One of the challenges with the local release of the Chumby has been the relative lack of Australian-centric gadgets for the Wi-Fi-enabled Internet thingummy. Local distributor Internode is running a competition to encourage development, but even without that incentive Lifehacker's technical guru Kaan has come to the party with a Lifehacker-specific widget, listing all the latest headlines from your favourite technology productivity site. If you've got a Chumby already (or have one on your Christmas list), be sure to check it out. Thanks Kaan!

Windows only: SysMetrix gives you a desktop widget you can skin, configure, and tweak to show you the time, your system info, email updates, and other information in a seemingly endless number of configurations. The system monitor comes with a variety of built-in themes, ranging from analogue clocks with built-in mini-gauges to screen-length toolbar strips, that you can add your own sliders, histograms, read-outs, and other tools to. The tool supports POP-based email checking, and can work with the Motherboard Monitor tool if you're looking for temperatures, fan speeds, and the like. SysMetrix is a free download for Windows systems only. Read on for a look at what you can tweak on a SysMetrix clock.

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Windows/Mac/Linux: Free application Xirrus Wi-Fi Monitor is a cross-platform Wi-Fi tool that displays available networks on a very cool radar map. More specifically, the app searches for Wi-Fi networks, displays strength, detects rogue access points, and helps you tweak your network for the best signal. The downside: Xirrus Wi-Fi monitor is only available in widget/gadget/desklet form. That means that in order to use it, on XP and OS X you have to install the Yahoo Widget framework, on Linux you have to install the Desklet framework, and on Vista you'll need to re-enable the sidebar gadgets. That's all somewhat of a bummer considering the whole widget craze generally went out the door circa-2006. However, Xirrus remains a worthwhile application with an unquestionably fun execution.

Add email, calendar updates, RSS feeds, and more to your "Slide to unlock" home screen with IntelliScreen, a free application for jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches. Similar to the widgets of Windows Mobile's "Today" screen, the app lets you order and customise what info, and how much of it, you see on your wake-up screen, including new SMS messages and local weather conditions. Better still, you can bring up that email message or check out that feed item in Safari by swiping over the widget and pressing the button that pops up. The app's makers warn that IntelliScreen has run into restoration-required conflicts with a few other third-party apps, so back up anything you can't afford to wipe clean. Intrigued enough to try unlocking your iPhone/touch? Check out our guide to unlocking with ZiPhone.

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For something that you look at every day of your working life, your computer desktop doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. That's too bad, considering that the desktop can do a lot more than display wallpaper and hold shortcut icons. From widgets to workflows, from calendars to computer stats and beyond, you can do a whole lot on your desktop without manually starting up a single program. Hit the jump for our top 10 list of applications and tweaks that make your desktop a truly useful place to land.

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Linux only: Previously-posted Linux widget engine Screenlets can convert and run Google Gadgets and other web-based widgets on the desktop in its latest version, adding thousands of mini-apps to its menu. You'll need to add Screenlets' Launchpad repository to your sources and install the latest version, which the Screenlets home page (and the Tombuntu blog) helpfully walks you through. Once you're up and running with Screenlets, simply hit "Install," choose "Web Widget," and you'll get a link to each supported database's catalogue page, as well as basic instructions on installing. With more than 45,000 to choose from in Google's database alone, there's likely a great and useful widget waiting to find your Linux desktop.

All platforms: Normally we don't feature individual widgets that require downloading a separate engine to run them, but the Informer Yahoo Widget might be worth the effort. Place system monitoring tools right on your desktop with Informer, like Wi-Fi signal strength, system uptime, and disk use. Keep tabs on your favourite web site feeds and inboxes with RSS and email notifications for Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and any other POP or IMAP account. Add shortcuts to local folders, favourite web sites and images as well with Informer. Check out Cybernet News' walkthrough of what you can do with this full-featured widget, which is a free download for Mac or Windows and requires the Yahoo Widget Engine to run.

Quick Mac tip: If you're even a semi-regular Dashboard user, you've probably been irritated by the three-step process involved in removing a widget from Dashboard: You click the plus (+) sign in the corner, which brings up an "X" on all the widgets, you click the "X" to close the widget, and then you click the plus sign again to return things to normal. Annoying, yes? Weblog TUAW points out a simple trick to prevent this Dashboard annoyance: Just hold down your Option key when you hover over the widget you want to close. The "X" button appears, you click it, hassle averted. This quick turnaround is especially handy if you use multiple versions of expiring widgets, like the most excellent Delivery Status widget.

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Leopard only: A lesser-hyped feature in Mac 10.5 is Web Clips—the ability to turn a section of any web page into a Dashboard widget. We're not huge fans of gadgets and widgets around here, but Dashboard Web Clips can be a big timesaver, because it lets you check several pages you might otherwise manually refresh throughout the day in one keystroke, no browser required.

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Webapp Orchestr8 creates widgets for your iGoogle, Netvibes, and Pageflakes start page—or to embed on a web site—from any web page with a simple point-and-click. Similar to the new web clip feature in Leopard (which does the same thing but puts the widget in Dashboard), just point Orchestr8 to the page containing the content you want to clip, find the content you want, click it, and the select Grab it. It's not perfect, but it does offer a simple way to create widgets for your start page for content that doesn't offer an easy-to-snag RSS feed.

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