Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Freeware, UNIX / BSD, Apple
Tweets (and whatever else you want) on the desktop with GeekTool
As a result, he's got the desktop you see above -- both tweets and iCal events sitting in a transparent pane on top of his desktop background. It will require a little Terminal tripping, but it's pretty easy to do. Just install and set up GeekTool the way you like it, and then make sure the buddy scripts are installed. From there, you can create a New Entry in GeekTool, and run whatever commands you want. It's incredibly flexible, too, because it'll put any Terminal commands you can throw at it right there on your desktop. If you're looking to fill in some of that unused Desktop space, give it a look.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
cristiana said 12:50PM on 3-10-2009
I used to use GeekTool, however, it hasn't been updated in years, and when I switched to Leopard (yeah, way back when), it was unstable, and I eventually stopped using it. I wish it was more stable, because it was a great tool.
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Ben K. said 12:54PM on 3-10-2009
I wish I can make GeekTool stop breaking up words when it makes new lines.
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Nate Drake said 1:47PM on 3-10-2009
http://www.mobilitee.org/archives/480
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Jash Sayani said 1:58PM on 3-10-2009
I would love if it could display my RTM tasks.....
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neko said 2:19PM on 3-10-2009
i wrangled mine to grab and show the current weather icon from accuweather every half hour. i used automator, though, since i'm terrible with shell scripting.
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Aloysius Snuffleupagus said 2:56PM on 3-10-2009
It's strange to me that no one (that I'm aware of) seems to have come up with a straightforward, reliable, attractive desktop overlay for iCal. I know there's an app floating around (forget what it is called) but it is FUGLY and completely counter-intuitive. The GeekTool version is useful also not terrible attractive. This doesn't seem that hard and I imagine I can't be the only one who would pay for a well-executed app that does this.
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Ekivemark said 4:40PM on 3-10-2009
I use MenuCalendar for iCal from Objectpark software. It adds a menu bar item that can replace the clock display. There is a version for entourage and one for iCal. It gives you a drop down calendar and can show your schedule.
Jak Logan said 4:41PM on 3-10-2009
I think you're thinking of Stattoo, by Panic (developers for CandyBar). And yeah, it was ugly - had to make the little capsules clear just to tolerate it. Font changes would have been nice too. I wrote them an email when Leopard was fresh with some suggestions, but I guess they are still working on the update.
Brad Gardner said 3:00PM on 3-10-2009
It seems that Ben G. attends the University of Kansas and is an Engineering student (EECS classes in Learned Hall?)
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Benjamin Goering said 3:23PM on 3-10-2009
Haha. Brad, you are correct.
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joeduffy said 5:15PM on 3-10-2009
Rockchalk Jayhawk!
Jak Logan said 4:35PM on 3-10-2009
I used GeekTool to put my iTunes lyrics on the desktop in the past, but I ran into several problems: If the lyrics ran too long, there was no 'page break' and they ran off the bottom of the screen. To fix this, I had to make the font really small.
The other problem was iTunes couldn't be closed. If I tried to Quit it, it would immediately Open and Hide.
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Larry Pan said 5:28PM on 3-10-2009
hrmm... i can get it to work in terminal, but i can't seem to get it to display in geektool...
is my syntax wrong?
twitterbuddy -u username -p password -n 5
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Benjamin Goering said 5:44PM on 3-10-2009
Your syntax is right (and very similar to what I use), but you may need to restart your computer for GeekTool to recognize the command. I have no idea why, but I the same thing happened to me. When you reboot, you should see the 5 tweets you're looking for.
paxswill said 2:52AM on 3-12-2009
You need to tell it where the script is. Add /usr/local/bin/ to the beginning, so it looks like this:
/usr/local/bin/twitterbuddy -u username -p password -n 5
Larry Pan said 6:08PM on 3-10-2009
sad.. no dice :(
i still get a blank geektool window.
top/uptime/cal all seem to be working too hrm.. :/
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Benjamin Goering said 7:18PM on 3-10-2009
the command I use is:
twitterBuddy -u user -p pass
with a 60 second refresh time.
Stakker said 6:45PM on 3-10-2009
I used to run GeekTool under Tiger for a while and I tried installing it in Leopard, but couldn't get it to work. I read some similar comments about occational Leopard incompatibility, so it now stays uninstalled until this is fixed.
If someone knows what the trick is to make it run under Leopard, please tell.
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Shaduu said 8:04PM on 3-11-2009
Ah, the wonderful power of GeekTool. I have top and a network activity monitor running up in the top left of my display.
Slightly odd question, but does anyone have a link to the desktop used in the article picture? I have a strange obsession with wood desktops and that's the exact kind of wood I've been looking for.
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chrisjniles said 12:19PM on 3-12-2009
How did you get network activity to display in GeekTool? I'm rather new to the command line, and was just wondering what command you use.