{"id":230,"date":"2006-04-04T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T20:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/blog\/?p=230"},"modified":"2014-08-04T20:26:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-04T20:26:25","slug":"os-x-dashboard-widgets-for-techies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/2006\/04\/04\/os-x-dashboard-widgets-for-techies\/","title":{"rendered":"OS X Dashboard Widgets for Techies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nOS X is becoming a popular choice among techies these days but many of us tend to ignore the Dashboard feature introduced in OS X 10.4 Tiger. I find Dashboard quite useful and have compiled the following list of widgets you might consider installing. They range from the very simple things like password generators to nmap frontends and system monitors.<\/p>\n<h2>Beginners\/Lazy People<\/h2>\n<p>Although I can now easily calculate Unix file permissions in my head I&#8217;m sure there are many people who are new to Linux\/Unix who may find it helpful to get a bit of help with them so below is the nicest of the Unix Permission widgets I found on my travels.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s called, sensibly enough, <i>UNIX Permissions Calculator Widget<\/i> and you can get it from  <a title=\"Unix Permissions Calculator Widget\" href=\"http:\/\/vocaro.com\/trevor\/software\/widgets\/\">http:\/\/vocaro.com\/trevor\/software\/widgets\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Unix Permission Calculator Widget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/UnixPermissionCalculator.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Another handy one that I do confess to using myself from time to time is the <i>IP Subnet Calculator Widget<\/i> which you can get from <a title=\"IP Subnet Calculator\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/ipsubnetcalculator.html\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/ipsubnetcalculator.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IP Subnet Calculator Widget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/IPSubnetCalculator.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>Password Generators<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried out a LOADS of password generators over the last few months and some really suck! The first one I tried always gave the same sequence of &#8216;random&#8217; passwords which sorta defeats the point some what! ATM I use the rather simply named Random Password widget (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/randompassword.html\" title=\"Random Password Widget\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/randompassword.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Random Password Widget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/RandomPassword.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>System Monitors<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>There are more system monitor widgets than you can shake the proverbial stick at but after much experimenting and playing around I&#8217;ve settled on <i>iStat<\/i> which comes in two versions. There is <i>iStat Nano<\/i> which is small and compact and has multiple screens you can flip between as well as a nice, compact overview, and then there is <i>iStat Pro<\/i> which is far from small but wonderfully detailed. I generally use the <i>iStat Nano<\/i> but both are very good. The screenshot below is taken on my PowerMac and shows both nano and pro in action at the same time. You can get these widgets from:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>iStat Nano &#8211; <a title=\"iStat Nano\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/status\/istatnano.html\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/status\/istatnano.html<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>iStat Pro &#8211; <a title=\"iStat Pro\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/status\/istatpro.html\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/status\/istatpro.html<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"iStat Nano and iStat Pro\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/iStat.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>Network Monitors<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Something I like to keep an eye on is what network connections are going to and from my machine at any time. A lovely compact little widget for doing this is called <i>Pakze<\/i> which may sound like a strange name but if you speak Dutch you&#8217;ll realise it means &#8216;get em&#8217; and the background is a rather grumpy looking doggie! You can get <i>Pakze<\/i> from <a title=\"Pakze Widget\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/pakzewidget.html\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/pakzewidget.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Pakze Widget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/Pakze.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>There are also lots of other network status widgets that tell you what you internal and external IP addresses are and how much bandwidth you&#8217;re using etc but since <i>iStat<\/i> has all that information anyhow I don&#8217;t see the point in cluttering your dashboard with extra widgets that tell you nothing new.<\/p>\n<p>What can be useful is a widget called <i>Sunemo<\/i> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/sunemo.html\" title=\"Sunemo Widget\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/sunemo.html<\/a>) that uses <font face=\"courier new,courier,monospace\">nmap<\/font> to show you all the machines that are active in your subnet. I only use this widget on my home network and I would warn others to do the same. Your network administrator will probably get grumpy at you if you try using this on a corporate or university network!<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sunemo Widget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/Sunemo.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Finally, it can be useful when keeping an eye on who is accessing or attempting to access your servers to know where suspicious people are coming from, hence the <i>GeoLocate<\/i> widget can be very useful to techies. I&#8217;m not really sure how accurate it is but it tends to get the country right at least. You can download it here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/geolocate.html\" title=\"GeoLocate Widget\">www.apple.com\/downloads\/dashboard\/networking_security\/geolocate.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"GeoLocate Widget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.minds.nuim.ie\/~voyager\/linkStore\/blog\/TechieWidgets\/GeoLocate.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2>Final Word<\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Those are the techie related Dashboard Widgets I use. Of all the widgets I&#8217;ve downloaded and installed I&#8217;d say only about 25% are keepers if even that so these really are the cream of the crop that I&#8217;ve been collecting pretty much since Tiger came out. I also have other good widgets for helping web programmers so I might do a follow on article shortly on Dashboard Widgets for Web Monkeys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OS X is becoming a popular choice among techies these days but many of us tend to ignore the Dashboard feature introduced in OS X 10.4 Tiger. I find Dashboard quite useful and have compiled the following list of widgets you might consider installing. They range from the very simple things like password generators to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,16],"tags":[482,26,139,188],"series":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-tech","category-programming","tag-dashboard-widget","tag-os-x","tag-review","tag-software"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t9xK-3I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7645,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/7645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}