What is my computer doing right now?

When I was a young computer guy, I got my first computer. It was a Commodore 128. Because the C-128 never took off, I ran the computer in Commodore 64 mode so that I could do something with the computer. Those were simple times...no hard disks, 64K of RAM, Dungeons and Dragons Gold Box games. That computer only did something only when I asked it to.

I graduated from there to the IBM-Compatible world of DOS and Windows. Those computers do lots more stuff, but they have always been a little particular. As a result, PCs as they came to be called started telling us lots of stuff.

• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have an error."
• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have an error."
• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have an error."
• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have an error."
• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I had an error."
• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have an error."
• "Hey there user, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have an error."

After getting used to all this feedback and the GUI monitors that evolved, working with Mac OS X is a little disconcerting at times. Macs can be very secretive at times about what exactly is happening. My MacBook Pro has no hard drive LEDs; errors presented to the user often contain little information; and the spinning rainbow beachball tells me nothing when applications don't respond until they are ready. There is the built-in Utility, Activity Monitor, but you have to decide to run it much like the Windows Task Manager. There is also a Dashboard Widget called iStat Pro which reveals a good bit of what your computer is doing. Again, I have to run the Dashboard to see it. Sometimes, you just want a quick at-a-glance idea of what is happening to the computer.

Menu Meters is a GNU-licensed program for Mac OS X that allows you to see this information. It is certainly not new, but maybe it is for you. On the Windows side of things, you can check out WinBar or CoolMon to get the same effect.