More and more gadgets

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager

We hope you're liking the new Google Desktop Sidebar that we introduced last week, but we hope you like it even more with these great new gadgets:

• NPR Now Playing - Are you a fan of NPR? Well, they've created a new gadget for you. You can keep the NPR Now Playing gadget in your Sidebar or on your desktop for easy access to NPR programming. You'll never be far from your favorite programs and you can start listening with just a push of the button.
  

• Moon Phase - We have gadgets to tell you about the weather, but what about the phases of the moon? This latest gadget tells you where we are, lunar-phase-wise, on your desktop. Simply place this virtual moon anywhere you want and hover your mouse over it to get more details.

• Wikipedia Search - For all those inquisitive minds out there, here's another great gadget. Whenever there's a topic you want to explore or just something you don't know about, theWikipedia search gadget lets you quickly search Wikipedia. It also shows results and suggestions while you type, and saves your recent searches for easy access.

And if you want to customize your Sidebar, there are several ways to do it. From the Sidebar options menu, you can turn off the "Always on Top" feature to allow it to go to the background (easily bring it to the front by pressing shift twice). Or select the "Auto-hide" feature from the same menu to hide the Sidebar off the screen when your mouse isn't near it. And just drag the edge of the Sidebar to adjust the width.

To find out more about what you can do with your Sidebar, check out our features page or visit the Google Gadgets page to find other new gadgets.

And by the way, have a happy Thanksgiving.

Check out the new Sidebar

Posted by Kevin Tom, Product Manager

The Google Desktop Sidebar has always been great at delivering content personalized to individual users, ever since it was introduced way back in the second version of Google Desktop. But we kept thinking: what's a better way to deliver this content? In later versions of Google Desktop we let gadgets float on the desktop. But the Sidebar was starting to get a bit jealous and we couldn't restrain it any longer, so now there's Google Desktop 4.5, featuring a Sidebar with a new look.

The new Sidebar is transparent, so it fits seamlessly with your desktop environment. Gadgets that fought for attention now look right at home, and content-heavy gadgets get new frames and icons that make it easier to tell them apart. All of this leads to a better place to find your email, news, feeds, stock prices, weather and other essential information. And this version is compatible with all of the latest software including Microsoft Vista, Office 2007 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0. So what are you waiting for? Try the new Sidebar in Google Desktop now.