Love it or hate it, the Dock is an integral part of Mac OS X and Shareware developers are busy coming up with Dock replacements and enhancers.
PocketDock 2.11 from Pocket Software is a launcher utility for organizing and launching applications, documents, Web links, and e-mail addresses. It’s designed for those Mac OS X users who find the Dock too crowded and who miss the Launcher. PocketDock 2.1 supports drag and drop (for adding and customizing links, views and docks), multiple “skin” support (nine “skins” are currently available), and English, French, German and Italian language support.
PocketDock lets you create multiple docks, each with its own look. You can move and copy files with and between the Finder. It supports Internet Explorer (Classic and X), iCab (Classic and X), OmniWeb, Netscape (Classic), Outlook Express (Classic), Eudora (Classic) and AddressBook. For more info go to the Pocket Software Web site.
Meanwhile, for those who want to utilize the Dock as it is (and who don’t mind trying pre-release software), there’s DockAlarmTheClock 0.9, an alarm clock “dockling.” You can use it to remind you of various appointments. After setting the time you want it to ring, you get both an alert sound and an alert panel.