G E B W E B

Will the USD continue to tank, or will the greenback make a comeback? Follow the day-to-day movements with this widget for Mac OS X.

The US dollar index is computed from the exchange rate with the Euro, Yen, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Swedish Krona and the Swiss Franc. It was introduced in 1973 and was initially set to 100. Since then, it has been as high as 160 and as low as 75, where it is now. If you’re an international investor with US-denominated assets, you almost certainly want to track the US dollar. If you’re an American, you should definitely be concerned with the decline of the dollar as a result of your government’s policies. Lowering interest rates makes the dollar less valuable. And that means inflation and more expensive imported stuff such as oil.

Graphics and idea are from Fabian Graciano. Yeah, that’s why it looks so much more awesome than my previous widgets The data feed is graciously sponsored by INO.com. Thank you! Comments, requests and bug reports are very welcome! Just leave your feedback on this website. I’ll do my best to respond.

Download: US Dollar Index Widget.

Instructions: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you’re using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you’re using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be the first to know when something big happens? To get that alert to run for cover delivered automatically to you in time?

I give you the front row seat for Judgement day: The Doom-O-Meter.

The Doom-O-Meter works by querying various webpages for important indicators such as the price of gold (and other important commodities), as well as looking at the amount of activity on certain internet forums where well-informed individuals exchange breaking news.

A formula works on all these indicators, and computes a single number: The Badness. We then take the base two logarithm of the Badness to get the Severity. The Severity is displayed as a dial which goes from 0 to 10 (mathematically, the Severity can go above 10, but I don’t think it’s likely. If it does happen, the possible technical breakdown of the Doom-O-Meter will be the least of your worries!). Also, some cool background images will indicate the Severity of the current situation.

If you’re using Mac OS X, I encourage you to download the small Dashboard Widget version of the Doom-O-Meter, so you can stay on top of the situation at all times (or at least the time you spend in front of your Mac).

All suggestions for improvements, new data sources, etc. are much appreciated. Bug reports are also welcome :-).

Apple Mac OS X (version 10.4 and above) has this neat feature called dashboard. It lets tiny programs, called widgets, run as an overlay to your screen when you press ‘F12′. There are widgets that show the current time in any timezone, hurricane advisories, stock quotes, your computer’s vital stats, and much more.

I’ve got a certain desire to stay updated on the price oil, since it’s often related to world events. For instance, a spike in the oil price might mean a hurricane is headed towards the Gulf of Mexico or that there is more unrest in the Middle East. So to satisfy this urge for oil price updates, I’ve created the Oil Price Widget. It works on Mac OS X Tiger and gathers information from 321energy.com, which is displayed in a small window on the dashboard.

Download: Oil Price Widget.

Instructions: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you’re using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you’re using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it.