Trevin Chow

Microsoft Senior Program Manager and Seattle Photographer

Instacalc Vista Sidebar gadget

with 5 comments

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I just noticed that the guy behind InstaCalc recently released a Vista Sidebar gadget. All the other calculator gadgets I’ve seen are horrible with a terrible UI and often requires me to explicitly use a mouse to enter in my calculations.

The Instacalc gadget is neat because answers are computed on the fly after every keypress.  Just like it’s bigger brother website, it supports variable assignment (”x=5; y=4; x+y”)and easy use of units and conversions. (”1GB + 4MB” gives me 1,077,936,128).

So far the only area of improvement is somehow allow hotkey activation, but I don’t think the Sidebar framework allows gadgets to do that, so I can’t fault the author for that.  I’m shocked this gadget is only rated at 2.5 out of 5 stars.

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Written by Trevin

March 30th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Posted in Technology

Tagged with ,

5 Responses to 'Instacalc Vista Sidebar gadget'

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  1. Your web so cool

    ja

    31 Aug 07 at 10:24 pm

  2. It deserves a better rating so everyone go and rate that calc and celebrate the computer for eons to come..

    Hot Computers Dude

    4 Jan 08 at 8:35 pm

  3. I use this calculator daily…you’re right dude..the best Vista widget by far.

    Free iPod Games

    20 Feb 08 at 6:17 pm

  4. I love this gadget and it is definitely un-derated because it is simple and it is definitely a 3.5 or higher.

    Online Calculator

    23 Jun 08 at 6:16 pm

  5. I have got to try this. I only use the Notes widget. I just use the classic calculator up to now. =)

    Best Gadgets

    26 Oct 08 at 4:34 am

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