Windows Vista Widgets Gadgets for the Hosting Professional

By Rollie Hawk

It’s 2008 and you are a professional in a high-tech industry.  That means two things. One, there’s a good chance you are using Windows Vista.  And two, it’s probably driving you up the walls faster than a floor covered in cobras.

But there’s no need to fret.  After all, Vista comes packed with the latest, most innovative features to hit the desktop computing world.  Not the least of which is the Vista Gadgets, the Microsoft version of widgets.  That’s right; those cutesy little applications that sit on the desktop of virtually every other operating system in the last ten years are finally in Windows.  In fact, it turns out that a number of these Vista Gadgets are actually handy time-savers.

NOTE: In typical Microsoft fashion, the URLs to these gadgets are uglier than sin.  So the easiest way to find them is to perform a quick Gadget search at Gallery.Live.com.

Putty Gadget
Even when we’re working in Windows, many of us are spending half our time opening terminal sessions on remote servers.  This gadget features Putty, probably the most popular terminal client for Windows.  With both Telnet for Windows servers and SSH for *nix, this gadget will meet all your Vista terminal needs.

TS Gauge
If you are managing a Terminal Services array or Citrix Farm, TS Gauge is sure to catch your eye.  This gadget logs in and monitors Windows terminal servers.  Stats such as active and disconnected client counts, CPU load, and memory in use are all available at a glance.

Remote Desktop Gadget
If you are managing Windows servers and telnet just won’t get it done, you are probably a Remote Desktop junky!  The Remote Desktop Gadget keeps our old friend mstsc.exe in the holster and fully-loaded.

VNC Connect
If RDP isn’t your favorite or you need GUI access to a Linux box, you’re probably familiar with VNC.  With VNC Connect, your most recent VNC connections are scanned from the registry and added to a convenient dropdown menu.

PHP Function Finder
There are several variations of this gadget, but all provide the same basic functionality.  In the programming world, there’s the old saying that no problem should be solved twice; with the PHP Function Finder, you can make sure you don’t try to!

Server Ping
How many servers do you find yourself pinging at the start of each day, just to make sure it’s online?  Server Ping is a wonderful little gadget for saving your some typing and giving you a little extra piece of mind.  With a simple green-light/red-light display, you’ll be able to spot a stalled server without lifting a finger (and hopefully before the emails come pouring in).

Conclusion
Gadgets are, at the very least, a welcome addition to the Windows desktop world.  They probably aren’t enough to convince you to migrate to Vista, but if you are already using it, there’s a good chance you’ll find a use for at least one of these on your desktop.  Whether you call them Widgets, Gadgets, or whatever else, these tiny apps are a nice reminder that Windows—and computers in general—are all about making lives easier, a fact that we too often miss.