The news about user accounts being stolen from Google, Home Depot, and others, it can be very unnerving. However, good sites don't actually store passwords. They only store a representation of them. Even if your information is stolen, it doesn't mean your password is exposed.

How it works

Digging Deeper

There are a number of techniques used, but they all use the same basic premise. Here is one of the most common techniques.

When you put in your password into an online account, the password is run through an algorithm. That is, a mathematical calculation is performed. The result is what is saved in the database instead of your password.

The cool part - (getting a bit geeky here)

The result of these mathematical algorithms (you should drop that phrase at your next party), is called a hash. If you use the same type of technique very time, then the same string of characters will always result in the same hash.

For example, using one technique, the password "qwerty123" will always be converted to the hash "2qrW5WBOjhe9nxCNkeJq/mKB2sj9oAkQQKem172bQ7U=". If you use a better password, like "Five5For5Fighting!Google", you get the hash "gsOnlRB5/7LGOSyNTnQjjolSpqumI9UsT5/uNYgnM6A=".

It is this longer string that is saved in the database. If a hacker steals the database information, they can't tell by looking at the hash what your password is. Hashes can't be reversed.

To find out if you used the right password, the website simply runs the same algorithm to check the password. If it matches the hash in the database, you used the right password.

Putting the hash in the password field would result in a completely different hash, so it wouldn't work. So, if you were to put in the qwerty123 hash (2qrW5WBOjhe9nxCNkeJq/mKB2sj9oAkQQKem172bQ7U=) in the password field, you actually get "G4AAO88pl0kITda+I20eX69Pxk6lHGFzfC3l53NF2Ew=" back. It doesn't match, so the hacker can't get in.

Getting a bit more secure

To make things even more difficult for hackers, websites use what is called a salt. This is a string of random characters only the site/database owner knows. This is added to your password before it is turned into a hash. Even if the hacker knows what algorithm is used, without the salt, the hacker can't figure out what the hash should be.

With the salt, the whole thing is really pretty sweet.

What we do at MSC Southeast

More robust systems, such as ours, don't use this technique specifically. We have the benefit of our StarID system. We don't store your password, or its hash. Instead, we have a connection that validates your StarID/password with the State's StarID system.

This is a similar technique used by other government agencies. It allows us to greatly insulate your information from hackers.

Final thought

The techniques outlined above are used by professionals in the Web and security industries. Some, less professional, sites don't use these techniques at all.

It is hard to tell what sites use these techniques and which do not. This is why you should never reuse passwords. If they get your password in one place, it shouldn't work anywhere else - they will certainly try!

Extra links

Find out if your Gmail has been hacked by reading 3 Ways to Check if Your Gmail is Hacked.

Learn about Google's Security Settings (you need to log in first).

You're welcome.

We feel your pain.

I'm not talking about your shower or the main stairs in your house. I'm talking about all that living you do online. Facebook, Google, Amazon - you could be running with scissors and not even know it!

A recent article from LifeHacker.com outlines "The Stupid Things You Do Online (and How to Fix Them)". I highly recommend giving it a careful read. Here are the "stupid things" in order.

1. You Undervalue Your Personal Data
2. You Submit Sensitive Information Over an Insecure Connection
3. You Feed Trolls
4. You Leave Private Information in Your Web Browser
5. You Don't Keep a Backup of Online Data
6. You Assume Your Posts and Comments Are Anonymous
7. You Let People Track Your Whereabouts
8. You Use an Insecure Password That You Rarely (or Never) Change

Truly, these are the critical aspects of living online that need serious attention. Evaluate your own behavior and see where you can improve. It will keep you from getting into some fairly serious trouble.

While you are reading, I'll be backing up my Google Docs.

The Stupid Things You Do Online (and How to Fix Them)

Fortunately, a recent Microsoft article does an excellent job or outlining seven rules to help you stay organized. Most of these I use myself, and it makes my work life much easier. Rare is the day I have more than one unread email in my inbox.

Here are the tips, in brief:

1.      Group by Conversation. This feature allows you to group entire discussions together, eliminating the need to hunt for previous emails in the same conversation thread. If you have ever hand twelve people respond to one of your emails, you know how much this can help.

2.      Sort emails in folders. Creating your own group of folders helps keep things in place. Most people have some folders in place, but don't forget that you can have sub-folders as well. Moreover, you can use rules to automatically sort emails into these folders as they come in.

3.      Create Search Folders. Admittedly, I don't use this feature much myself. I'm a little diligent with my folder organization. However, if you aren't nearly as geeky about this, creating search folders is just the thing for you!

4.      Route mail using rules. If you aren't using rules, you should! They allow you to mark, forward, sort, or delete emails automatically based on your needs.

5.      Use Junk filters. The bane of email marketers, these rules allow you to sort or delete email based on who sent it to you. This is the last line of defense against obtrusive email.

6.      Assign color categories. I use this feature every day. In Outlook, you can give color categories to emails. You determine what these categories mean. For example, I use red for those important "to do" emails. I use green for emails that I will keep for reference, and I use orange for those emails I need to read closer later. It is one of the handiest features in Outlook.

7.      Flag for follow up. These flags are excellent! Simply by adding a flag, you can set a due date, start date, or a reminder. It essentially turns an email into a task. They even show up on your calendar.

To learn how to do each of these, and read more about these great features, visit the Microsoft At Work Web site.

That doesn't mean you should keep your password simple. The stronger the password, the better protected you are from identity and account theft.

Common passwords to avoid

On occasion, we have to help guess someone's password when working on their computer, or helping them with an online account. IT professionals can be more successful at this than you may think. This is because we know the most common passwords people use. Here are 10 of the top passwords*.

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein (one of my favorites)
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (the person's first name)

Other favorites include

• admin
• master
• asdfjkl;
• 55555 (six 6's, seven 7's, etc.)
• 999 (I recently saw this used by a manager at Barnes & Noble!)
• dragon
• football
• harley
• (a rude word you couldn't say on television)

Hopefully, you aren't using any of these.

Strong passwords

Strong passwords have the following attributes:

• They do not contain a word found in a dictionary
• They use a mix of upper-case and lower-case letters
• They use special characters (punctuation, symbols, etc.)
• They do not use personal information, such as your house number or initials
• They are not so complicated that you have to write them down
• They are used in only one location (for one site or purpose)

This looks like a daunting list. However, there are several techniques out there that make it easier than you think to create strong passwords.

Making a secure password.

There are many techniques, but this video from The New York Times outlines a few ideas.

* Top ten list courtesy of Texas A&M

Have you ever noticed that key between Ctrl and Alt? Have you ever wondered what it does? Sure, clicking it will bring up the start menu, but it can unlock a host of other cool functions.

For example; if you are leaving for the day, but don't want to shut down your computer, hold down that Windows key and press the "L" key. You've now locked your computer. Or, if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, hold down the Windows key and tap the "Tab" key a few times. Pretty cool eh?

Many other key combinations do some amazing things using that mysterious Windows key. You can download a PDF listing many of these functions below. (Thanks to Michael Dunham for providing this list.)

List of Windows Key Functions (28KB PDF)

I apologize in advance to my non-techie readers. This post will be very geeky in content.

Sometimes all you want is a secured connection. If the application you are securing is only accessible internally, then there is no need to for an outside certificate authority (such as Verisign or Thawte).

The process is actually quite easy. In IIS 7, the task is simple; in IIS 6, not so much. The problem is finding instructions on the process.

Eventually, I found some great instructions at MSExchange.org. Henrik Walther does an excellent job of walking through the process. It is complete with screenshots a-plenty.

Even with these great instructions, I still ended up having to do it three times before I got it right. The problem was in "Submit[ting] a Certificate Request or Renewal Request". I missed one little thing. After you paste the request text, you have to choose a "Certificate Template". The default is "Administrator", which does not include the "Server Authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1)" attribute. Without this, you can send secure email, but not SSL access to your Web application.

It was very ugly.

However, making sure you choose "Web Server" as your Certificate Template works like a dream.

So, I extend special kudos to Henrik for posting such good content. Our APRS users will never know the favor you did for them.

So many people sent this to me (and rightly so), that I just had to share this with you too.

This is from the hightly insightful comic XKCD. I highly recommend subscribing via the XKCD RSS feed.

For more on the bug highways in the sky, check out .

Windows 7 has quite a few handy features. Most of them are fairly obscure unless you do a bit of digging.

Fortunately, we don’t have to. An article featured in InfoWorld.com outlines 20 of these tricks for IT professionals. However, many of these tips can be helpful to even those with a normal outlook on life. Here are just a few for every user.

Shortcut keys for the taskbar
Each icon in the Windows 7 task bar can be accessed by holding down the Windows Key (the one with the logo between Ctl and Alt on most keyboards). Just hold down the Windows key and press the corresponding number. For example, Internet Explorer is the third icon in my taskbar. Pressing Windows > 3 hides, opens, or select IE, depending on what the program is doing.

Ribbon in Paint and WordPad
The Microsoft Office ribbon now appears in both programs. While this has not been the most popular change for longtime MS Office users, adding it to the sorely lacking Paint and WordPad programs has made them far more usable.

Quickly add features or uninstall programs
Try this; click the "Start" orb in your task bar. In the instant search, type "features" and hit the enter key. Bango! The "Uninstall or change program" menu comes up. That save a lot of clicking.

Find missing Windows programs
One of the biggest complaints I hear about Windows 7 is that a user's favorite program is missing. If your favorite seems to be gone, try checking out Windows Live Essentials. Most of these programs are found there.

You can read the full article - and all 20 tips in the article 20 Windows 7 quick tips and tricks for IT admins.

Here is a fun puzzle to try. You are given two glasses. The first glass holds exactly 4 ounces. The second holds exactly 9 ounces.

Your task is to measure exactly 6 ounces of water in as few steps as possible.

You may only use the two glasses. You may not use a third container. You have an endless supply of water and can dump and fill the glasses as much as you like.

Can you solve the puzzle in less than ten steps? Email me back with the answer at jmontet@southeastmn.edu and I'll post the winners, along with the answers on the blog.

Update

Bunny Novak takes the checkered flag for providing the answer first - in just 8 steps! I will post the answer in a day or so.

Answer

The following is a process to solve this puzzle in just 8 steps.

1. Fill 9oz glass                                    (9Glass=9, 4Glass=0)
2. Fill 4oz glass from 9oz glass             (9Glass=5, 4Glass=4)
3. Dump 4oz glass                               (9Glass=5, 4Glass=0)
4. Fill 4oz glass from 9oz glass             (9Glass=1, 4Glass=4)
5. Dump 4oz glass                               (9Glass=1, 4Glass=0)
6. Pour remaining ounce into 4oz glass (9Glass=0, 4Glass=1)
7. Fill 9oz glass                                    (9Glass=9, 4Glass=1)
8. Fill 4oz glass from 9oz glass             (9Glass=6, 4Glass=4)

Done! 

In our society, there is a shift from a culture of consumption to a culture of creation. This shift has happened over the course of the last sixty years, since the popularization of broadcast.

In a nutshell, we have gone from a culture that simply consumes what it is handed (television, movies, radio, music, etc.), to one that takes what it is given and creates something new. Thereby, our culture is advanced.

This is never so eloquently put as it is by Larry Lessig's talk on "How creativity is being strangled by the law". To me, this is a must-see/read for anyone interested in online copyright issues or modern cultural advancement.

In response to copyright claims by Constantin Film (producer and distributor of the much parodied The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich), Know Your Meme has released a video outlining YouTube's dispute process. This video not only perfectly outlines the process, but also the reasoning behind why you should dispute a reworked video.

Larry Lessig's talk on "How creativity is being strangled by the law".

From my Non Sequitur desk calendar. You should buy one too.

A tale of woe

A couple years ago, a friend of mine asked me to look at his computer. He was having some trouble getting it to run correctly. It was slow, popped up strange windows, and gave him all kinds of strange alerts. He said this was odd because he just spent $50 on some software he downloaded to protect the computer.

As soon as I saw his computer, I realized he had been scammed – in a very bad way.

My friend had been surfing the Web when a window popped up saying that he had a computer virus. It offered to fix it free. He then downloaded the software. A week later, the computer locked up with a message saying he needed to pay the $50 cost of the software to proceed, or his computer would no longer be protected.

He paid the $50.

The anti-virus software he downloaded was actually scamware. It loaded software designed to take over his computer – and charged him $50 for the privilege! That is tough news to break to a good friend.

While I was able to clean his computer, and set him up with some legitimate virus protection, this is not always possible. Often, it is necessary to reformat the computer’s hard drive to free it of the virus. This means losing all of the data and files on the computer.

Not alone

According to McAfee, scamware affected nearly 70,000 people in the first quarter of 2009 alone, and the number is rapidly rising. The tricks scammers use to get people to download the software are becoming increasingly tricky. They give even a well-seasoned Web developer a pause now and again.

The problem is that the pop-ups look very much like a message from your computer, rather than a Web page. The even mimic an entire virus scanning process. Recently, I had to go into my Task Manager (hit Ctl+Alt+Del to get there), to shut down my browser in order to stop one of these sites.

Spotting the foe

A McAfee Security Insights Blog post has some excellent tips (and a great video), on how to spot these scams. I recommend reading it thoroughly.

In short, if you did not ask for a virus scan, your computer should not be performing one. If it starts to run a scan, and it does not look exactly like it does when you ask it to, go to the Task Manager (Ctl+Alt+Del), and shut down your browser.

Never download anything (virus protection, screensaver, etc.) unless you specifically looked for the program yourself. Take the same tactic I take with telemarketers; if you did not ask for it, do not buy it.

One last tip - if the grammer/spelling is poor - it isn't legitimate.  It is hard to see in the graphic above, but the first sentence says "Warning!! Your system might be at risk!!" Never trust anyone who uses too many punctuation marks.

One of the most interesting movements in education now is the one based on the preposition that education stifles creativity. There is an increasing wealth of research supporting this idea. It is a profound issue in a world where we no longer simply consume our media, we create our media.

At the forefront of this thinking is Sir Ken Robinson. His work demonstrates this idea and warns of a future we cannot foresee - one in which our children have grown up lacking our culture (and our species) forward. You can see his talk from 2006 outlining these ideas by visiting TED.com. It is free, fascinating, and very entertaining to watch.

"Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"

People stop by my office all the time - have for years - wanting to edit PDFs. Without having to shell out several hundred dolloars ($300 at last count), for the full Adobe Acrobat software, there was really no way to do this. Worse, even if you had the software, simple tasks such as filling out forms was still a pain.

Enter PDF-XChange Viewer from Tracker Software Products. This light, easy to use, and free software does exactly what you've always wanted to do to a PDF. Better, it allows you do make edits and add text in a way that makes sense. It is at once easy to use and powerful.

If you want to upgrade to the full version, you only have to shell out $34.50 - less if you buy more than 2 licenses at a time.

I rarely recommend software, but in this case, it fulfills a need I see all the time... in that chair... right there.

I love blogging, and I am not just saying that because this is a blog. I like the concept. It is great that people can voice their feelings, opinions, and occasional expertise online - with minimal effort.

Twitter is another matter. Why someone would wish to post random thoughts as they go about their day is beyond me. I understand the interest in celebrities (my hero, Neil deGrasse Tyson tweets), but it is not for the majority of us - without agents or interns.

Here is why it is a bad idea - no edit mode. It is too easy to post just anything that comes to mind without giving it some thought. There have been cases of people losing their jobs over bad tweets, and people have even divorced their spouse over Twitter. It is not a good thing.

Witness Please Rob Me. This Web site posts a listing of people giving their location – and they are not home. Why is this a bad idea? As the site explains,

"The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home." _{(http://pleaserobme.com/why)}

Do not think that you have to be a technical guru to find this information. It only takes a simple search on Twitter to come up with this information.

Fortunately, sites like Please Rob Me are raising this kind of awareness.

"…The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information." _{(http://pleaserobme.com/why)}

Do yourself a favor and do not follow in the blind footsteps of these people. Tweet, if you must. Tell us too much if you will, but do not tell us you are not at home. You have trees. We have toilet paper – and lots of it.

Got to love it...

I have mentioned before just how much I like Firefox. While some techies shun it for its slightly slower speed (compared to other browsers such as Chrome or Safari), developers have long loved it for its remarkably handy plugins. I am not quite sure how I would get along without Web Developer.

Today, I just installed Adblock Plus in an effort to get rid of contextual ads – which I loathe. It worked perfectly!

For those of you who are new to the term “contextual ads”, these are advertising links found in the text of some pages. Often, they have a double underline. They usually open a pop-up when you hover over the link. Kontera and Intellitxt are two versions of contextual advertising.

The problem with many unscrupulous ads is that they distract from the content. This is especially true with contextual advertising. The text in the pop-ups they generate have absolutely nothing to do with the page content. Links inside Web content is already distracting enough. Contextual advertising ironically has nothing to do with the context of the page.

The Adblock Plus add-on nixed this, and all of the rest of the advertising on the page, beautifully. I was left with exactly what I wanted to see.

Here is an example of a page before and after I used Adblock Plus.

If you are not using Firefox and its plethora of add-ons, I recommend giving it and them a shot. It can make your Web browsing so much more pleasant.

There was a time that I actually heard the following.

“Wow, 128 kilobytes? You’ll never use that up!”

I think that was back in the early 80’s. I have wallets that have more hard drive space than that now.

As computers increase in speed, programs require more hard drive space and more computer memory. Moreover, Moore’s Law dictates that the computer processing speeds will double every two years.

So, welcome to the Petabyte Age. While most computer users understand the term “Gigabyte”, and many are familiar with “Terabyte”, Petabyte is just coming into its own.

How much is a Petabyte? Here is some perspective:

1 Byte (8 bits) = 1 word in English

1 Kilobyte (1,024 Bytes) = 1 very short joke

1 Megabyte (1,024 Kilobytes) = 1 small novel (25,000 pages or so)

1 Gigabyte (1,024 Megabytes) = 10 yards of books on a shelf

1 Terabyte (1,024 Gigabytes) = 50,000 trees worth of printed paper
(10 terabytes = the printed collection of the Library of Congress)

1 Petabyte (1,024 Terabytes) = 10 million filing cabinets filled with text

Visit Mozy’s blog on How Much Is a Petabyte for a great set of graphics to put the Petabyte into perspective.

What is bigger than a Petabyte?

1 Exabyte = 1,024 Petabytes
5 Exabytes = All words every spoken by human beings

1 Zettabyte = 1,024 Exabytes
In 2008, America consumed 3.6 Zettabytes of information (mostly my daughter on Facebook)

1 Yottabyte = 1,024 Zettabytes (that’s 1,073,741,824 Petabytes)
1 Yottabyte = one Byte for every star in the universe
7,000 Yottabytes = one Byte for every atom in the human body

Okay, now my brain hurts…

Writing on the Web is, and should be, informal. Sure there are points at which you need to be overtly formal - such as writing for JAMA - but a more informal approach is the default. The Web is an intimate medium, and by and large, should be treated as such.

That being said, I'm seeing an increasingly prevalent issue with punctuation. It is multiplying with lapine prodigiousness!

If one exclamation point is good, would not three be more forceful?

No.

If a question is especially difficult, wouldn't it be best to add additional question marks?

Nein.

Isn't it best to give extended pauses even more periods than the three (3!) in an ellipse?

Non.

If I'm feeling especially forceful, yet quizzical, how about two or three sets of question mark/exclamation point pairs?

Nei.

Oddly, these questions never come up regarding commas. This,, looks blatantly wrong to nearly every user of the English language. How does this become just as acceptable?? This isn't acceptable either!!! Or this!!!! Perhaps you are getting the drift...... Right?!?!

Sadly, there is no help from Spellcheck on this issue. Even with the settings cranked to the point it won’t accept contractions, it has no problem with multiple punctuation marks. A shameful situation.

I'll admit I'm on a bit of a soapbox here. Most of these errors are usually cleaned up in editing. At least, they usually are on the sites I tend to edit. Every once in a while, I will see these errors in final copy.

Informality on the Web is a good thing, but it is best not to let yourself be carried away. It will distract from your message.

(Post note: I really detest grammar snobs, and it pains me to act like one. Please accept my sincerest apologies. I’m only here to help.)

Every day, when Grant gets home from work, he takes the elevator from the ground floor to the 16^th floor. He then gets out and takes the stairs up the last four floors to his apartment on the 20^th floor.

Why?

Clues: he only does this if he is alone in the elevator. Otherwise, he takes the elevator all the way to the 20^th floor. When he leaves home, he takes the elevator straight from the 20^th to the ground floor, regardless of whether he is alone in the elevator.

Can you solve the puzzle? Email me back with the answer at jmontet@southeastmn.edu and I'll post the winners, along with the answers on the blog.

A browser is a piece of software that interprets Web code and content into a visually significant and appealing manner. Browsers take content, images, and code and arrange them in such a sway as to make things more interesting and clear - and more likely to separate us from our free time and hard-earned cash.

However, browsers don’t treat the same content the same way. Throw in odd plug-ins, forced updates, and an ever-changing environment and it can be hard to find a browser that works best.

There are dozens of browsers out there. A quick search will reveal there are actually a few hundred, with 20 of them making up the lion’s share of the browser market.

Far and away, the most popular are:

• Firefox (47%)
• Internet Explorer (41%)
• Chrome (6%)
• Safari (3%)
• Opera (2%)

2009 aggregate statistics from 3WC.

There are dozens more that work on all kinds of platforms and to a wide variety of purposes. Each comes with its own set of issues and benefits.

For example, Internet Explorer has seen its plethora of security holes consistently attacked by hackers. Yet the latest version, IE9 (due out in early 2011), will run faster than ever. By contrast, Firefox boasts the greatest ability for customization, while still having problems running in a Microsoft-driven world.

So which do you choose?

It turns out that most successful Web surfers use a variety of browsers, switching between them as issues arise. Many stick with Firefox until a page doesn’t look quite right. Then they switch to IE. Others prefer Chrome until they need to work in a proprietary environment, such as an online learning platform (D2L, Blackboard, etc.). Then they switch to Firefox.

As a Web developer, I find myself staying in Firefox for most browsing, switching to IE to handle multi-tasking. I will be working in on our Web site in IE, while doing code searches in Firefox. I tend to use Chrome for banking, as its “incognito” feature keeps private information from being stored on the computer.

So use several browsers. Find what works best for you, and don’t be afraid to try new ones. You may find the perfect fit.

Gadgets in Vista and Windows 7

Widgets are everywhere these days. These little programs run on your desktop without requiring much in the way of memory. These little programs can give you the time, temperature, computer processing statistics, slide show, calendar, package tracking, notes, an email interface - and an exhausting variety of other useful and useless functions.

Apple users have long enjoyed using the Mac OS Dashboard Widgets. Starting in 2003, PC users were able to download and use Yahoo! Widgets. While free, these little programs didn't come with the operating system and had to be loaded independently.

Gadgets in Visa

Windows Vista brings these widgets (now called Gadgets) right into the Windows environment. You can download and run a growing variety of Gadgets that sit nicely on your Window 7 desktop. There are several that show up as defaults:

• Clock: this shows you the current time on your computer or time zone.
• Slide Show: displays a rotating group of pictures. You can choose your own pictures from a folder on your computer.
• Feed Headlines: this gadget displays the headlines from your favorite RSS feed.

These gadgets can be placed anywhere on the desktop, or they can live in the Windows Sidebar. In Vista, this is the home for gadgets. The picture above shows my default gadgets sitting happily in my Sidebar.

Getting more gadgets

You can launch new gadgets by right clicking on the Sidebar and choosing "Add Gadgets…" This brings up a list of all the gadgets you have installed. Simply drag the ones you want onto the desktop.

You can download more gadgets by clicking on the "Get more gadgets online" link at the bottom of the Add Gadgets window.

Making adjustments

Most gadgets allow you to customize the settings. This is especially necessary with weather and RSS feed widgets. There are three controls that allow you to make adjustments. Just hover over a gadget and you'll see three icons:

• Close: which closes the gadget
• Settings: this is the little wrench icon
• Drag Pad: provides a handy place to click and drag the gadget around your desktop

Clicking on the wrench brings up the settings menu for the gadget. The settings vary for each gadget, but they are usually self-explanatory.

"They all disappeared!"

The most common issue I've seen with gadgets in Windows Vista is their disappearance when you click on the "Desktop" icon. They just vanish.

In such cases, they aren't actually closed, they are just hidden. To get them back, click on the Windows Sidebar icon in your taskbar. It looks like this:

Gadgets in Windows 7

As with most things, gadgets are greatly improved in Windows 7. The Sidebar is no more. Gadgets are free to roam wherever they like. In addition, their tendency to disappear is no longer an issue. (This is greatly helped by the lack of a "Show desktop" icon in Windows 7.) Other than these improvements, they work just as described above.

Conclusion

Gadgets are fairly simple to use, once you've played with them a bit. The ones that come with Windows are harmless. Pull a few out. Monkey with the settings. If you find a few you like, drop me a line and let me know. I'll share everyone's favorites in a later blog. (Your anonymity is assured.)