Hello, iStat Menus and Goodbye Menubar Space | Comments | McSolo by Ron McElfresh </head> <body id="comments"> <div id="wrapper_comments"> <a name="top" id="top"></a> <div id="wrapper_header"> <div id="region_header"> <div class="Leaderboard-Top-728x90"> <script type='text/javascript'></script> </div> <div id="logo"> <a href="http://mcsolo.com/" title="McSolo Home Page"><img src="http://mcsolo.com.s3.amazonaws.com/logo.png" alt="Logo" /></a> </div> </div> </div> <div id="wrapper_middle"> <div id="region_left"> <div class="region_pad"> <div id="navmenu"><ul class="buttons"> <li class="active"><a href="http://mcsolo.com/" title="McSolo Home Page">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/mobile" title="McSolo Mobile Home for iPhone">Mobile</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo/news/" title="News Links Archive">News Links</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo/archive/" title="McSolo Article Archive">Articles</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo/search/" title="Advanced Search">Search</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/about_mcsolo/" title="About McSolo">About</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo_projects/" title="New Projects">Projects</a></li> <li><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo/rss_atom/" title="McSolo RSS Atom Feed for Articles and News Links">RSS Feed</a></li> <li class="lastitem"><a href="http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo/contact/" onclick="window.open('http://mcsolo.com/index.php/mcsolo/contact','popup','width=440,height=550,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false" title="How to Contact McSolo">Contact</a></li></ul></div> <div class="byline">By Ron McElfresh</div> </div> </div> <div id="region_main"> <div class="region_pad"> <div class="frame_article"> <h1>Hello, iStat Menus and Goodbye Menubar Space</h1> <div class="date">Thursday, September 3, 2009 | Articles | Read or Post a Comment</div> <p>One major benefit of being a Mac user is the plethora of handy little utilities that do this or that in some elegant, unobtrusive, totally necessary way, without being a pain. iStat Menus is a worthy utility for the geekier Mac user, and works flawlessly. Except for one nagging issue. </p> <h3>The Good</h3><p> What’s not to like? <a href="http://islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/" title="iStat Menus">iStat Menus</a> slides into your Mac’s Menubar and dishes out a bunch of little stats and visual cues to alert you to problems or give you peace of mind.</p> <p>In other words, iStats Menu is a menu of statistics about your Mac. It monitors your Mac so you can do what’s really important. If you’re Monk, then you’ll gaze at the stats in the Menubar more often.</p> <h3>The Bad</h3><p> It’s not that these little visual cues of humming productivity are bad. They’re bad. As is wicked. As in cool. As in hot. As in whatever phrase you use to describe that which you like.</p> <p>What does iStat Menus put into your Mac’s Menubar?</p> <ol><li><strong>CPU</strong> - Monitor cpu usage. 7 display modes, multiple core support.</li><li><strong>Memory</strong> - Monitor memory usage. 4 display modes, page ins/outs and swap usage display.</li><li><strong>Disks</strong> - Monitor disk usage and activity. 6 display modes, ability to hide disks you dont want to see.</li><li><strong>Network</strong> - Monitor current and total bandwidth, peak bandwidth, ip addresses . Ability to hide disks you dont want to see.</li><li><strong>Temps</strong> - Monitor the temperature of your mac. 2 display modes, ability to hide sensors you dont want to see.</li><li><strong>Fans</strong> - Monitor the fan speeds in your mac. 2 display modes, ability to hide sensors you dont want to see.</li><li><strong>Bluetooth</strong> - Control bluetooth status plus monitor the battery level of your Apple wireless keyboard or mouse.</li><li><strong>Date & Time</strong> - Date + time in your menubar. World clock display lets you see the time in multiple locations around the world.</li></ol> <p>What’s not to like? Just one thing.</p> <h3>The Ugly</h3><p> In retrospect, we must be thankful to Apple for making our Macs with a wider screen. Gone is the old 640x480 nonsense of the late last century. In is the cinema look. Wide.</p> <p>Whatever the flavor, our Macs have wide screens. They’re just not wide enough. <a href="http://islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/" title="iStat Menus">iStat Menus</a> take up a lot of Menubar real estate. Why? Because I have other utilities stuck in the Menubar, all making it handy and easy to do this or that.</p> <p>If it’s true that feature creep continues until an application or utility does email, then the next thing we’ll see in Mac OS X 10.7 Hello Kitty will be a tabbed Menu bar. </p> </div>  <a name="read"></a> <div class="wrapper_comments"> <h3>Reader Comments</h3> <div class="frame_comments_one"> <p><strong>Chance Edom</strong> said:</p> <p>iStat Menus’ new version works fine in Snow Leopard. I have the same problem. My Mac’s screen is not big enough to handle all those cool utilities I want. Not need. But want. </p> <div class="posted">#1 | Thursday, September 3, 2009</div> </div> <div class="frame_comments_two"> <p><strong>Jonathan Fletcher</strong> said:</p> <p>Oh, well, they have a SnoLep version now. Sorry for the wasted bandwidth… </p> <div class="posted">#2 | Thursday, September 3, 2009</div> </div> <div class="frame_comments_one"> <p><strong>Jonathan Fletcher</strong> said:</p> <p>Yeah, and another ugly: it doesn’t work in Sno Leo.<br /> ::-(<br /> Matter of time, of course, but I miss it. </p> <div class="posted">#3 | Thursday, September 3, 2009</div> </div> <div class="frame_comments_two"> <p><strong>Mike</strong> said:</p> <p>You don’t need to enable all iStat Menus’ menu items. I only enable CPU, Memory and Sensors. 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