What is Digg?77 Comments
- defectDS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I really just prefer having the Activity Monitor open 24/7 in the dock with the icon set to memory usage. it takes up minimal ram and all I do is click it for all the stats I need. :)
- drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Ya I already had this before the time of the article. I find it halarious that people are willing to pay 13 bucks to customize menubar info. How is it an eye sore if it just prints info on the menu bar and uses aqua's look and feel with its GUI? 13 bucks for customizable background widgets seems like a joke because if I wanted stylish information in a widget that was less accessable then I would use Mac OS X widgets that are free not pay 13 dollars for it. MenuMeters differs from that stuff because its for the menu bar where you can always see it which makes it way more useful for monitoring unlike crappy overpriced programs. Personally I'm not a fan of iconfactory at all.
- t3rmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Well I for one just installed this and am enjoying it. I appreciate it's unobtrusiveness; it resides in the toolbar and doesn't waste any precious screen real-estate.
- silent1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Not everyone wants an overlay atop their main workspace. I use MenuMeters because they're meters ... in the menu bar ... that's why they're "MenuMeters". Also, I don't give a damn if it's not open source. Who cares???
- birch25, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8well, my activity monitor uses 21 MB ram while menu meter appears to use 2 MB.
this app is very useful and easy on your system. - silent1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Activity Monitor takes up a fair amount of CPU cycles, actually, compared to MenuMeters.
- cipnet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8i've been using menu meter for ages after i saw people using it at work (technical support)
i love it - tkdan235, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10did I mention it is open source and free?
- cipnet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8XRG is only for PPC according to their FAQ. not the newest program either :)
- tkdan235, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13this really looks like spam? spam sure is nice then if you asked me!
- Uruviel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Hey didn't know that was possible ... thanks :D
- velo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"XRG is only for PPC according to their FAQ. not the newest program either :)"
I'm not on a Mac to verify, but on the page it reads:
System Requirements
* MacOS X 10.2 (Jaguar), MacOS X 10.3 (Panther), or MacOS X 10.4 (Tiger)
* PowerPC or Intel based Macintosh (Universal Binary) - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I've used this since I got a Mac almost a year ago. It's definitely a must-have app for me now. (Mostly for the network meter)
- nick2354, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3if you have tiger, i prefer istat Pro, its a widget. tells you alot more, easy to read. its perfect.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have used MenuMeters for the past three years, I absolutely love the app.
- silent1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4How is it clutter if it's tucked away in your menu bar? Some people *like* to see what their CPU (or network connection, or disk) is doing at all times. I find myself missing this information when I'm using computers without this running, especially if I'm not sure whether an app is actually *doing* something.
- Marwood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I've used this for ages now but just for the disk activity lights, purely becuase I missed having hard drive lights blinking away at me after making the switch from Windows to OS X.
- kingyubba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3i've been using iStat Pro, a widget. it's beautiful and informative.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html - brotherjohn1234, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2using it quite some time - never will life without it .
- esoteric0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i prefer X resource graph. it's hidable, for one thing, and it doesn't clutter up your menu bar. way customizable too.
- das7282, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I like MenuMeter and I've had it installed for years. I use it so I can see what my hard drive activity is doing. I use to go insane when I would get a constant rainbow pinwheel and I had no idea if the system was just thinking really hard or had stopped responding. Knowing what the hard drive is doing is usually a good indication of which is going on with the system.
To me, not knowing what my system is doing is like driving a car with a blindfold on. - dickyducky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3useful but UGLY!!
- livewirelp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I guess I don't really understand why people are saying this is ugly... It seems to me that the menu items are remarkably clean. The fact that you can customize it (whether you want history graphs, etc) allows you to make it as clean or as cluttered as you desire.
- macluvjay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have to digg this for being one of my favorite and most installed app for my Macs, but DEEZAMN this shiz is so old. Maybe, though, we can introduce a lot of new mac converts to this really cool addition and again that is why I'm digging. But this is still old news. But the best IMO at what it does.
- simX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1... you mean Tiger, not Panther. Right?
- Dinosaurus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One of the first apps I install on all OS X machines I touch.
- PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I mess with my system a lot. When, say, hacked-in FrontRow goes insane and uses 100% CPU until forcibly killed, I want to know. I want to see the flow of change in network access and RAM. You may consider it cluttered, but I don't mind.
EDIT: @das7282: more like driving without instruments. - Itkovian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2How about using iStat on dashboard? It takes up no screen real estate either (on the main screen - it takes a small space on dashboard).
- mpancha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2the difference is it resides in the menu bar, and has a small footprint. Rather than having another app taking up space in the dock and on the screen.... it resides in the menu bar. Not so big a deal with the PowerBooks, MB, MBP and desktops with larger screens, but on smaller computers, it makees a huge difference.
- Menhir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had been using this for a couple years now - so fairly old software but still useful.
My only problem was that I relied on the menu meters WAY too much. I constantly used to look at the memory and CPU usage, get frustrated when it went too high, and spend unnecessary time trying to figure out what's spiking the stats - even though there was not discernable difference in system performance.
Overall, a good little program - albeit taking up a lot of precious menu bar real estate even with the bare minimum of stats enabled. - simX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@mpancha: There's an easy way to tell whether your Mac is completely frozen or not. If you have the spinning beachball and you move it over a window of a different application (or the Desktop) and the cursor changes to the normal arrow, then your Mac is not frozen. If you get a beachball no matter which window over which you hover, then your Mac is totally locked up (at least for the moment -- usually if you wait for a few minutes or so, it'll unlock itself).
- mpancha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I used to think the same, but there are many a time I've wondered if my iBook is frozen or not, and a simple "led" in my menu bar would have been perfect, but non-existant on Apples. Same is true for the PowerMacs at work, there are times when something is rendering, the beach ball is spinning away, and I don't know if its frozen (the beachball of death) or if it is actually doing work.
This is where menu meters is perfect, not the most stylish application in the OSX world, but it helps me out. For me all I need on all the time is the network meter, helps me determine if my crappy ISP is down or not.
No digg though, despite this being a nifty program, this is still spam... one of the negatives of Digg gaining popularity I suppose. No digg. - ...---..., on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like MenuMeters and I think it is really useful. However, menu bar real estate is an issue for me - I have so many other apps that have a little menu nested in the menu bar and they start to be hidden under the menus of running apps so I had to trim down on some of themand so I removed menu meters. If I have an issue & need to find out more info the I use activity monitor.
It is a great little app tough. - CMiYC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"etter than any activity light (which is sadly missing from apple laptops"
I don't agree. What I love most about Apple's products is lack of useless ugly LEDs. So I wouldn't say it is "sadly missing." I don't need a light to tell me the computer is doing something. - GopherChucks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Okay, so to the user who said this app left their UI cluttered, I think I understand where that can be the case; I have a 12" PB and try to minimize the amount of items on my UI (I use Quicksilver to launch and find just about everything except browser, finder, and SFTP. On a screen of my size I think this app leaves things a *bit* cluttered, sure, but if you find this to be an issue, what would you propose? Any other location in the interface is going to require more system resources to access. Window? Dock? Honestly, when I first saw the title of this digg, I thought it was system monitor that lived within the Apple Menu, likely within the "Services" menu or therabouts.
For those individuals lucky (and wealthy) enough to be able to afford large displays for your performance machines, this is a *great* app that doesn't require any extra resources or silly novelties like the Dashboard.
(In an unrelated note, I noticed a lot of rather harsh down-digging going on around here. What's the deal here folks? Why's everyone so critical?) - d00d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Here's a quick tip. You don't have to right-click it. You can left-click. Yowza! This isn't Windows!
- elroy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i run both. istat pro requires you to pull up the dashboard.
i run his sidetrack trackpad driver too, it's solid. - vraicovi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It definitely seems like an ad, but it is a great program. I had heard about it a few months back on the Mac Observer's Geek Gab and have been using it since on my G4 PowerBook, MacBook and MacMini.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's called Dual Core.
- harpdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why is this news, it has been around for ages. I have been using it forever. I will digg it because it is one of my favourite utilities.
- Greenline, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Honestly a great app, I saw it running a while back on my friends and it made me want to buy a mac. And who really thinks that the cheap little activity light on non-mac is a selling point, nothing but annoying. Oh wait you need something to tell you it is actually working while you sit there and wait sorry.
- totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I also use iStat. I prefer the Dashboard for this purpose-in fact, I think the Dashboard metaphor (secondary info on a second screen) is perfect for stuff like this-where you can check updated info with a click, but not have it cluttering up your main desktop.
And I agree with others here-it looks like it displays interesting information, but its not presented in an aesthetic fashion, imho. - mozzep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh you have a windows machine? I didn't believe you. Good thing you had that little side comment.
- uvscwolverine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I use a Dashboard widget called iStat that I really like. I used MenuMeters for a while but I got tired of the clutter on my menubar. iStat is free and is extremely customizable. It does a lot of the same stuff the MenuMeters does, it's just a Dashboard widget instead of sitting in your menubar.
- jgerry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Awesome app. I found it right after I bought my Mini last year, and it's worked flawlessly ever since. I like to see my CPU use at all times under all conditions. Running this app has shown me that it's about time to get a faster Mac because my lowly G4 is pegged at 100% a lot!
It does take up some menu real estate, but I'm running with a 1680x1050 LCD so I have plenty of room. - pillguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agree with most. Old app and Digg, but very useful, and for that I will digg it. I love this little thing.
- PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's a sign you need a bigger screen :)
- simX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It sounds like you're talking about Disk Inventory X ( http://www.derlien.com/ ). However, that fulfills an entirely different function than MenuMeters.
[I immediately knew what you were talking about, but didn't remember what it was called. Then I remembered it was featured on Daring Fireball, and a quick Google search with a site: operator found it in an instant.] - fak3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I used to use this, and I like the feedback it gives (something I sorely miss from the easy to read taskbar applets in Gnome) but I just think they're kinda ugly. Give me something JUST LIKE THIS, but with a UI that can sit next to my OS X volume, wifi and battery indicators...those are perfect, simple icons, if this app used ones that went with those this would be a must have for me.
- rarkai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I use the sys stat nano widget. It shows everything I need in a small interface and it works well.
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