Reviewing SmartBar XP

[Rossj711]

I downloaded smart bar xp yesterday. Smart Bar Xp is a very nifty tool, and will spice up your windows interface. However, I do have some complaints. And most of complaints lie underneath the fact that many of it's features simply DON'T work.

To download smart bar xp:
http://www.smartbarxp.com/cgi-bin/cws/home.php

Pros

The bar provides an easy way to see the date and time. It also has a task list, basically like a build in calendar (it will actually show a calendar with marks to your tasks) etc. And it alerts you when it's close to your task needed to be "fufilled" or what not. Also, the bar has a built in medias player and quick launch icons....Etc.


This bar is fully capable of being customized to your liking. (Under the advanced tab in the prefences).

Cons

This is when I ran into some problems.


First problem:
I added weather channel to the bar, and I couldn't even figure out how to customize my zip code to it.

Second problem:
When I added the news ticker, it didn't even show up.

Third problem: (and this is a big one)
Windows media player is apparently built into the bar. I added an mp3 file to the list and it played fine. However, when I went to remove the mp3 from the list, the whole program shut down (an error. Why? And another thing, I couldn't import my media player playlists.

Are there any other users experiencing these problems? I liked the Smart Bar at first. Then I started running into problems; the above mentioned and some freezing, eating up my 512mb of ram etc etc.

If these problems (most the media player one) can be fixed, I would 100% reccommend downloading the bar.




PS-

I also downloaded the LongHorn templates. It basically just mimics longhorns appearance, except without 3D interface.

 

[waynejkruse10]

how much ram does it take up, does it run fast on slower machines?

 

[Rossj711]

I'm running a 1.2ghz...512MB...

It did slow the computer up because I selected an ebay tab and it checked certain auctions every minute. Whenever it updated the auctions my cpu usage went up to 100%. Ridiculous.

Bottom line, I uninstalled it.

 

[waynejkruse10]

yeah, sometimes i put on some windows tweaks such as a sidebar, or a dock, it slows down your computer soo much.

 

[VICone]

Eh, it's still in beta, I'll just wait for the final version.

 

[xotix]

yo ross. can u post some pictures of it please.

 

[Rossj711]

Here's the pic:

Remember, the bar is fully customizable. So you could make it look completely different. Also, thats a reminder box to the right that pops out when you scroll to the clock. A little task reminder, it's awesome.

But again, too many flukes in the program, so I uninstalled it right after I took the picture for you.

 

[nbtech]

their website doesn't even work. screen shots are down. missing pages. and the layout plainly sucks. i was thinking of trying it out, but now.... i'll just stick with my stylexp.

 

[Rossj711]

their website doesn't even work. screen shots are down. missing pages. and the layout plainly sucks. i was thinking of trying it out, but now.... i'll just stick with my stylexp.

Yeah, I don't use the bar any more. Too many glitches, and the thing ate up RAM.

However, I am running a LongHorn mimic on, I think that's been causing some errors on my computer, however. I am going to update my windows just in case.

 

[Pavlyk]

Looks to me as a waste of precious desktop space...