« Reviews: Why Bush must go | Main | Yes, you will notice the missing 333 mhz »

October 15, 2003

iPulse

I downloaded and installed The IconFactory's iPulse after reading about version 2, released last week.

I've never been one for system monitor applications or applets, but something about this one attracted me. I think it's that in a fairly small (Konfabulator-like) floater, you can track instantaneous CPU load, load over the last hour, memory swaps, battery and wireless signal levels, network traffic, disk activity, and more, more, more. If you always leave your dock visible, the iPulse icon shows all the detail from the full-size floater.

The bad news about iPulse is that I'm seeing that I occasionally blast my machine, leading to memory paging and heavy CPU load. Instead of the very reasonable $12.95, iPulse could wind up costing me a dual-2.0 G5.

Iconfactory maintains a download page for alternate iPulse skins, and Railhead Design has posted a few others.

October 15, 2003 in Apple - Software | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bf6df53ef00d8342363fb53ef

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference iPulse:

Comments

I use CPU Monitor in the Dock on my OS X machines and gkrellm on my FreeBSD boxes. I have used gkrellm on OS X and Windows, but doesn't seem to work as well there.

Posted by: paul at Oct 17, 2003 11:57:05 PM

I may not have done a very good job describing it, but iPulse does a lot more than CPU Monitor or Process Viewer, in less real estate (or just in the Dock), and looks cooler (and is skin-able).

Mine has replaced my clock, the menubar battery monitor, and the wireless signal strength monitor that were previously in my menubar. It also led directly to me realizing there was something wrong with my CPU when 10.2.8 throttled it back, although CPU Monitor would have done that just as well...

Posted by: Frank at Oct 18, 2003 4:33:21 PM

I figured it does more, but CPU monitor works fine my needs. I could get gkrellm working again, but haven't felt motivated.

Posted by: paul at Oct 19, 2003 11:55:43 PM