Let’s face it. The things that are supposed to make our lives easy continue to befuddle us: trackbacks, podzines, twebinar, RSS. The widget, however, is easier to like.

Yahoo! has this really neat ‘Typing Speedometer‘ widget that you never knew you needed –until now! Wikipedia has a cool widget, many blogs are littered with widgets, and Facebook users hit on you with widgets until you want to reach for the pepper spray. One day you’re gonna bump into one so before someone gets hurt (I spotted two attack widgets) get to know how to use a few of them. You could always get the Dummies book on widgets, but here are some useful places to start:

• PRSA web site has a primer on widgets.
• There are Google ‘Gadgets‘ that are sort of widgets. Want to dig deeper, read this –with caution.
• Try out a widget or two on your desktop –no programming required.
• If you have a blog, there are the top 50.