Task Manager

Is there a similar thing in OSX as Windows Task Manager where it shows you the processor's work load in a bar graph?

Activity Monitor. It's a utility within the OS.

Cool. And it shows a real time bar graph?

Yeah, it gives you a real time bar graph for the CPU processes. It also shows how much ram your computer is using at a given time, which comes in handy in seeing if you need to upgrade. To access it. Open a finder window, then click on Applications. Inside of applications will be a folder titled Utilities. Open this folder up and Activity Monitor is located inside. Double click it and you basically have Apple's version of Windows Task Manager.

Once you get your Mac, if you're interested in a book on the OS to get your feet wet, I recommend taking a look at Mac OS X Tiger Edition, The Missing Manual. It really is a great resource to have handy.

Even better than Activity Monitor, and an ESSENTIAL piece of shareware, in my opinion, is MenuMeters. This will put all sorts of useful indicators into your screen menu line at the top. I have mine displaying CPU loads, internet up/down rates, memory usage and disk usage. A truly indispensible bit of shareware. Check it out.

(nope, I am not associated with them in any way, just a VERY happy customer)

Ya, I've got menu meters showing my Average CPU load on my Quad as well as Temps.

You can navigate to the Utilities Folder using the Go menu or using Cmd+Shift+U.

iStat is not bad. i use iStat Nano on my Dashboard

mac57 said:

Even better than Activity Monitor, and an ESSENTIAL piece of shareware, in my opinion, is MenuMeters. This will put all sorts of useful indicators into your screen menu line at the top. I have mine displaying CPU loads, internet up/down rates, memory usage and disk usage. A truly indispensible bit of shareware. Check it out.

(nope, I am not associated with them in any way, just a VERY happy customer)

Click to expand...

If we're talking about the same MenuMeters, I think it's DonationWare (or is now)

MenuMeters

A great app, as you mentioned. Everything you need to know, plenty of configuration options, and the info's right where you need it.

Mark