So you’ve decided to stick with Windows XP, but you’ve a little envious of the sidebar you’re friend is running on his copy of Vista? Well, you can get a sidebar of your own on XP that takes up far less memory than the one on Vista.
Up until last year I ran Desktop Sidebar. It’s a good product with a huge number of skins and plugins available. It also has a number of pre-installed plugins giving you a lot of functionality out of the box. If you want access to the largest number of plugins, this is the sidebar for you.
But my preferred sidebar application is called Google Sidebar. It also has a good number of plugins (Google calls them widgets) for nearly anything you’re after. It uses very little memory and is quite stable. I also like it’s simple design and stability.
My favorite plugins are the analog clock, desktop photos, Outlook calendar, desktop stocks, desktop to do, desktop system monitor, and desktop weather.
Nordquist Blog 