I like having everything I need at my fingertips - as long as it's all neatly arranged.
Many folks don't like a 'busy' desktop, but it works nicely for me.
My desktop has 20 gadgets, some on the sidebar and some that are detached. In fact, I have 20 of them running on my Vista desktop - some on the bar and some detached and arranged on my own pseudo-sidebar near the bottom of my 24-inch monitor, as shown in Figure A. But whether they're lined up neatly down the side of my desktop in a bar or scattered around, I think gadgets are cool and useful. I know many people think it's a waste of space, and Windows 7 does away with it altogether and just lets the gadgets float on your desktop wherever you want them (something you can already do with individual gadgets in Vista by detaching them from the sidebar). Here are the ones that top her list of favorites. Not everyone is a fan of Vista gadgets, but Deb Shinder has a large collection of them that she finds extremely useful.
