I recently got one of the best holiday gifts ever—a Swiss Army knife that includes a laser pointer and USB drive.

"Ooooh, cool!" is the general response from my envious co-workers.

This fits in well with my existing family of gadgets.  My flashlight, for example, recharges when you shake it.  My radio has a wind-up crank.

Then there’s my other favorite kind of gadget: Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets.

These are mini-applications docked on my desktop. Like my new Swiss Army knife, they have a variety of possible uses.  By tapping the web, gadgets can deliver stock prices, weather information, news updates, traffic maps, Internet radio streams, and even slide shows of online photo albums.

Gadgets can also merge information from multiple sources. For example, the Live Search Maps gadget provides an at-a-glance view of the current traffic conditions for over two-dozen cities. Traffic information is  automatically updated, and you can easily display a full screen view of the map by clicking on the stoplight icon.

Windows Vista provides an essential set of gadgets to get you started, including a calendar, clock, and weather gadget. The Windows Vista Gadget Gallery carries hundreds more that you can download and enjoy. (For detailed instructions on adding and removing Sidebar gadgets, see this handy article on Windows Help and How-to. The site also has a very cool video on Vista gadgets.)

One of the more interesting gadgets I’ve downloaded is Moon Phase II, which displays a realistic representation of the moon and its phases. A configuration panel allows you to set the latitude and longitude for your location. You can also display a calendar of the current month’s phases of the moon. This is a great gadget for planning outdoor activities, such as star gazing.

So go ahead and starting collecting your own gadgets. Which ones do you like best?

<Lorin Catudio>