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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Software — monitor, performance

Samurize – flexible system monitor with DIY interface

samurize_icon I like to know what is going on in the system. While for troubleshooting on the go portable and easy to use tools are a must (see TinyResMeter and Hexagora PerfMon), main system monitoring must be informative but without clutter increase.

Samurize is unique software that allows to build system monitor interface yourself.

What it does

Most system monitor software uses extensive performance counters and WMI built it Windows. So software itself only gives you interface with some (or none) customization as to what values and in what way are displayed.

Samurize takes drastically different route and provides you with editor to construct your own interface and pick your own scope of information.

I wanted minimalistic and unobtrusive config so after few variants I designed floating bar that sits on top of the screen.

samurize_interface

It shows:

  • date/time information (to stay in touch with reality);
  • system clock and load values (there are some lurking alerts as well);
  • network bandwidth speeds and graphs (ok it’s no NetWorx or NetLimiter but tiny);
  • free hard drive space (didn’t fit in screenshot).

And all that without while only consuming title bar space that is usually wasted anyway.

If that is too boring for your taste just browse through album of Samurize screenshots – there are hundreds of config examples in various styles and sizes.

Creating interface

Interfaces are created in WYSIWYG editor. Can’t claim it is newbie friendly so my best advice is poke and experiment until you feel confident enough to compose something useful. Decent help is included to explain editor itself but composing good configs comes with practice.

Strong features

  • most flexible output ever;
  • extensible with scripts, plugins and integration of other software (like SpeedFan);
  • config displayed separately or in Windows taskbar with additional extensions to display in taskbar clock and screensaver;
  • can monitor remote computers and even export information as images and XML to embed online.

Overall

Long learning curve and requires initial time investment. But in the end Samurize is only system monitor that gives you complete control over what you see and how it fits rest of your computer environment.

Home http://www.samurize.com/

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6 Comments

  • macobex #

    another good alternative for samurize is rainmeter. I think rainmeter is much more easy to use. Just my opinion. Nice share pal.

  • Rarst #

    @macobex Heard about that few times but never got to trying it. :) I think Samurize is quite easy but only after initial "what the heck does what" stage in editor.

  • Nick Staroba #

    I use samurize to keep up with the temperature outside, my battery level and the date. I used to do a lot more with it, but it used up more RAM than I liked and all the bells & whistles weren't necessary for me anyway. Using it on the taskbar like this takes up very little resources and I don't have to see any of my desktop for it to be useful.

  • Rarst #

    @Nick Even more minimalistic setup. :) We need someone flashy all over desktop for balance. Nice tray btw, I keep my under control but it is still packed full of stuff all the time.

  • szekelya #

    I've been using it for bloated sysmeters on my desktop, nowadays I'm into more minimalistic stuff like this: http://ethsza.deviantart.com/art/Screencap-2009-April-118728036 Samurize is the 14px bottom bar. (I'm proud of the 1px orange progressbars, but those are the downmost pixels, they can be hardly seen unless you watch it over a black bacground. In reality the thin black border of my TFT does the trick.) Also samurize has a taskbar client, upper right next to mí start button. I use it to switch virtual desktops (there's a great samurize plugin for the VirtuaWin virtual desktop manager), open folders and control winamp/kmplayer). Also Samurize puts that big translucent time/date on my desktop. About resource usage: This setup consumes 4.5 MB of RAM with only 0%-2% of the CPU cycles, while Vista sidebar sets you back over 60MB.

  • Rarst #

    @szekelya Nice setup, polished and pretty unlike mine. :) Excellent use of thin 1px bars indeed. Thanks for sharing!