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Dine-O-Matic (and the Dashboard widgets we love)
Merlin Mann | Sep 6 2006
Dine-O-Matic - Dashboard - Food I've never quite taken to Dashboard the way a lot of folks have. Like that completely baffling Spotlight results "window," it seems to just kind of live off in its own little neighborhood -- one that's just far enough away to discourage frequent visits. “Jeez, Merlin, how lazy can you get about hitting Annnnnnyhow, I finally found a "business case" for Dashboard today with the discovery of the perfectly-delightful Dine-O-Matic, a beautiful and free (as in beer) little widget from the graphical savants over at Iconfactory. This does precisely one thing: it chooses a random restaurant for you to eat at. That's it. No more whiny rounds of "'What do you want?' and 'No, what do you want?'" Because we now have comely robots to make these decisions for us. The dining-out singularity is near! You just pop in the names and cuisine-types of all your local haunts, and then hit the big blue plate. The widget flashes and churns like a slot machine, then picks out the place you and your party will dine. Awesome. Yay, Dashboard.
We haven't talked too much about Dashboard around here, but I'd love to hear from you guys: Which widgets have made you love Dashboard? Has Dashboard become an integrated part of your overall workflow? Or is it just a pretty amusement park? (not that this is bad) 53 Comments
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 I use the calculator all...Submitted by MEP (not verified) on September 6, 2006 - 11:32am.
I use the calculator all the time. Prior to the dashboard, I used to keep a little cheapo wallet-sized calc next to the keyboard on my desk (or my PDA). Now that's essentially obsolete. The weather widget is loaded and referenced from time to time, but it's not terribly accurate for where I live (Colorado, so no surprise there. The weather changes far too quickly for anyone to predict too accurately) so I don't rely on it at all. Dictionary gets used quite a bit, but not the Thesaurus part of it since I have Roget's International Freakishly Large edition in print and always at hand. I load up package tracker after I've ordered something and unload it once it arrives. I have the Oblique Strategies widget but I find it horrifically ugly and I can't customize the database of strategies like I can with my Palm edition so I don't even have it loaded up (but I plan on making my own when I get the chance). xCuts is a cool little reference that comes in mighty handy sometimes. Really though, it's the calc that keeps Dashboard running on my system. The rest I could feasibly live without. » POSTED IN:
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