Schvenn.net

AddGadget.com has some very useful desktop gadgets. Not a lot of people take advantage of desktop gadgets and others just leave the one's that came installed when they got their Operating System. This is such a wasted resource. I have about 10 gadgets I use on a regular basis and with widescreen monitors, we certainly can afford the screen space. This site has two in particular that I like: CPU Meter for monitoring processor usage and Network Meter for monitoring bandwidth usage. They're great visual guides to see at a glance what's happening on your computer and how it's using the Internet or if there's a program running away with your system resources.

This is a calendar for darker themed desktops. I hate the white calendar gadget. It's too much of a stark contrast.

I recently had to replace my notepad gadget, because it stopped working with Windows 7 SP1. Now, this one claims it's not meant to be used as a docked Vista sidebar gadget, but I'm not exactly sure why. I've been using it for a while in Win7 and it works great.

From this site I usually grab Volume Control Reloaded, Top Five (Processes) and GPU Observer . This site also has Gadget Arranger which "corrects" the spacing of smaller gadgets for more uniform fits to your desktop.

Synchronize with your Office Outlook, so that you can see tasks and e-mails in your sidebar.