This simple tool can be used to add a wide range of customizations. In later posts we will look at other tasks that can be used with GeekTool and also some of the pre-made tools that can be downloaded A.K.A. Download GeekTool 3.0 Download fun Geeklets to Customize Your OS X Desktop.
- GeekTool lets you create a live, custom desktop on Mac OS X using a variety of widgets & scripts. This is a detailed introductory guide to the tool.
- This is a set of technical resources for network engineers and system administrators; includes whois and traceroute.
- This is a set of technical resources for network engineers and system administrators; includes whois and traceroute.
In this week’s video, I look at GeekTool, a free system utility that lets you display images, text files, and the output of Unix commands on your desktop (or floating above other windows).
Download Macworld Video #106
• Format: MPEG-4/H.264
• Resolution: 480 x 272 (iPhone & iPod compatible)
• Size: 13.3MB
• Length: 7 minutes
Geektools Whois
In the course of the video, I reference a collection of sites where you can find more powerful examples of what you can do with GeekTool. These include:
- Hints that mention GeekTool on macosxhints.com.
- Ultimate GeekTool Setup on Keynote 2 Keynote.
- GeekTool and bash one liners on Mac Geekery.
- Geek to Live: Monitor your Mac and more with GeekTool on Lifehacker.
- Mega Roundup of GeekTool Scripts on Francesco Mugnai’s blog (which contains links to many other sites).
- In the video, I show one GeekTool entry that displays my external IP address, which can be useful if you’re trying to debug a network connectivity problem. The Unix source for that entry can be found buried in this hint on Mac OS X Hints. To save you the digging, though, here’s the command:
curl --silent http://checkip.dyndns.org | awk '{print $6}' | cut -f 1 -d '<'. Just enter that as the Unix command, and you should see your external IP address in GeekTool.
To subscribe to the Macworld Video Podcast using iTunes 5 or later, click here.
Geektool Scripts
You can also see a complete archive of all our videos on Macworld’s YouTube channel. Subscribe to that channels and you will be notified whenever we post a new video.
Or just point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader to: http://feeds.macworld.com/macworld/video/