System Monitor and Desktop Art !

If you've noticed in a lot of my posts where I post a windows screenshot, my desktop and shell always look a little different. This stems from the fact that I really didn't like the default windows theme.. I like something that looks good and is very fast and functional at the same time. However it should look really nice... I was quite into graphics a long time ago, so some of that eye candy fixation stayed with me.

Anyway, I'll get back to that, here are two screenshots of the most incredible process/system monitor ever.. Its called GkrellM and is a linux program which has been ported to windows. This baby is always with me.. it uses very little cpu and does all the following for me :

Monitors any system variable I can throw at it, from temperature to CPU cycles to network transfer speeds to disk read - write speeds

Downloads my security and general news feeds so that I don't have to visit news sites.. it just scrolls the headline like a ticker.

It checks my mail

It controls my winamp

It lets me launch applications.

It even shows you the guy from doom.. and when the system is loaded down his face becomes a bit more bloodshot (see the screenshots) its really funky.
etc etc..

It can be loaded in server mode on another machine and accessed over the network.. that way you can monitor your server's health from somewhere else. Very useful !!

The whole program is based on plugins.. and there are plugins that do everything from showing you a rotating map of the world, to one that tells you the weather ! It is infinitely extendable... and can fold up into a small unobtrusive little line (kinda like winamp windowshade mode).

But its also skinnable.. which means it can look good !! Heres proof.. two screenshots of my desktop in two different states..

The first is my minimalistic layout.. I use this when I dont want much clutter on the screen. I'm using the Minus 4/2 Style XP theme( 521.2ya.com ), with the WdotAMP winamp sking.. and GkrellM is skinned with Titanium. The wallpaper is modified by me

www.firewall.cx/sahirh/desktop.jpg

it might take a little while to load the image, but its worth it.

This is my current desktop (I'm a Lord of the Rings fan). The Style XP theme is called advance4/pro also from 521.2ya.com . The winamp skin is called Nemish. You can see the news headlines scrolling in GkrellM.. the skin is called Black (not surprisingly :))

www.firewall.cx/sahirh/desktop2.jpg

The icons in both screenshots are from the Gloss collection (they're a bit out of place in the second screen.. I still have to find something that fits).

If you're a tweaker, or just someone who likes geeky functional apps.. I really really recommend GkrellM.. you can get it from
freshmeat.net/projects/gkrellm/

and the windows port from
bill.nalens.com/download.html

And anyone who thinks that loading up on the graphics slows the machine down, I invite you to try out my setup.. basically all the window fades and animation is turned off, the menu hover time is tweaked to 0 so menus appear instantly instead of having to wait for a few milliseconds. Basically it will feel snappier than Windows XP without the visual styles turned on.

If you're a desktop mod fan or have some nice screenshots, post them !

Cheers,

Totally Wicked desktop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's it ... I'm trashing my old XP style on monday morning!!

It really reminds me running X Windows with a "MS Windows" theme loaded!!

By the way, has anyone tried IPCop at all? Its a linux distribution which was created to provide firewall applications and administration on a Linux based PC.

I just got to see it at the office by my co-worker who happens to also be a Linux geek and I was really impressed. You could consider it a Smoothwall type of a distro.

Chris,

I've looked at Ip cop but not got it up and running. I am very interested in some of the add-on modules that i have seen for it. I have an interest in layer 7 filtering and ipcop appaently can do this . Even if it is Kazaa traffice tunneling out on Port 80. I may post to the main forum on this subject soon as i need to learn more!!!

regards

Garrett [db]

I just wanted to add this,
a couple of people had trouble getting GkrellM to work in Windows. Thats because you have to download the GTK+ library first. You can get it here :

umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gtk-w...ironment-2.2.4.1.exe

also get yourself the GkrellM plugins (very nice ones):

bill.nalens.com/e107_files/downloads/gkr...p-GKrellMPlugins.exe

and the full skins collection

www.muhri.net/gkrellm/GKrellM-Skins.tar.gz

Make sure you uninstall GkrellM, then install the GTK runtime environment and then reinstall GkrellM. You can add the plugins and skins whenever you want. They go in this directory :

c:\documents & settings\your username\.gkrellm\themes or \plugins.

Cheers,

Definately a cool desktop.

seems like a pretty cool program, also seems a little like the program sysmetrix ( www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/index.html ) which is the program that i use. i have also used the program coolmon, which is another program that does things along this type, but its all text based. just my 2 cents