First in the Menubar Saga | Menubar Items | Welcome to iWill

First in the Menubar Saga

03/01/09 03:53 PM Filed in: Menubar Items
I developed the idea of creating a blog way before I actually did, and as a wishful thinker I started actually writing things I would put on it. Since you asked (or did you?) here’s the first one of those, inspired by a website that I cannot for the life of me find the URL to but had everyone sharing the items they kept in their Mac’s menu bar. I couldn’t post for a reason which also escapes me, but made a posting anyway. And me being who I am, they’re all free unless mentioned otherwise. Here you have the items in my menu bar as of two-ish years ago.
Here will be a picture in all other posts (I think…) but I appear to have lost this one’s. Allow your imagination to provide.

    1. MainMenu: Perform system maintenance and other system tasks from the menu bar.
    2. Alarm Clock 2: The best alarm clock that I tried. Set alarms, timers, and stopwatches.
    3. iScrobbler: I’m trying out last.fm because I read about it a lot. Don’t know what to think yet.
    4. Slife: Keeps track of the time you spent on each app, but requires payment for over 3 apps.
    5. Skitch: Between this and Pixelmator, I can do everything I did in Photoshop Elements. That’s how I edited this screenshot.
    6. RescueTime: Like Slife, but free and web based. After I realized I would have to tag every app to take advantage of it, I decided I didn’t really need something like this.
    7. URLwell: Drag your URLs here for storage. The only thing it does that a web browser doesn’t, besides clog up your menu bar, is allow you to check off links you’ve visited.
    8. DeskTopple Basic: The best of several apps I tried that will hide your desktop. Besides decreasing distractions, I think it increases processor speed, although not noticeably unless you have tons of icons on your desktop. Free version of DeskTopple.
    9. TinyAlarm: This would have been my favorite alarm app, except you can only set one alarm at a time.
    10. Library Books: Keeps track of all the books you have checked out, with support for very many specific libraries, although not mine. It also has a generic library function that I think will support mine, although I haven’t tried it yet- hence the 0.
    11. HimmelBar: The best application launcher, with the worst name and icon of all my apps. Supports root apps, user apps, utilities, developer, and (sadly only one) custom folder.
    12. WeatherDock: The best weather app I tried, however I’m teetering on the edge of deleting it- after all, I have weather in the Dashboard, and I need that space.
    13. Camouflage: Like DeskTopple, a good app, but DeskTopple is better, especially the icon.
    14. Charlotte: Spotlight for the web. That’s all I need to say, except that Google doesn’t work properly. It’s their fault- they stopped giving out keys. (I’m not so confident about this link, as the screenshot doesn’t seem to be a menubar app, but whatever.)
    15. Check Off: The best task management program anywhere. Supports folders, comments, iPod syncing, colors, hot key, everything except, sadly, iApp syncing.
    16. Isolator: Hides not only the desktop, but also all windows not currently active. Since I already had DeskTopple and SpiritedAway, and the icon was really ugly, I decided I didn’t need it.
    17. iPaste: One of those clipboard storage apps. I really only would need two or three, but this memorizes up to 10 items on your clipboard- for a price. Cool, but not worth it to me. I’d definitely use a free one.
    18. SpiritedAway: After a set amount of time an app is inactive, SpiritedAway hides it. It has the potential to be very annoying, without OnyX to set my dock icons to become transparent when an app is hidden. Can be inactivated, apps can be excluded right from the menu (and no, I don’t know why it’s a Pac-Man ghost).
    19. Semulov: Helpful if you want to keep track of what you have mounted on your computer. The name is probably some clever word for eject in some other language or something. Shows categories, and ng an icon ejects the disk. Has a helpful “Eject All” item.
    20. Hazel: PrefPane that does some filtering things. The only thing I would use it for is to manage my Trash (auto-delete after a set time) and downloads (delete duplicates). Shareware, so it’s going.
    21. Teleport: I got this to try and control my 10.2.8 PowerBook from my iMac, but unfortunately it doesn’t work under Panther. It’s therefore going too.
    22. FastScripts Lite: The Apple Scripts menu and more. In this case, more means keyboard commands. Date and Time: Displays a little calendar icon, with a calendar that drops down. Not as featured as some of the other menubar calendars out there.
    23. Fan Speed: The speed of your fan, either with an icon or by RPM. I couldn’t find a link.
    24. Temperature: Displayed as a thermometer or as text.
    25. Hard Drive: How much of your drive is full, and the read-write status, with 6 display modes.
    26. Memory: Displays how much memory you are using, with 5 display modes.
    27. CPU: How much CPU you are using, with 7 display modes. The only one I use, in the history graph mode.
    28. MemoryCell: Displays how much memory you are using, in a much uglier display than iStat Menus.
    29. Apple Menu Item-AirPort: Useful because I’ve been one of the people having trouble since 10.5.2.
    30. Apple Menu Item-Volume: Don’t think I need to explain this one.
    31. Apple Menu Item-Date and Time: Now replaced by FuzzyClock.
    32. Apple Menu Item-Fast User Switching: The thing I liked about Windows that I thought would miss when I got my iMac with Tiger.
    33. MagiCal: A more easily accessible iCal interface, which I don’t really need.
    34. MenuCalendarClock iCal: Same as 33, but if I did need one, this would be the one.
    35. FuzzyClock: See the time in a more human way.
    36. Spotlight: Unlike most people, it seems, I have no problem with Spotlight, except that it won’t search /Library files.

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