Last night was the broadcast of the 81st Academy Awards. Slumdog Millionaire walked away with the most Oscars. Viewership was even up 10% to last year. Looks like all eyes were on Tinsel Town.

With all the buzz about who wore what, it’s very easy to get caught up in all the post-Oscar news.

But if you just want to know about the winners, “The Academy Awards Oscars Gadget” in iGoogle will tell you. You can search Oscar nominees by year and by category.

This gadget told me that Sean Penn won an Oscar last night for his role in Milk and he won an Oscar for his role in Mystic River back in 2004. Two Oscars in five years is pretty impressive.

Tired of having to find the calculator on and/or near your computer? Well, there’s a quick fix in iGoogle.

The Calculator gadget is a simple and easy-to-use gadget. There’s no mess and no fuss here. In the home view, all you see is the calculator. It is only in the canvas view that the developer has a small blurb about the gadget and some ads.

I love that this gadget also has some customization features. You can change the color of the buttons on the calculator. You can also change the background of the calculator.

All in all, a great little mathematical tool for my iGoogle page.

The “Driving Directions” gadget from Google is another great utility gadget for your iGoogle page.

In the home view, the gadget does not take up much screen real estate at all. It is designed to allow you simply input your starting point, destination and then get directions.

The directions are showcased in the canvas view.  In this view, you can adjust your starting and end point, see your directions, see a map view of the directions and even a street view of your directions.

I love how everything  is neatly packaged together in the gadget.  There are however, two options, missing from this gadget. There’s needs to be an email option and a print option.

Do you already have this gadget on your iGoogle page? If not, will you be adding it?

If you use Twitter, then the TwitterGadget from LOGIKA Corporation is a very useful tool for your iGoogle page.

This gadget has all the functionalities of Twitter. Simply add the gadget to your iGoogle page, log in and it’s like you are logged in via Twitter’s actual website.

Through the gadget, you can still look at your home page, view your friends, see your direct messages and @ replies. But because it is indeed a gadget, using it through the home view can be quite cumbersome with the scrolling. Switching to canvas view allows it to be more user-friendly.

I am a fan of this gadget because it saves me from having to log into one more website everyday.

Are you on Twitter? Will you be using this gadget?

Lately my posts have been about handy gadgets that should be a staple on every one’s iGoogle page. “Days Since” is another gadget that fits this bill.

There have been so many occasions where I wonder when was the last time I did something. For example, it is recommended by people in the dental world that you should change your toothbrush every 3 months or 90 days.

With this gadget, I can input how many days has passed since I changed my toothbrush. In this case, it has been 15 days. So when this counter increases by a number every day, I will see it get higher. As the number gets closer to 90, I’ll know it’s time to get a new toothbrush.

This is a very practical gadget if you are forgetful and need a daily reminder. It’ll count up the days instead of counting them down.

And it’s been 364 days since you’ve given a Valentine. If you’re like me, you have one day left to cook something up.

The “Currency Converter” is great tool to have on your iGoogle page. I really like this gadget because it provides a great utility.

Simply input the value of your starting currency. Select your ending currency and get the converted  unit. The gadget also allows you to invert the currency with one click.

With over 180 currencies, this gadget will solve all your money exchanging needs. This is a great tool for anyone who is a globetrotter.

With Google Translate, you can easily translate words from one language to the next. Simply enter in the text. Choose the original language and the language you wanted it to be translated to.

Voila! (There you have it.) “I love you” turns right into “Je t’aime.”

A nice and simple tool. I think it’s a must have for every iGoogle page. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, you can use this gadget to spice up your love letters.

Because I enjoy learning little pieces of information here and there, I have always been a fan of “how to” sites. (Always makes for good cocktail talk.) It seems that nearly 4 million users on iGoogle feel the same way I do.

The “How to of the Day” gadget from wikiHow.com is a simple RSS feed of the website’s content. In the home view, you can see up to 9 of the most recent “how to’s.”  The canvas view is just an expanded RSS reader. In both the home view and canvas view, clicking on the titles will take you to wikiHow.com to see a more in depth entry post.

This gadget is a simple reminder to get your daily dose of “how to.” And if you like the snippet in the gadget, you can always visit the website.

A very handy gadget to have on your iGoogle homepage  is the Movies gadget from Google. With this gadget, searching for movie times and the theaters showing the movie can all be done in one place.

After adding the gadget, simply input your zip code. (You can always change your location by editing the settings of the gadget.) The gadget will then populate with three movies that are showing in your area.

In the home view, the gadget shows a link to a the movie’s trailer, its IMDB page and movie reviews. You can also see the closest theater that is showing the movie along with any remaining show times for the day.

If this is not enough information on the movie, click the movie title to be taken to the canvas view. Clicking on “More movies and show times” will also do the same.

In the canvas view, you will see more movies along with the four closest theaters showing that movie. The canvas view allows you to see movie times for the current day and up to three days ahead.

Clicking on a movie title in the canvas view allows you to see a quick blurb about the film, show times and reviews. Clicking on a movie theater allows you to see all the movies showing at that particular location. A Google map showing the theater’s location can also be viewed.

Overall, this gagdget is efficient and saves some clicking time. No longer do you have to browse through other movie sites to see quick show times and reviews.