Other Sites
If have you've tried certain system status widgets you may find that they waste Dashboard space and system resources to display a lot of information you don't want or need. The miniStat System monitor widgets take a pro-active approach to this problem, with tiny, no-frills widget readouts of just the applicable information. With miniStat widgets you only get the info that you need, and the widgets occupy only a small amount of space on your screen.
Here is a shot showing the relative size of a couple of miniStat widgets to the Dashboard Clock.
miniStat widgets include:
miniBattery
With this widget you can monitor you battery status - current power, charging or AC status and a very useful thing - cycle counts of your battery.
miniCpuHeat
It's a good idea to keep an eye on your Mac's CPU heat, because overheating can damage the CPU and other internal components.
miniCpuUsage
If you frequently need to check current usage percentage of your CPU you'll find this widget helpful. It can monitor CPU status both in a simple mode or with a progress bar.
miniFreeRAM
With this handy widget monitoring of your free RAM size is easy.
miniFreeStorage
This widget just shows a free space on all your mac's hard drives. If your space runs low - the widget will indicate it.
miniUptime
This widget just shows a length of time the system has been up. No need to be configured - just install and it works.
You can download any of them individually, or the whole works in one convenient package.
The miniStat widgets are freeware
For more information, visit:
http://www.shockwidgets.com/?widget=miniStat
miniStat2 System Monitor Widget
Also from the same developer is the shareware miniStat2 system monitor widget, which is claimed to double the features of the freeware miniStat widgets, incorporating enhanced Mac system monitoring with many new features, numerous code optimizations, in a compact widget with customizable skins.
"This widget shows information about your Mac's processor, memory, storage, sensors, network connections and battery.
This view shows the state of my iBook's battery charge.
And this one indicates that all three partitions on my little 20 GB hard drive are more filled up than they should be.
• Detailed statistics about CPU, memory, storage, network, temperature sensors and battery.
• Customazible skins.
• Updates every second.
• Only 1% of CPU when updating.
• Six different view types – processor, memory, storage, network, sensors and battery
• Ability to change "Desktop" background picture
• Desktop mode – summarizes all statistics on one screen
• Control widget without mouse via hotkeys
• Very accurate AirPort signal strength values
• View your wireless mouse and keyboard batteries charge
• "Lock this window" feature
• Smooth animations and cool graphics
• You choose preferred temperature units – °C or °F
No special configuration required beyond selecting your skin and your temperature units. Just install with a few clicks and it is up and running on your Dashboard. both the freeware mniStat widgets and miniStat2 work fine on my old G3 iBook, except for that the IBM 750 FX CPU doesn't have temperature sensors, so that readout is disabled.
New in this version:
• iDisk support
• Fixed PowerMac G4 memory leak
System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
Shareware - $4.95
For more information, visit:
http://www.shockwidgets.com/?widget=miniStat2
Charles W. Moore
Tags: News ï Reviews ï Widgets ï
