My GeekTool
I promised I would write about this earlier. I use my GeekTool to see the time from across the room, check the calendar, see what the weather’s like outside when I wake up, monitor my bandwidth, check the latest twitter message, and see if I have any unread emails in my inbox.
iTunes controller

This is a custom BowTie theme I made after modifying one of the default themes. I called it Chris because I didn’t ever plan on releasing it. I have since finished it, and you can grab it here.
Time

There are just normal date commands:
- Time: date “+%l:%M:%S %p”
- Date: date +%A; date “+%B %d, %Y”
Calendar

The day header is just static text. The actual calendar is this command:
- Calendar: cal | grep -v “[a-zA-Z*] [0-9]” | grep -v “Su”
Weather

This geeklet uses a php file to grab the image off of Yahoo’s weather site. I used the script found here to do this.
- Temperature: curl –silent “http://xml.weather.yahoo.com/forecastrss?p=46750″ | grep -E ‘(Current Conditions:|F<BR)’ | sed -e ‘s/Current Conditions://’ -e ‘s/<br \/>//’ -e ‘s/<b>//’ -e ‘s/<\/b>//’ -e ‘s/<BR \/>//’ -e ‘s///’ -e ‘s/<\/description>//’
Network

This section is to see my IP addresses for both my local and school networks. Here at college, I have to stay under a daily upload and download limit, so I load in my current daily up/down stats off of DD-WRT on my router.
- IP Addresses: bash script
- Bandwidth: curl -s http://root:admin@192.168.1.1/ttgraph.cgi?$(date +”%m-20%y” | sed “s/^[0]//”) | grep -E $(date “+d%d” | sed -e “s/^\d[0]/d/” -e “s/$/\”/” -e “s/^/\”/”) | awk ‘ { dl = $8;ul = $12; printf(“Router DL: %d MB\nRouter UL: %u MB\n”, dl, ul); }’

This is another bash script. Make sure you set your own username and password. Here ya go.
Gmail

Yay, another bash script!. Be sure you put in your own account details.
And that’s it! Let me know if you have any questions about it in the Comments below.

I’m ripping your theme off at this very moment. Thanks! :)
Nov 6, 2009 @ 6:09 am
Hey, no problem! I actually just realized I forgot to upload the wallpapers. I’ll do that sometime today if I remember to get around to it.
Nov 6, 2009 @ 11:08 am
Hey, just poking you in hopes you’ll remember to post that sweet wallpaper. :P
Nov 11, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Thanks for reminding me! I’ve made a new post.
Nov 11, 2009 @ 6:50 pm
WRT bowtie, I found that the “total track time” was showing (a lot of) decimals, which pushed down the stars and other items below.
Needed to update secToString in script.js to include:
sec = Math.round(time % 60);
Not sure if this was a snow leopard or 9.0.x iTunes thing, but it looks right now.
Great stuff – thanks for sharing!
Mar 26, 2010 @ 8:58 pm
@Phil:
Ah, thanks for noticing that. I’ve been thinking about releasing the theme as an official theme (with a name better than just “Chris”), so once I do that I will make sure all the kinks get fixed up.
Mar 26, 2010 @ 9:51 pm
I love your and your mods and bowtie theme…
but I am having the same trouble as Phil with the decimals.
Is there any way you can post the updated theme or a new version of the script.js file to help.
Thanks
Apr 10, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
@Ed:
Sure, no problem. Download this zip and let me know if it works. This is the one I use now, and if it works for other people I’ll update the post with it.
Apr 10, 2010 @ 4:41 pm
WRT bowtie, I found that the “total track time” was showing (a lot of) decimals, which pushed down the stars and other items below.
Needed to update secToString in script.js to include:
sec = Math.round(time % 60);
Not sure if this was a snow leopard or 9.0.x iTunes thing, but it looks right now.
Great stuff – thanks for sharing!
May 19, 2010 @ 12:00 pm
I have updated this post, but here’s the page where you can download the finished BowTie theme: http://chrisvalleskey.com/2010/04/next-a-bowtie-theme/.
May 19, 2010 @ 2:27 pm