See whats happening

In windows I used to open the task manager to see what was happening. What is the equivalent in Apple Mac systems or is there a good third party app that I can run to keep an eye on things.

The reason I ask os I just ran Super Duper to do a drive image to an external hard drive and system resources were running hard....core duo showin 90+ % usage the whole time.

Thanks for the patient responses to this recent switcher.

just use ' activity monitor '

either search for it using spotlight or go to apps, utilities - and it should be there. has a sort of heart beat monitor as an icon

Yes, the great Acitivity Monitor.

Thanks guys...I knew there would be one but didn't see it...

At least no one bagged me about stupid questions...there is no such thing as a stupid question, becuse if you are wondering the there will be someone else asking the same question

Along with Activity Monitor, you might want to search for various menubar apps, Dashboard widgets, etc. that keep you informed of CPU, RAM and hard drive stats at all times. There are so many out there, and yet I can only remember one; MenuMeters. But there are a bunch.

Perhaps others can toss some names into the virtual hat.

i use istat and it sits on my desktop very nicely....but i used to use activity monitor....if you have finder as your selected program in your menubar just hit command shift U and it will bring up your utilities folder
-chris