Rainlendar is a lightweight and customizable calendar for your desktop.

When I first launched Rainlendar I was impressed by the widget-like appearance. Widget are small, handy gadgets that can pop up on your screen to show you all types of information, from weather forecasts, to stock charts or the time and date. They are usually small, attractive and very discreetly fit on your desktop. Rainlendar’s elements similarly have that cloud-like feel. The notes, events and calendar windows float around on your desktop and can be moved about your screen and disappear or reappear in a touch.

Rainlendar stands out from classic calendar programs thanks to a highly customizable interface and the possibility to quickly and effortlessly jot down notes and important events. Although it only comes with two different skins, the program offers a link to www.customize.org, where you should find the style which suits your tastes. But Rainlendar doesn’t stop there. You can set up hotkeys to manage Rainlendar at the push of a key and, thanks to various plug-ins present in the program, integrate Rainlendar directly to other utilities like Outlook and iCalendar. Rainlendar is always within reach as a tray icon on your desktop and bringing it up just takes a click of your mouse.

Unfortunately Rainlendar’s real originality is also its weakness. The program offers a wide range of skins but adding these to the program is far from straightforward. You have to drag your downloaded skin into the Skins folder for the Rainlendar program file and then browse to the new skin from the ‘Edit Skin’ option in Rainlendar’s drop down menu.

If you like to keep your calendar on your PC, but find the one offered by Windows too dull, Rainlendar is a good alternative. You’ll enjoy setting your own style and the way it discreetly fits onto your desktop.

Download Rainlendar 2.4 in Softonic

Following the release of new versions of both Internet Explorer and Firefox, the infamous 'browser wars' are flaring up again. Despite both Firefox 1.5 and the Beta of IE7 making significant strides, it would be be foolish to think this was a two-horse race. While gaining a good reputation with geeks and power users, Opera has long been a bit-part player among the big boys of the browser world. However, if this preview release is anything to go by, the Norwegian-built browser could finally be ready to punch with the heavyweights.

Opera has been pioneering new ways of browsing the web for some time. It has had tabbed browsing since the days before tabbed browsing was cool and developed the innovative 'mouse gestures' control system, where you navigate through the web just by holding the mouse button and flicking your wrist. The developers even dabbled with a multi-pane interface for viewing several pages within one interface.

The good news is that Opera has lost none of its appetite for innovation, and version 9 is packed with new goodies that will have the programmers at Mozilla and Microsoft choking on their doughnuts. For starters the app runs much quicker than the previous release, making it arguably the quickest browser around (except perhaps for Safari) at rendering pages. Incredibly, despite this boost in performance, the program appears to use less memory than version 8.5, making it far less draining on system resources than Firefox and IE.

In terms of features Opera is the gift that keeps on giving. New to the program comes OSX Tiger-style 'widgets', allowing you to check news, convert currency, view the weather and so on through a series of draggable pop-ups which anchor themselves in front of the browser. Although there aren’t many widgets to choose from at present, this is sure to change once the tech-minded Opera fans start developing more.

Another great addition to Opera 9 is BitTorrent support, allowing you to download torrents directly within the browser – a feature that amazingly no one had thought of before. This system works very smoothly, which makes us wonder why RSS feed reading support in Opera is still so poor.

Among the other new treats within the program is a nifty new search feature which lets you add any search engine to the search bar in the main toolbar. This means you can instantly access searches within your favorite online destinations (Softonic, for instance).

Tabbed browsing remains, although some users may be annoyed to discover that Opera has added close tab buttons to the tabs themselves rather than as a separate button. Having said this, the new web page preview thumbnails that appear when you rollover a tab are a real masterstroke. Mouse gestures are still there too, along with the addition of Total Recall-style voice commands – another example of how cutting-edge this browser is.

Opera's developers have been keen to ramp up security features too, and although they aren't highly original, the new content blocking and pop-up blocking functions serve their purpose effectively. What's more, it's refreshing to see a browser that embraces the latest web standards so freely, with the latest release boasting support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 tags.

The browser is remarkably stable and is far better behaved than Internet Explorer 7. Combined with its speed, innovative features and standards support, Opera is undoubtedly web software's best-kept secret, and the final release may prove to be even better than Firefox. Don't say anything though, or everyone will want it.

Download Opera 9.52 in Softonic

Making your own icons is a cool way to add a touch of class to your desktop without adding any widgets or changing the theme.

Easy Picture2Icon allows you to create snappy and customised Windows icons based on your favourite images and designs. So for example, if you have a favourite photo, Easy Picture2Icon can simply process it and turn it instantly into an icon you can use on your desktop. It doesn't accept all file types but at the moment, Easy Picture2Icon is able to convert digital pictures into BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG and PNG files to Windows icons (ICO).

However, that's as far as it goes because Easy Picture2Icon then allows you to use your favourite graphical editor to retouch and add your own special effects to icons. Easy Picture2Icon does however allow you to make transparent icons and you can choose which color to make transparent.

Easy Picture2Icon is a great way to get started creating your own icons although it's a shame it doesn't come bundled with a more comprehensive editor.

Download Easy Picture2Icon 2.5 in Softonic

If you like to watch YouTube and Google Video regularly but don't want the hassle of being bombarded by everything on the site, then you can access them via Videobox.

Videobox is a simple widget that uses keywords to search for Google Video and YouTube videos from your desktop. The immediate problem with Videobox is that because both these services hare gradually being merged, you often get the same results for both but still, the search works pretty well.

Simply enter your search terms into the Videobox searchbox and hit the magnifying glass. The results in Videobox take a little longer than using the video sites directly but you'll soon be presented with a list of results from both YouTube and Google Video that match your criteria including title, description and in the case of YouTube, tags.. The disadvantage is that you don't benefit from the comments.

Videobox is a useful alternative to searching for videos via YouTube and Google Video when you don't have the time or inclination to read the comments.

Download Videobox 3.0 in Softonic

Creating the look of Vista on XP has become something of a cottage industry, mainly because most people know that Vista IS XP just with a few fancy skins on.

VistaXP v2 VS is an excellent Vista skin for XP which gives you all the benefits of the Vista look, without paying hundreds of dollars for the upgrade. The package is inspired by the original Windows Vista look (Codename Longhorn) and the package contains two Visual Styles - Black and Silver. The Start menu (which incidentally I hate in Vista) is very realistic and manages to compact all your programs into a shorter Star menu bar than you usually get with XP. There are only 3 different fonts to choose from which surely could have been increased although fonts are not the most important thing when it comes to the look and feel of your operating system. However, it does feature the original Segoe UI font although the wallpaper is limited to the now rather dated Vista Beta 1 wallpaper. It's a shame the developer chose not to include any widgets in this pack as that would really have made it much more realistic but combined with another Vista skin pack, this could make a really impressive Vista look.

A very good Vista skin for XP although it lacks realism in some aspects but for free, you can't complain.

Download VistaXP v2 VS in Softonic

I'm about to convert to Mac myself but if I wasn't, I would definitely use Mac OSX Tiger Theme 1.3 to at least feel like I'd converted.

The skins feature the classic Aqua and Graphite schemes and the newly introduced Platinum scheme which you can find in the System Preferences and Mail programs in Mac OS X 10.4. They've also included Brushed with over 20 substyles added for good measure. The Apple menu is unfortunately, not an exact copy of the original but it's pretty close. It's basically a stripped down Start Menu that has been made to look like the Apple menu in Mac OS X. In addition, there are also left and right handed titlebar buttons for those that want their PC to look like a Mac but at the same time keep their right handed Windows buttons. The look and feel is remarkably Apple although Windows keeps creeping through especially with it's annoying sounds sometimes to spoil the illusion. If you have any widgets installed, you may also find that they don't show with this installed.

A great skin for those that either can't afford a Mac or those that simply prefer the elegant Mac look and style.

Download Mac OS X Theme 1.3 in Softonic

Taking screenshots is part of my regular job here at Softonic, so I can show proper images of the programs being reviewed. Instead of full fledged capture programs I've always prefered widgets, simply because they're easier to access and often do what I need.

Capture is a good screenshot capture widget, which can take either full screen, a selection or a window. It also has an option to hide or show the dashboard. If you open up the options you'll see you can save your capture into 10 different image formats, choose from four quality settings and adjust the size. I was a little turned off by the slider for this last option though, as it felt a little imprecise.

Capture is definitely an excellent widget for taking pictures of your desktop. However I wished the interface would be a little bigger, as it's a little difficult to make out buttons the first time you launch it.

Despite a small interface, Capture is an excellent capture tool loaded with settings.

Download Capture 0.7.9 in Softonic

GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off projects to complete application suites.

GTK+ is free software and part of the GNU Project. However, the licensing terms for GTK+, the GNU LGPL, allow it to be used by all developers, including those developing proprietary software, without any license fees or royalties.

GTK+ has been designed from the ground up to support a range of languages, not only C/C++. Using GTK+ from languages such as Perl and Python (especially in combination with the Glade GUI builder) provides an effective method of rapid application development.

Download GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment 2.12.9-1 in Softonic

If you're familiar with C++, then did you know that you can create some stunning widgets with it using an application like wxWidgets.

wxWidgets is a C++ programming environment which enables the creation of multi-platform applications with and without a graphical user interface. The developer says that he was motivated to design the program after the failure of other similar programs to help create dialogs visually. In particular, it was the limited set of widgets and impossibility to include non-graphical components which wxWidgets skillfully sidesteps. The key to the appeal of wxWidgets that most programmers will appreciate is the fact that it stores information in XML documents which, as the developers point out, eases the modification of both the properties of an object and the generated code without needing to recompile. In this way, the code creates templates which can be used over and over again to create variations on just one widget. If you're not familiar with C++, none of this will mean much but if you're in the know, it's an effective way to create some truly impressive widgets.

Stay away if you don't know C++ but for professional programmers, this is one of the fastest ways to create good looking desktop widgets.

Download wxFormBuilder 3.0.57 in Softonic

Let's face it: most of us have more online accounts than we can control. Email addresses, instant messaging clients, social networking sites… do you really have time to catch up with all of them?

If you don't, then you need Digsby, a revolutionary all-in-one IM client with which you can handle all your online contacts under the same interface, even if they belong to different networks. OK, this is probably not that revolutionary, but the real surprise comes when you realize you can also add your email accounts, no matter if they're online or POP3 based, and also your personal profiles in Facebook and MySpace. The result is that Digsby enables you to control pretty much every aspect of your online social life in a very easy way.

After installing the program, you can start adding as many accounts as you want in order to handle them from Digsby. This includes AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Facebook, MySpace and more. Despite the amount of supported services, they're presented in a very clear, uncluttered interface and organized in tabs. You'll be able to chat with your buddies via IM and also check and organize your email without even having to open your browser. Everything worked fine except for Facebook, which kept on showing a "Connecting…" message though the widget was up and working on my Facebook profile. My ICQ account didn't seem to respond either, but I guess it's got something to do with the fact that Digsby is still in beta stage.

Digsby saves chat history, supports file transfer and features an extended settings menu from which you can tweak the program's appearance and performance. The only drawback I found, besides the Facebook connectivity issue, was the lack of speed when starting the program and logging in. But then again, it's well worth it.

With Digsby you'll be able to manage all your online accounts for email, IM and social networks under a single interface, making it much easier and faster for you to stay in touch with your friends.

Download Digsby Beta Build 13706 in Softonic

The Google Desktop application allows users to search their desktop content quickly and easily. Praised for its ingenuity and criticised for its intrusiveness, Google Desktop brings the power of Google’s search engine technology to your PC.

After installing the application, you’ll have to give it some time to index the files on your PC, including emails, photos, chats, contacts and calendar events. Google Desktop will index the first 10,000 words in the first 100,000 documents on your PC. The application supports the majority of file types and you can decide which ones to index, or omit protected files, using the preferences menu.

In its latest version, which is compatible with Windows Vista, Google Desktop has been given a new transparent look, providing a pretty sleek feel to your PC. Your search results will appear in your browser (in the familiar Google web page format) and a small preview button allows you to view results without actually clicking on the corresponding link. Results are as precise as we’ve come to expect from Google searches, however we were slightly disappointed to learn that the application doesn’t offer logical 'OR' support or substring search. On another note, Google Desktop is not limited to your PC as you can cross index content from multiple machines and share some panel items with your friends.

Google Desktop is not only about search, though. Joining a marketplace already occupied by Apple’s Dashboard Widgets and Yahoo! Widgets, Google Desktop can be fitted with any number of little gadgets. These mini apps perform all kinds of functions, from fetching your mail to jotting down notes or checking up on your local weather. There are hundreds of gadgets to choose from to customize your desktop bar. Our personal favorites are: Google Translate, the Skype plug-in to check your credit and call your contacts, “Am I Blocked” to find out who’s blocked you on IM, Workspace to quickly move between tasks, System Stats to monitor your PC and Games, a selection of Flash games like Tetris and Moonlander.

When running, we found Google Desktop to use up around 30 MBs, but that can quickly increase if you add more gadgets to it. The application is also constantly re-indexing your files to incorporate your modifications and new elements. However you should rarely feel your PC slowing due to indexing.

When you’re dealing with Google, however, you know the main criticism will be about security. Because Google Desktop indexes all your documents, you’re basically opening up your PC and all your personal files to the Moutain View company. What some users fear is that Google could one day take advantage of that access or that a bug in the application would allow malicious users to infiltrate your PC and steal information.

While the intrusiveness of Google Desktop will give some users pause for thought on installing the app, Google Desktop is highly effective and simple to use. The gadgets you can add to its sidebar may not all be essential, but many of them are quite fun and original and let’s face it, the sidebar looks good. Give it a go if you think your PC is a mess and you need quick access to anything.

Download Google Desktop 5.7.802.22438 in Softonic

How much time do you spend scrolling through your iTunes library, trying to decide what to listen to? Ever try to find songs that fit your mood, event, activity, or sound you're after, only to give up because it takes too much time to find them?

Soundflavor DJ can help you to find the right song for the right moment. This program is able to find in your library songs that are similar to the one you're playing in iTunes. It also enables you to discover and download free new songs that match your taste based on the songs that you already have in your library.

Soundflavor DJ can create instant playlists based on sound, style or era and play them on iTunes or save them to your iPod. It can even generate the necessary code for a widget that will allow you to display your playlists on your webpage.

Download Soundflavor DJ For iTunes 1.30 in Softonic

Airfoil is one of those standout applications you come across sometimes.

What it does is allow you to send any audio from your computer via wireless to any other computer (PC or Mac), Apple TV or Airport Express. It works with any application that plays music in your computer.

Syncing is both easy and fast. The clear GUI will list up all the devices that you can sync to, and all you have to do is activate them and set the volume and equalizer. That means you can pretty much listen to your music anywhere. Rogue Amoeba have really succeeded in making a program which is efficient, useful and very easy to use.

The download also includes Airfoil Speakers, which basically turns any PC or Mac into an Airport Express unit which can then receive audio from the Airfoil of another computer.

On the help side, the Rogue Amoeba team is known to offer great support and respond quickly to user queries.

Naturally though, if your wireless connection is poor, then Airfoil will perform poorly, so make sure your WiFi is well set.

Airfoil is a smart and intuitive program, to sync music wirelessly to any computer, Airport Express or Apple TV.

Download Airfoil 2.5 in Softonic

PacketTrap DNS Audit brings together a collection of interface tools to facilitate network administration.

Specifically, it includes a graphical application for the PING command that verifies whether a server is active, scans ports, MAC addresses and SMPT/TFTP servers plus a tool to calculate the packets routed through different networks. There is a handy WHOIS tool for exploring the data for each domain and a utility to set a WOL (Wake On Lan) configuration. In addition, it features a useful desk with Widgets that allow you to customise your working environment with things like clocks, weather reports etc. This is by no means a sophisticated network management tool but it manages to pack in the essentials in a very light package. However, it could do with a better network analyser to investigate connection problems and some way of identifying PC's on a network.

In short, this is a collection of GUI based network admin tools that are user friendly although only suitable for small networks.

Download PacketTrap DNS Audit 1.1.3301 in Softonic

If you like the new graphical interface of Windows Vista, but prefer to continue with the friendliness of your XP, Transform XP to Vista is a good solution to get you going.

It's a simple package containing a desktop with the look of Vista and many of the applications you'll find in Vista Start Menu and Yahoo! Widgets. It's easy to install, you can choose the three main components of the package or any of them, and if you get tired of Transform XP to Vista, you can uninstall it with equal ease. The package also includes Yahoo widgets which is basically a collection of small and useful desktop assistants. This includes anything from a PC temperature gauge to mini games. The Vista Start Menu is modified not only in appearance but also in functionality. You'll find a few new tools on there that aren't in XP and it's basically a lot more accessible although some things, like "Communication Centre" have been renamed.

A cool little package that will save you a packet on Vista's hefty price tag but won't leave you with all the compatibility problems associated with it.

Download Transform XP to Vista 1.2 in Softonic

The Flickr Uploadr is a must for anybody with a Flickr account. It avoids you the pain of opening your browser to upload your photos to your account. The application lets you create photosets and add tags to your photos. You can also manage the privacy and safety levels for each photos, to allow everyone, or just your friends or family to view them.

The application uploads your photos fairly quickly, although that also depends on your bandwidth size. It will also let you know how much of your monthly upload limit you've used up. If we were really picky we 'd say the program should automatically sign you into Flickr instead of opening a browser window to give you access to your account. However, on the whole, Flickr uploadr is a great tool that makes uploading your photos to Flickr effortless.

Download Flickr Uploadr 3.0 in Softonic

I must admit I haven't set my Christmas tree at home yet. I just feel too lazy to start unpacking green plastic branches, shiny tinsel and colourful balls. So when I came across this little digital Christmas I thought it was a great idea.

Free Christmas Tree is a desktop companion in the shape of a traditional Christmas tree that counts down the days left to Christmas. The program's appearance can be customized with skins and the countdown date can also be changed to New Year's Day or Julian Christmas. Also, if you want to change the clock's font, open the program's menu and go to Skins – Edit skin font, but apparently the new settings are not saved when you exit the program.

In any case, this little Christmas tree is a funny widget for your desktop that will help you get in the mood for these days – although nothing like the real thing. Excuse me now, I'm off to set my Christmas tree at home.

This holiday season ecorate your desktop with this cute Christmas tree companion.

Download Free Christmas Tree 1.3 in Softonic

Lazarus is a completely open source project that aims to provide class libraries for Free Pascal that emulate Delphi. The program is completely API independent meaning that once you write your own code, you can just link it against the API widget set of your choice. The developers describe the program as follows...

If you are creating a product on Windows using the standard Windows widgets first you decide what widget set you want to use. Then you copy the code over to your Linux development machine, compile, and link against the gtk+ interface unit. Hey presto - you've just created a Linux version of the Windows product without any additional coding.

For those working on cross-platform coding, this is an exciting project that promises to make widget creation a lot easier.

Download Lazarus 0.9.22 in Softonic

The term ‘widget’ has traditionally been used to describe some kind of contraption or piece of technology that improves the overall functionality of a particular product. Mac OSX and Microsoft Vista users will be all too aware of how software widgets can bring more power to your desktop, as they now come as standard on these operating systems. For the benefit of the uninitiated, a widget is basically a small application that provides you with easy access to a particular function. These applications are docked on a ‘dashboard’, and you can add as many widgets as you like, giving you instant access to anything from a simple clock to a weather forecasting tool.

Yahoo! was one of the early pioneers of widgets, and this application is likely to intrigue anyone who hasn’t come across the technology before. The package sits on your desktop and allows you to download and install widgets from the Yahoo! site. There’s a healthy range of widgets available here (almost 4,000), each of which are installed automatically as soon as they’re downloaded. Although this helps to keep things simple, it’s frustrating that you cannot change the destination folderwhich folder the widgets are stored in here.

While it all runs from the same package, each widget is actually its own application. In previous releases of the Widget Engine, this had a tendency to tie up your system rescoursces when using multiple widgets. However, tThis issue has been better addressed in this version, and it seems much less memory-intensive than before. Having said this, it’s not a good idea to keep more than about 10 running at once, as you do start to notice it then.

In terms of the widgets themselves, it would obviously be impractical (and quite frankly, boring) for us to review all 4,000 here, but needless to say there are some very useful ones, along with some downright pointless ones. For instance, we can’t really see the benefit of having a dancing skeleton on your desktop , yet there are tools for checking stock quotes, accessing iTunes, organizing your Flickr images, checking your WiFi signal and getting the latest travel news, all directly from your desktop. Graphically, the widgets are very impressive and each of them floats over the screen without the constraints of traditional window borders, ensuring they don’t intrude on your other activities.

We like the fact that you don’t need to register a Yahoo! account in order to use widgets but Yahoo! still doesn’t allow Desktop Widgets to be included on My Yahoo! pages, overlooking something both Microsoft and Google already allow. Although the program doesn’t really add anything you won’t find in Vista’s built-in widgets system, it’s perfect for XP users who want a taste of what they can expect when they get around to upgrading to the new version of Windows.

Download Yahoo! Widgets 4.5 in Softonic

MakaGiga was originally created as an RSS reader but this open source has grown so much that it now includes a whole lot more. The latest version includes everything from a tasks manager, notebook, photo viewer and photo editor to search engine tools, backup tool and widget creator.

However, in the early days it was simply an RSS reader and that's what it still performs best. The reader is very easy to use mainly thanks to the intuitive and well organised interface. Just add the RSS feeds to the favorites folder and the program does the rest including previews of posts and pictures in blog posts. The photo viewer is not particularly sophisticated and the backup function is very limited. However, the widget creator is an interesting innovation although I found it crashed when trying to save them on more than one occasion.

As far as RSS readers go, this program should have stuck to that because it does it well although you can take or leave the other little goodies.

Download MakaGiga 1.9.2 Beta in Softonic