Here's the snapshot of the Dashboard' widgets that I've just created a couple of minutes ago, thanks to Safari 3.
The story : with the Ski season opening this week-end, I like to watch my favorite ski resorts's webcams at least twice a day, so I can better plan my journeys on their slopes. Problem : there are three domains in the Vosges, plus two in the Alpes : the one 'close' to my office in Lyon, plus the one where we're going to spend a week next March. That is : five different websites, with at least one webcam stream each. Let those streams open in your favorite web browser all day long, and you're going to face some memory issues after a while. As I want a quick & easy access to the webcams, launching a tab or a window each time I want to watch them is not an option.
Solution : Apple' s new Dashboard, which comes with MacOS X 10.5 'Leopard'. Open the resorts' s websites in Safari, go to their respective webcams page, and simply grab the stream with the embedded widget maker. Boom : in less than 30 seconds, you've got your favorite streams in the form of simple, easy to access widgets. Now, I just move the cursor to the appropriate hot corner of my display, and boom, I get the images, live. Plus the snow reports.
Couldn't be more easy, right ?
post-scriptum : I'll do the same operation with my PC, you know, this brand new Dell Latitude which comes with no WiFi and no Bluetooth. I think I'm going to enjoy my Mac even more ;-)
