16. Windows Sidebar

Anyone who has seen Apple's Widgets in OS X Tiger will immediately get the idea when I say that the Sidebar is designed to display Gadgets, little single-purpose, .XML-based applets that will (hopefully) offer useful functionalities. The Windows Sidebar is bit better designed than Apple's Widgets in OS X 10.4. Both OSes let you drag mini-applets to the desktop, which have about the same level of potential functionality. The beauty of Microsoft's solution is in the Sidebar itself.

Sidebar uses transparency to excellent effect. You don't feel like part of your desktop is taken away. Even when you set the Sidebar to its most aggressive screen-robbing setting, "Sidebar is always on top of the other windows," it doesn't shrink your desktop size. Other program windows that overlap the Sidebar merely slide under it, and you can still see them because the Sidebar column is transparent. Two other settings give you full control. You can make it so that all windows appear on top of the Sidebar, so it's just part of the background. And, of course, you can turn it off.

I noted Sidebar's major shortcoming in 20 Things You Won't Like story, which is a lack of Gadgets. There's not much point to the Windows Sidebar without having a big pile of Gadgets to choose from and install. Another point I would suggest is that Microsoft create a user-configurable area on the Sidebar.

17. Internet Explorer 7+