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A seemingly minor user interface change in iTunes 11 is sure to drive some users crazy.

Apple has removed the the traditional sidebar view from this latest version of iTunes. Previously, if you wanted to switch between your music and movie libraries, you did so in the sidebar. The same went for playlists, the iTunes Store, and connected iOS devices -- all of which were found in the sidebar.

To access the same features in iTunes 11, you'll need to click on buttons along the top of iTunes. The Library and iTunes Store buttons are always present, but the … Read more

The sidebar in the OS X Finder is a convenient way to store links to your commonly used folders, and to access available network servers and hard drives. By default the sidebar shows some folders from your home directory along with the Applications folder, and clicking through these should reveal their contents in the current Finder window; however, some people who have upgraded to Mountain Lion are noticing an apparent bug where clicking between these links does not show the appropriate change in contents.

For those with this problem, clicking on a specific link in the sidebar will show that … Read more

For my purposes, Bing is different from Google in two important ways. One, Bing Maps provides the awesome Bird's Eye View. And two, Bing features the Social Sidebar. If you have yet to fiddle around with the Social Sidebar on Bing, consider this a primer.

Before you get started, you will need to be signed in to Facebook. Then, on Bing's search results page, you'll see a dark-gray sidebar along the right edge. Here, you will see a Facebook box where you can ask a question on Facebook related to your current Bing query, tag friends, and … Read more

Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature does a fine job of keeping track of RSS feeds. Feed Sidebar is a free add-on that opens feeds in a sidebar equipped with a handy toolbar that makes it easy to search and sort feeds, mark them as read, and limit their age. It doesn't replace Live Bookmarks in Firefox; it augments the standard tool. But if you follow a lot of feeds, you'll like what it adds.

After a quick and trouble-free external download, we restarted Firefox. We clicked the RSS button on the toolbar, and clicked Feed Sidebar's left-hand … Read more

There seems to be no end to the variety of gadgets that the Windows Sidebar enables on the desktop in Vista and Windows 7. Language Translator for Windows Sidebar localizes the proven usefulness of Web-based translators on your desktop, with the flexibility of a gadget. Like most Windows gadgets, it's free.

Windows gadgets tend to be small by design, and at 260KB, Language Translator is no exception. Like other gadgets, it's as easy to manage as your screensaver or desktop background: right-click anywhere in the desktop and select Gadgets from the menu. The tool itself is a compact, … Read more

In the past, file sharing between computers took a little configuration to get done. You had to set up and properly configure your network ports, then enable file-sharing services, select files to share, and connect to an IP address for the desired system if you could not locate it with various discovery tools like the Classic Mac's Network Browser or Windows' Network Neighborhood.

These days a lot of the same configuration and setup has to be done to get the system on the network, but once on the network there are new zero-configuration protocols, such as Apple's Bonjour, … Read more

The Finder's sidebar in OS X is built to allow you quick access to resources such as network shares, your home directory, and custom searches, among other locations you can add to the sidebar. While the "Shared" section in the sidebar should only show you resources on the local network (i.e., servers, workgroups, individual PCs, and NAS devices), sometimes odd or unrecognized items may show up.

If you are on a public network or a large work network, you may see numerous unknown devices show up in the shared list, but if you are at home … Read more

The latest update to iTunes 10 fixed a few known bugs with the initial release, but as expected Apple did not change the gray color scheme of the icons in the sidebar. We hope it will in the future, but for now the program will, by default, still come with the faded gray look in the sidebar.

For the initial release, people tackled this problem by editing the iTunes.rsrc file in the application package and adding their own custom color schemes to the program.

Despite having color in the sidebar again, people wondered if updating the program in the … Read more

The latest version of iTunes seems to have done away with a feature that many people have come to use regularly: the Genius sidebar. Instead of a Genius sidebar with options for finding new songs based on the ones in your library, there is now a Ping sidebar that gives you access to the social network's ratings and purchasing options.

This may be useful for Ping users, but the Genius sidebar was used by many to quickly find new song and artist recommendations and may be frustrated by its absence. The only Genius feature still remaining in the iTunes … Read more