changing the sidebar contents is not as simple as entering a command in the Terminal. Instead, you must alter the ".rsrc" file in the program package, which is not a very straightforward task.

Luckily, some people have tried this effort and made their … Read more

Like LaunchBar, Fruitmenu, and Default Folder, this popular and well-tested shareware GUI-enhancer has become an indispensable addition to OS X for many users. DragThing exists to make getting to things on your Mac--files, folders, apps, disks, URLs, and windows--quick and easy. Inveterate interface tweakers love DragThing because you can create multiple docks (like the OS X Dock) that can be almost infinitely configured to suit your specific situation. Plus, you can save snippets, define tons of hot keys, and perform quite a few neat OS tricks (like putting a Trash back on your desktop).

If you don't like bells … Read more

When you connect to servers using the Finder's "Connect to Server" window (available in the "Go" menu), you have the option to save favorites in a list below the address field. This is convenient, but for some people there are some problems where servers either cannot be added or removed from this list.… Read more

Some people's work on the PC immerses them in one or more applications. Other users prefer to think of the desktop as their center of operations. For the latter, this desktop sidebar offers plenty of gadgets to simplify their accessing the tools and info they want.

Thoosje Vista Sidebar installs an unobtrusive icon in the system task bar and a vertical pane along the right side of the monitor. Moving the bar to another spot is simply a matter of dragging it, and changing its skin to suit your fancy is a snap by clicking a button at its … Read more

If you want to manage and keep track of your Gmail task list outside of Gmail, or Google's special iPhone front end, there's a new tool to help you do it. Called gTask Sidebar, this Firefox plug-in will put Gmail's task list in your browser sidebar. It's basically an IFrame that emulates what you get in Gmail, although without any skinning or the capability to pop it out as its own window.

You can create, complete, and edit lists and tasks the exact same way you do it in Gmail. And instead of having an instance … Read more

One of the very best Firefox extensions, the All-in-One Sidebar add-on creates an active, collapsible sidebar that forces the default add-on window, your history, Web development tools, and what can seem like an endless amount of content to open in it.

By making all this extra content available via the same sidebar window, it takes one click on the sidebar's menu to switch among them, minimizing the clutter multiple Firefox extensions can unfortunately create. By default, the sidebar appears as a narrow panel of icons on the left of the screen, but even that can be set to automatically … Read more

Browser side-bar chat and friend app extraordinare Me.dium has just released a new version this afternoon. I met up with founder David Mandell at last week's Web 2.0 Expo to chat about the new functionality, which he says is a very early version of Me.dium's next big thing. This big thing is actually a small change--your friends and their presence in the app, which is now taking the focus.

Previously Me.dium's claim to fame was meeting random people at sites you visited. Now it's all about your friends and improving the ways … Read more

Here's a quick way to make sure you never need to open your Google Calendar in a tab again: Open it in your Firefox sidebar instead. Discovered at Firefox Facts, it adapts some code from iGoogle and streamlines it down to just the calendar. This is a great hack if you can't or won't use the Google Desktop Sidebar.

Log in to your Google account first, and then load up this Google Calendar link in a regular tab.

… Read more