Cult of Mac favorite: iStat menus (Mac OS X utility)
3:48 am, April 6th, 2009, Craig Grannell
What it is: A menu extra that provides at-a-glance statistics relating to CPU usage, memory, drives, your network, drive temperatures, fans, Bluetooth and date & time. Stats are shown in the menu bar, and each item’s menu provides further information.
Why it’s good: It’s fast and it’s stable, plus, unlike many similar applications on the Mac, it’s free. Set-up is absurdly simple, done via a System Preferences pane (although, iStat menu guys, being able to open configs directly from each menu would be a nice idea). The crowning glory is the Date & Time module. It enables you to show the time and date simultaneously in the menu bar, and the item’s menu provides a simple calendar and optional world clock. All three of these things are available as individual shareware via other companies, but here they’re all integrated, well implemented and free.
Where to get it: iStat menus is available from the iSlayer website, and even if you only use the Date & Time module it’s worth a look. Note that if you use the app very regularly, a small donation will help iSlayer work on future verisons.
Posted by Craig Grannell in Reviews | Comment on this article
The Cult of Mac favorite posts are great! Hope you keep doing it! Thanks
Kim, on April 6th, 2009 at 4:42 am
Doesn’t work – keeps saying it doesn’t have the additional info required to load any of the modules, despite me affirming the download as part of the install process, and when you click on the ‘more information’ button in the error dialog the website gives a 404.
??Rrrrrubbish!
Mark, on April 6th, 2009 at 4:56 am
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iStat | blog.ftofani.com, on April 6th, 2009 at 5:16 am
hey what is the program in the first screenshot that gives you all that extra info on your Time&Date stamp?
sickness!
chris, on April 6th, 2009 at 8:51 am
@Kim – Glad you like them. The current thinking is a minimum of two per week (Mac OS X at the start of the week, so we can all be productive, and iPhone towards the end of the week, because I’ll likely mostly cover games).
@Mark – No idea what’s going on there. iStat menus has been totally robust for me and a bunch of other people I know who use it.
@Chris – It’s a module of iStat menus, as noted in the text.
Craig Grannell, on April 6th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Have used iStat on all of family iMacs/iBooks/MacBooks. Bullet-proof and very helpful for diagnosis of cpu/mem/net issues. I would recommend it to anyone.
Erin'S Dad, on April 6th, 2009 at 11:03 am
OMFG…this is a great new iStat option…I have always used the iStat dashboard widgets but this new one is great…I have removed the OS X time from my menu and replaced it with just what I want to have …the day, mon, date, year and time…and then to have that calendar that drops down too…
I hate having to go to the dashboard to get to the calendar…it’s a nightmare especially if I have not used the dashboard for a while cuz it wants to load all the things I have in dashboard…now I can remove the calendar from the dashboard to give room for something else I may need
thank you for this new treat…keep up the great work…looking forward to all the new articles in this favorites category
scott, on April 6th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Agreed. When I got a new 8 core mac pro, the Activity monitor no longer listed the procs individually, and iStat works great to let me know the load on my procs.
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