Australiais Sydney Morning Herald has posted an article looking at a few pieces of OS X software. First up is Konfabulator, the scripting engine that has taken the OS X world by storm. Konfabulator is a US$25 piece of software that allows the user to place Widgets, or small applications, on the desktop. Widgets can do everything from telling the time and date to providing the user with a game to play.
Next, the article looks at addons for Appleis GarageBand software. When Apple released GarageBand, it offered JamPack, a collection of extra loops and instruments. According to the article, others, such as AMG, Drums on Demand, Access Music, and Bitshift Audio have stepped up to provide more GarageBand loops in addition to those found in the JamPack. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Widgets take advantage of Quartz in OS X, and can have varying transparency, can lie on the desktop or float above the working window or you can use Expose, the window-moving feature in OS X, to flick them in and out of view.
The idea is not new. Widget things have been around for years and Konfabulator is at least a year old. But, says Adam Engst of Tidbits, one of the great Apple gurus, "if I were handing out awards for software iMeccanoi sets, Konfabulator would top my list".
If you know a bit of Java programming, you can make your own Widgets. If you do not, Konfabulator is a good place to start.
But you do not have to roll your own. Tailor-made Widgets abound on the Web.
You can read the full article at the Sydney Morning Herald.