systemDashboard - CPU Meter

Just like sidebar gadgets, widgets are small programs designed to provide easy access to important system information or frequently used programs. systemDashboard - CPU Meter is such an application, allowing you to monitor the total CPU usage, and view the system and user usage percentages.

In order to use it, you need to have the Yahoo! Widget Engine installed on your computer. The interface of the program is similar to a car meter, displaying the state of your CPU activity from zero to 100%. However, you have to consider that it does not show the usage of every computer core.

There are numerous display options, so if you want to monitor only the total usage percentage, you can change the readout style.

Of course, users can also customize the refresh rate, which means how often the CPU usage is read. By default, this value is set to 5 seconds.

In case the initial interface does not suite your preferences, as you can change the dashboard style and color, as well as the widget size and transparency from the dedicated 'Appearance' tab in the 'Options' window.

If you want to permanently monitor your CPU usage level, you can set the widget to place itself on top of any other window or application that you open. It can ignore mouse events and prevent dragging. In this case, you can still interact with the widget, but only in 'Heads Up Display' mode.

systemDashboard - CPU Meter is a lightweight widget that enables you to keep an eye on your CPU load right from your desktop screen. This can be really useful when working with multiple programs at the same time, but not wanting to overload the system.