A Look At Ten Cool Opera Widgets

One of the cool things about the Opera browser is its support for small bite size applications known as widgets. Opera's strength in particular is that it is a cross platform, multi device browser.

In simple terms that means it can be used on many different devices from your cell phone to computer and on different operating systems.

I take a look at ten useful Opera widgets that you can use today to make your life easier.

KerryOnWorld's Top Ten Opera Widgets

1. Analog Clock

   

   The Opera Analog clock is a sharp, glassy looking widget that you can put on the desktop. It shows not only the current time with the hands moving in simulation but also the current day. Very useful considering now I can plop it on my right hand screen in the upper corner.

2. Calculator Widget

   

   And what would your desktop be without a calculator? A simple easy to use glossy black calculator to do quick calculations. Beats looking at the Windows calculator anyday.

3. TouchTheSky Weather Widget

   

   A cool little weather widget that pulls data from the AccuWeather service. Gives you a five day forecast, the current weather including wind speed, pollen report, current time, and a lot of other goodies.

4. Twitter Desktop Widget

   

   A desktop widget that hooks into the Twitter messaging service. Provides recent posts from your friends, replies, all your messages you sent and search ability. Much more powerful than Twitter's widget.

5. WorldWebcams Widget

   

   A very cool widget that shows webcams in the world with the assistance of Google maps. You can navigate the map, zoom in and zoom out as you normally do. Want to see what things are going on in Paris, France? Enter in Paris and you can see several webcams positioned throughout the city, even the Eiffel tower.

6. Stay Secure Widget

   

   Shows the security status of the big five web browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Konqueror). It does not secure your client but rather just gives you an idea of how secure the latest browsers are security wise.

7. doToo To Do List Widget

   

   A simple easy-to-use to do list widget. Beats notepad hands down.

8. Simplepad

   

   A micro notepad widget to type big thoughts in a little small notepad.

9. Stock Market Index Widget

   

   A tabbed widget that allows you to see up to five stock market index charts from around the world. All data is intraday.

10. Bubbles Game Widget

    

    Finally, what would be a widget if it weren't a fun game? Bubbles, similar to the popular gem drop game is available. Find all the bubbles with two or more interconnected relationships and pop yourself silly.

Now while some of you maybe scratching your head saying "Hey, I can just go to a website or launch a program to do that!" consider that these are small mini applications that sit on your desktop.

You can force them to always stay above all other program windows or at the desktop level. This way you can still use your screen real estate and the widgets wont get in the way overlapping things.

If you have a dual or triple screen monitor system, you can leave all the widgets with Opera running on one screen and use the other screens to do your work.

Like what you see? Download Opera today.

About Kerry Kobashi

Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.