iStat Menus 5 Offers More System Data, OS X Yosemite Support — Bjango’s new iStat Menus 5 is out with features OS X Mavericks users have been hoping for like per-app power usage, compressed memory support, per-app disk read and write stats, and more. OS X Yosemite users get to share in on the new features, too, plus version 5 supports menubar dark mode, too.
iStat Menus 5 is priced at US$16, or $9.99 as an upgrade from version 3 or version 4. It’s available for download at the Bjango website.
Full system reports — Diagnosing a computer problem can be a daunting task even when you’re standing right in front of a Mac. When you’re doing it remotely—perhaps to help someone of less-than-stellar technical skill—gathering all the information required to figure out what’s not working can be a downright miserable experience for everyone involved.
EtreCheck attempts to alleviate this problem by automatically collecting a full set of statistics about the Mac on which it runs, from its hardware components, to installed apps and kernel extensions—going as far as quickly sampling your system to determine which programs are taking up the most RAM and CPU time.
It’s ugly, but it’s effective, powerful and free.
Shell tricks: the OS X open command — You may already be familiar with the open command in Darwin (OS X’s flavour of Unix). It allows you to open files and URLs in their default app or one that you specify. Brett Terspstra shows you some handy scripts you may be tempted to try.
Exploring the idea that Apple might abandon Intel CPUs for ARM — Yoni Heisler at TUAW discusses the fact that former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gasseé published an interesting piece earlier this week exploring the idea that Apple, some time down the road, might abandon Intel and instead rely upon ARM chips for its entire Mac lineup. As it stands now, Apple already uses ARM chips across its lineup of iOS products.
Mac NZ 