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Can someone help me knowing about GeekTool for Mac system? I know that GeekTool do work with Mac 10.6 but I don’t know how to get it into my system and also I do not have any idea how exactly I should use this tool. This is the first time I am getting Mac system at my home and this is why the reason I am asking you to help me with using GeekTool. Also if possible someone let me know the variation and process of using it with an ease.
If you are asking about GeekTool then I am sure you must know about the main use of this Tool. Anyways, let me first explain you the basics of this application in a simple language. GeekTool is an application which is actually used for customizing your Mac system running OS X into it. You can customize the desktop of your Mac by viewing the logs then overlaying the desktop and also showing up the other necessary text files.
You can simply create the overlays with the help of the commands. Yes, you have heard it correctly. Overlaying in your Mac can be done with the help of the using commands. No doubt you will find using GeekTool very much simple but only if you know how to use the command line. And if you are not well aware of the command line then definitely GeekTool will be a nightmare for you.
I will help you with the steps to use GeekTool in your Mac system. You just have to follow the below instruction and that’s it.
- First of all download and install GeekTool in to computer. Do not worry you can easily get the GeekTool software from Mac App Store
- After installing the software open it and in the opened window you will get three options, select Shell and drag it to the desktop
- Now another new windows will be appeared called as properties there type in the following command in the command box:” date ‘+%I:%M:%S %p’ ”
- Now within the same window make sure that you also set the refresh rate to 1 sec
- You can also change the format like font and color. You will get the option for setting the font and color from the same window.
- Do not mess up with any other option in the windows, just do what is instructed.
That’s it you are now done with the settings. Now you will get a GeekTool Clock at your own desktop. Now everything is in your hand.
Yes, everything is in your control. Now you can move your Geeklet as per your wish. The Shell command that you dragged onto your desktop is called nothing but Geeklet. Most of the users do prefer to move the Geeklet towards the top left corner of the screen.
The only drawback that I have noticed is the limited Geeklets. But there is another way out for this problem so it is no more a problem. if you are interested in having more special and unique Geeklets then you can surely get them from Mac OS X Tips. You might get some help from there.
With your Geeklet you can simply Position your Geeklets from the settings then you can also style your Geeklet as explained above.
Below are the scripts that will help you to set your Geeklet with the Date, time, uptime and many other features. Just make sure that you write the command in the command box:
- For setting the date: date '+%A, %B %d'
- For setting the time: date '+%I: %M %p'
- For updating you with the uptime use the following command: uptime | awk '{sub(":", "h ", $3); sub(",", "min", $3); print "Time since last system boot: " $3}'
- To check the Memory Usage: top -l 1 | awk '/PhysMem/ {print "Used: " $8 " Free: " $10}'
As soon as you will open your GeekTool window the first thing you will notice is three options File, Image and Shell. Here I will help you know the real meaning and use of these three options.
- Mostly people prefer to select Shell option as the preference. Mostly this Geeklet is used to display textual output from any shell command.
- Now we will talk about File, this option is mostly used to display the contents of the file on your display screen in real time. Log files can also be added and displayed using this option. now there the most interesting thing is that whenever you change the content of the selected file the content displaying on the screen will also be affected and will change accordingly.
- With the last option i.e. Image you can’t do much but at least you can take down the image from internet with the help of the URL. What happens here is that image is displayed on your desktop in real time with the help of the optional refresh setting.