by Gina Trapani
Click to viewOne of the best ways to keep up with information about the state of your computer is to embed it in your desktop as simple, plain text. Sure, Dashboard/Yahoo/Google/Vista widgets are big, colorful desktop toys, but they also can be distracting, space-hogging and stingy with vital information.
If you like to monitor your system using age-old command line tools like uptime and top, you want the free GeekTool on your Mac. Today we'll cover how to automatically embed command output, text files and even monitoring images - like web site traffic charts - onto your Mac desktop with GeekTool.
Note: Windows users, if any of this looks good to you, be sure to check out GeekTool's PC equivalent, Samurize.
What GeekTool does
In a nutshell, GeekTool embeds text command output, text files or images onto your Mac desktop automatically and constantly refreshes them at a rate you define. So instead of opening a command line and running top to see what process is slowing down your computer, GeekTool displays top output at all times, right on your desktop - without opening a Terminal window. Here's what a desktop running GeekTool might look like (click to enlarge):
(The eagle-eyed will notice that the system log in the screenshot details an unfortunate and ironic GeekTool crash I had while writing this piece!)
Desktop voyeurs will love this gallery of GeekTool enabled Mac desktops. There's something truly beautiful about plain text.
Let's dive into using GeekTool's subtle text background to keep on top of what's happening with your Mac.
Installation and configuration
Once installed, GeekTool is a System Preferences pane that appears in the "Other" Section (its icon is a pizza.) To configure a new GeekTool display area, choose Add Entry. Then from the dropdown menu, choose whether or not the item will be command output, a text file, or an image. From there you can enter the source and display properties. Click to enlarge this quick example of configuring a GeekTool pane to run ls:
Click and drag the highlighted area to set the right position for your command output. To set it onto the background and not on top of your regular apps, uncheck "Always on top."
You probably don't need a list of files on your desktop, so here are some handy ways to use GeekTool to see relevant information about your Mac.
System monitoring
With GeekTool you can monitor your Mac using default system logs and a couple of old school Unix commands.
Application events and errors. Keep an eye on your Mac's inner workings with the system log. To add the system log to your desktop, in Geek Tool, add a new entry of type "File," and set the source to /private/var/log/system.log.
Top CPU-hogging processes. The Unix top command displays a list of current running processes and their CPU and memory usage. To add top output to your desktop, add a new entry of type "Shell" and set the command to top -l1 -u -o cpu -S. Note: you can use your own set of top parameters, but do be sure to use the -l1 to get top to play nice with GeekTool.
System uptime. If you're the type who likes to crow about how long it's been since your Mac crashed, uptime's for you. uptime will show how long your machine's been running and what your system's load average is.
Image monitoring
GeekTool isn't limited to just plain text. Lots of system monitoring tools generate pretty graphs which GeekTool can also display on your desktop for an easy way to keep on top of what's happening. The image can live either online or on your Mac (if the latter, use the file:// protocol to enter the local file location). To display a graph, simply choose "Image" from the GeekTool entry type, and enter the URL.
For example, I can keep an eye on Lifehacker's traffic throughout the day using a Sitemeter graph embedded on the desktop with GeekTool:
Calendar and Todo.txt
GeekTool's not only for system monitoring; it can display any text file or command output, like your workday log, Todo.txt or plain text calendar. Here's an example of this in action (click to enlarge):
This setup requires that both remind and todo.sh are installed and available with their config and data files. The todo list and calendar are both displayed using their appropriate, respective shell commands.
Other GeekTool tweaks
Groups: You can organize your GeekTool panes into groups by specific purpose, too. Like, I've got a PIM group (for todo and calendar), a web site monitoring group (for keeping on top of Lifehacker traffic), and a system monitoring group, for top, uptime and the system log. At any given time, only one is active (usually PIM), but you can switch to another easily.
Pane appearance. One of the more challenging parts of GeekTool is getting the text legible on a busy desktop. Hit the Colors and Font and Text areas to change the text color, add a drop shadow and set a background color (I prefer transparent.)
How do you use GeekTool to keep on top of system information? Let us know in the comments.
Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, will take plain text over widgets any day. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
