Docktopus

Instant data about your apps performances via the Dock

Have you ever wanted to access things like CPU usage and application performance via the Dock rather than going into Activity Monitor?

If so, Docktopus is your solution as it allows you to place custom alerts on your Dock icons. Worried about Firefox consuming too much CPU and crashing? Simply drag the CPU badge onto the Firefox Dock icon, define a percentage of CPU when you want to be alerted and you’re done. A warning will pop up in your Firefox Doxk icon when it’s reached a certain CPU usage threshold.

There are many more indicators to choose from too including memory utilization as well as the remaining free space on your hard drive. Accessing the badge pop-up menu is a little awkward though – you have to click your mouse on the tiny Docktopus icon next to your Stacks which isn’t very visible. In addition, I noticed a considerable slow down in the performance of my Mac while Docktopus was running. Although it didn’t appear to be consuming much CPU, it returned to normal when I removed Docktopus.

Docktopus is an excellent idea and could be very useful for monitoring application performance. However, it needs to be more accessible and I have some questions as to whether it slowed down my machine.

Newly updated for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Still supports Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.4 Tiger.