Did I already tell you how much I love widgets? If you haven't heard it, here it is again. This from a girl who 5 years ago would have told you that having more than 2 Javascripts in your webpage is a huge usability no-no. But with connection and computer speeds exponentially faster now, it would almost be a bad user experience if you didn't have a useful widget or two on your blog.

The keyword here is useful.

A weather widget is useful, especially if you pore through your visitor logs to see where most of them (repeat visitors in particular) come from regularly and then provide useful and relevant weather information for them. For this blog, most visitors to date come from Washington DC.

Currently providing weather data on the US and Canada only, the iBegin weather widget is lightweight (script-wise) and elegant in design, customisable, and fundamentally useful. 10 points for usability.

Here it is in action:


Get one for yourself here.

Technorati: widget, weather widget, cool widgets, useful widgets

Test Scenario: Securely wipe old laptop before giving away.

AbsoluteShield File Shredder

Everyone's favourite shredder. However it cannot shred free space and hung while trying to delete my 1GB files.

So I turned to:

Zilla Data Nuker

This snazzy freeware offers several shred options. It shredded my free space pretty well and did not hang when cleaning up the large files. It seemed to ignore my right-click shred request but then I realised it had already started by the blinking indicator on my taskbar. A notification would have improved the user experience.

When I returned to the CNET download page, there were some user reviews that there was spyware in it. I hadn't seen any and at this point I had disconnected the laptop to the Internet and uninstalled the spyware removal programs. I looked for a third option then to finish up the rest of the files.

Simple File Shredder

Probably the best option. You can either right-click to shred or drag and drop folders and files into its interface to be shredded either 35x or a standard 7x. It also shreds free space, ideal for an extra wipe, and has password protection to prevent unauthorised wipes.

Great usability in its interface: drag and drop, and request for wipe method prior to wipe, plus a list of files deleted as it progresses and a neat green tick when done. The elapsed time also helps you estimate how long it will take. It deleted 1GB files with no hanging. Highly recommended as a stand-alone for a clean wipe.

Download:
Simple File Shredder
Zilla Data Nuker
AbsoluteShield File Shredder

Technorati: file shredder, shredder, eraser, technology, software review, shredder review, AbsoluteShield File Shredder, Zilla Data Nuker, Simple File Shredder

Yes, the title has changed too to reflect a more accurate test experience of Vista on the lenovo v100, which for SEO purposes, I really shouldn't change its name to a nick after all. :p

I have to say I love the feel of the keyboard. Most Thinkpad keyboards are to die for and thankfully the lenovo v100 has a similar one. Note: most brands pay close attention to usage of their brand names, hence my adherence to the lower case "l".

Anyhow, while the slow Vista start up is still driving me crazy, now that I have disabled the lenovo message centre and some other annoying start up programs, the lenovo is running faster.

Its wireless strength, thanks to the ThinkVantage Access Connections I suspect, is stronger than the one on my old Compaq nc6000 which I am currently using.

It's hard to imagine how much miscellaneous junk one can accumulate over 2 and a half years but indeed, it's been 2 days and I am still cleaning stuff out.

For some reason, the screen isn't as clear as other laptops and this time I can safely say it is not my imagination. It has a sort of cloudy feel to it no matter how much I wipe it (gently) but it must be because it is made of hardier stuff than other laptops. It feels a little like a glass window.

Still, every time I use the fingerprint authentication I feel very important, like a super spy. As if the stuff in the computer is critical to national security! Sure if cat photos and Jack's photos can bring world peace. :)

Technorati: lenovo v100, Thinkpad, laptop, Windows Vista, Vista, fingerprint authentication