Stories with Tag Real-Time Monitoring

• Show HN: Appstat – Process Monitor for Windows

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  Posted: 2025-03-04 15:24:32

  Verbose tl;dr

  Appstat is a free, open-source process monitor for Windows presented as a modern alternative to existing tools. It offers a clean and responsive UI, focusing on real-time performance monitoring with detailed metrics like CPU usage, memory consumption, I/O operations, and network activity. Appstat aims to provide a comprehensive view of system resource utilization by individual processes, enabling users to quickly identify performance bottlenecks and troubleshoot issues. It boasts features like customizable columns, sorting, filtering, process tree views, and historical data charting for deeper analysis.

  Pragmar has introduced Appstat, a new process monitoring tool specifically designed for Windows. Appstat aims to provide a comprehensive and detailed view of all running processes, offering more information and a more user-friendly experience than the built-in Windows Task Manager. It presents this information in a clean, modern interface that focuses on clarity and ease of navigation.

  The tool goes beyond simply listing processes, providing in-depth metrics such as CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O operations (both read and write), and network activity. Users can see not only the overall resource usage of each process but also historical data, allowing them to track trends and identify potential performance bottlenecks or unusual activity over time. This historical tracking feature facilitates diagnosing intermittent issues or understanding resource usage patterns.

  Appstat offers several features designed to enhance user workflow. A powerful search function allows users to quickly locate specific processes by name or PID. Users can also group processes, simplifying the analysis of related applications or services. Furthermore, the tool allows users to easily terminate processes directly from the interface, providing a convenient way to manage running applications.

  Targeting developers, system administrators, and power users who need a more powerful and insightful process monitoring solution, Appstat is positioned as a valuable tool for troubleshooting performance issues, identifying resource-intensive applications, and gaining a deeper understanding of system behavior. While it provides comprehensive data, the interface is designed to be accessible and intuitive, making it suitable for users with varying levels of technical expertise.

  • Windows
  • Process Monitor
  • System Monitoring
  • performance monitoring
  • Appstat
  • Software
  • utility
  • Debugging
  • Troubleshooting
  • resource usage
  • Real-Time Monitoring

  Summary of Comments ( 4 )
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43255855

  Verbose tl;dr

  HN users generally praised Appstat as a useful tool. Several pointed out its similarity to existing tools like Sysinternals Process Monitor (Procmon) while highlighting Appstat's simpler interface and easier setup as advantages. Some appreciated its focus on security-relevant events. Others suggested potential improvements, such as adding filtering capabilities, including command line arguments, and enhancing the UI with features like column sorting. A few users mentioned alternative tools they preferred, including Procmon and ETW Explorer. The developer actively responded to comments, addressing questions and acknowledging suggestions for future development.

  The Hacker News post for "Show HN: Appstat – Process Monitor for Windows" generated a moderate amount of discussion, with several commenters offering their perspectives and experiences.

  A significant portion of the conversation revolves around comparing Appstat to existing process monitoring tools, particularly Process Monitor (Procmon) from Sysinternals. Several users praise Procmon as a powerful and comprehensive tool, questioning whether Appstat offers enough unique features to justify its existence. One commenter points out the steep learning curve associated with Procmon, highlighting the need for simpler alternatives, particularly for less experienced users. They suggest Appstat could potentially fill this niche.

  The author of Appstat actively participates in the thread, responding to queries and providing clarification about its features. They emphasize the tool's focus on providing a more user-friendly interface compared to Procmon, acknowledging that Procmon offers greater depth in terms of data collection. They also discuss Appstat's specific use cases, such as troubleshooting application crashes and identifying performance bottlenecks. This direct engagement from the creator allows for a deeper understanding of the tool's purpose and intended audience.

  One commenter expresses skepticism about the cross-platform capabilities of Appstat, specifically questioning its performance on Linux. The author responds by acknowledging the current limitations of the Linux version and outlining future development plans. This exchange provides valuable insight into the current state of the project and its roadmap.

  Further discussion centers on the potential licensing model for Appstat. One commenter inquires about plans for open-sourcing the project. The author responds by stating that they are currently considering various options, including a potential dual-licensing approach. This suggests the possibility of both a free community edition and a paid commercial version.

  The overall sentiment within the comments section appears to be cautiously optimistic. While several users acknowledge the value of existing tools like Procmon, there's also a recognition that there's room for alternative solutions with different design philosophies and target user groups. The author's active participation and responsiveness to feedback contribute positively to the discussion, leaving a favorable impression of the project and its potential.

• Agent-Less System Monitoring with Elixir Broadway

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  Posted: 2025-02-18 14:53:44

  Verbose tl;dr

  This blog post demonstrates how to build an agent-less system monitoring tool using Elixir and Broadway. It leverages SSH to remotely execute commands on target machines, collecting metrics like CPU usage, memory consumption, and disk space. Broadway manages the concurrent execution of these commands across multiple hosts, providing scalability and fault tolerance. The collected data is then processed and displayed, offering a centralized overview of system performance. The author highlights the benefits of this approach, including simplified deployment (no agent installation required) and the inherent robustness of Elixir and its ecosystem. This method offers a lightweight yet powerful solution for monitoring server infrastructure.

  This blog post explores building a system monitoring solution using Elixir and Broadway, specifically focusing on an agent-less approach. The author argues that traditional agent-based monitoring, while offering granular data collection, introduces overhead and complexity through agent deployment and maintenance. Agent-less monitoring, leveraging protocols like SSH, offers a simplified alternative by querying systems directly without requiring resident software.

  The post begins by outlining the conceptual architecture of their solution. It details how Broadway, a concurrent and fault-tolerant processing library in Elixir, acts as the central processing engine. It receives monitoring tasks, distributes them to designated workers, and manages the results. Crucially, the chosen agent-less method utilizes SSH to execute commands remotely on target systems. The post emphasizes Broadway's robustness in handling potentially unreliable network operations inherent in SSH-based communication.

  The author then delves into the implementation specifics. They demonstrate setting up a Broadway pipeline configured to process monitoring tasks. These tasks are structured as messages containing the target hostname and the command to execute. The implementation leverages Erlang's SSH application to establish connections and execute commands remotely. A critical component highlighted is the error handling mechanism built around Broadway's retry and failure handling capabilities. This ensures resilience against transient network issues or temporary unavailability of target systems. The retrieved monitoring data is then processed and formatted, ready for storage or visualization.

  A key advantage emphasized is the flexibility afforded by this approach. The system can be readily extended to support various monitoring commands and metrics. Adding new systems to monitor only requires configuring the necessary connection details, without deploying any agents. The post also touches upon the scalability of the solution. Broadway's concurrent processing model allows for parallel execution of monitoring tasks, improving efficiency and reducing overall monitoring time. The author acknowledges potential security considerations associated with managing SSH credentials and advocates for secure storage and access control mechanisms.

  Finally, the post concludes by reiterating the benefits of the agent-less approach, highlighting its simplicity, scalability, and reduced overhead. It positions this approach as a compelling alternative to traditional agent-based solutions, especially in scenarios where agent deployment is impractical or undesirable. The author suggests potential future enhancements, such as integrating with different data visualization tools and exploring alternative agent-less protocols.

  • Elixir
  • Broadway
  • System Monitoring
  • Agentless Monitoring
  • Observability
  • DevOps
  • distributed systems
  • Erlang
  • OTP
  • concurrency
  • fault tolerance
  • scalability
  • performance monitoring
  • Real-Time Monitoring

  Summary of Comments ( 16 )
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43090167

  Verbose tl;dr

  Hacker News users discussed the practicality and benefits of the agentless approach to system monitoring described in the linked blog post. Several commenters appreciated the simplicity and reduced overhead of not needing to install agents on monitored machines. Some raised concerns about potential security implications of running commands remotely via SSH and the potential performance bottlenecks of doing so. Others questioned the scalability of this method, particularly for large numbers of monitored systems. The discussion also touched on alternative approaches like using message queues and the potential benefits of Elixir's concurrency features for this type of monitoring system. A compelling comment suggested exploring the use of OSquery for efficient data gathering, which prompted further discussion on its pros and cons. Finally, some commenters expressed interest in the author's open-sourcing of their project.

  The Hacker News post titled "Agent-Less System Monitoring with Elixir Broadway" sparked a small but focused discussion with 5 comments. No single comment overwhelmingly dominated the conversation, but several offered interesting perspectives on the article's topic.

  One commenter questioned the term "agent-less," pointing out that while the system described doesn't require installing dedicated agent software on monitored machines, it still relies on SSH access, which functionally acts like an agent. They argued that this approach trades one set of tradeoffs (agent installation and maintenance) for another (managing SSH keys and potential security concerns).

  Another comment focused on the choice of Erlang/Elixir for this type of task. They acknowledged the platform's strengths in concurrency and distributed systems but expressed concern about the operational overhead and debugging complexity compared to simpler scripting solutions, especially for smaller deployments. They suggested that the benefits of Elixir might become more pronounced with larger and more complex monitoring setups.

  A third commenter praised the article's clear explanation and the elegant approach to building a robust monitoring system with Broadway. They highlighted the benefits of leveraging Elixir's OTP framework for handling failures and ensuring reliability.

  The remaining comments were shorter and less substantive. One simply expressed appreciation for the article, while another briefly mentioned using a similar approach with a different technology.

  Overall, the comments section, while brief, provided some thoughtful critiques and perspectives on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed agent-less monitoring approach using Elixir and Broadway. The discussion centered on the practical implications of SSH as an "agent" substitute and the suitability of Elixir/OTP for this kind of task in different scales of deployment.

• Building a T1D smartwatch for my son from scratch

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  Posted: 2025-01-28 16:33:32

  Verbose tl;dr

  Motivated by the lack of a suitable smartwatch solution for managing his son's Type 1 diabetes, a father embarked on building a custom smartwatch from scratch. Using off-the-shelf hardware components like a PineTime smartwatch and a Nightscout-compatible continuous glucose monitor (CGM), he developed software to display real-time blood glucose data directly on the watch face. This DIY project aimed to provide a discreet and readily accessible way for his son to monitor his blood sugar levels, addressing concerns like bulky existing solutions and social stigma associated with medical devices. The resulting smartwatch displays glucose levels, trend arrows, and alerts for high or low readings, offering a more user-friendly and age-appropriate interface than traditional diabetes management tools.

  Driven by the deeply personal need to enhance his son's safety and management of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Andrew Childs embarked on a remarkable journey of engineering a custom-made smartwatch. His son, newly diagnosed, relied on a Dexcom G6 Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and an Omnipod insulin pump, technologies that offered significant advancements in diabetes management, but lacked a crucial element: readily accessible and discreet glucose level readings for a child. Existing smartwatches, while capable of displaying CGM data, were deemed unsuitable due to their complexity, size, and potential distractions for a young user.

  Childs's primary objective was to create a simple, single-purpose device focused solely on displaying blood glucose levels. He prioritized legibility, robustness, and a user interface specifically designed for a child. Leveraging his expertise in software and hardware development, he meticulously documented his process, starting with the selection of appropriate hardware components. This included a small, low-power ESP32 microcontroller, a compact OLED display screen chosen for its clarity and energy efficiency, and a robust battery to ensure longevity.

  The intricate process involved not only hardware assembly but also the development of custom software to interface with the Dexcom G6 via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and interpret its data. This necessitated meticulous reverse-engineering of the Dexcom G6's communication protocols, a complex undertaking that required significant time and effort. Childs meticulously detailed his methodology, including the challenges encountered and solutions implemented. He also prioritized power optimization to maximize the watch's battery life, a critical consideration for a device intended for continuous use.

  The software development included designing a straightforward user interface tailored to his son's needs, displaying glucose values in a large, easily readable font. Furthermore, he incorporated color-coded alerts to visually indicate high and low glucose levels, providing an immediate and intuitive understanding of the data. The final product, housed in a 3D-printed case designed for comfort and durability, represented a significant achievement in personalized medical technology.

  Childs's project underscored the power of combining personal motivation with technical expertise to address a specific need. His detailed account of the design and development process serves not only as a testament to his ingenuity but also as a valuable resource for others interested in exploring similar solutions. This endeavor demonstrates the potential for individuals to create tailored technological interventions that improve the lives of those living with chronic conditions like T1D. His work highlights the evolving landscape of personalized healthcare and the empowering role that technology can play in managing complex medical needs, particularly for children.

  • DIY
  • Smartwatch
  • T1D
  • Type 1 Diabetes
  • Diabetes Management
  • Open Source
  • Hardware
  • Software
  • parenting
  • Child Health
  • Wearable Technology
  • Electronics
  • Microcontroller
  • Sensor
  • Bluetooth
  • Mobile App
  • Data Visualization
  • Real-Time Monitoring
  • Glucose Monitoring

  Summary of Comments ( 6 )
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42854291

  Verbose tl;dr

  Hacker News commenters largely praised the author's dedication and ingenuity in creating a smartwatch for his son with Type 1 diabetes. Several expressed admiration for his willingness to dive into hardware and software development to address a specific need. Some discussed the challenges of closed-loop systems and the potential benefits and risks of DIY medical devices. A few commenters with diabetes shared their personal experiences and offered suggestions for improvement, such as incorporating existing open-source projects or considering different hardware platforms. Others raised concerns about the regulatory hurdles and safety implications of using a homemade device for managing a serious medical condition. There was also some discussion about the potential for commercializing the project.

  The Hacker News post "Building a T1D smartwatch for my son from scratch" generated a substantial discussion with 29 comments. Many commenters expressed admiration for the author's dedication and ingenuity in creating a custom solution for managing his son's Type 1 diabetes.

  Several commenters focused on the complexities and frustrations of dealing with existing diabetes technology. One user shared their personal experiences with closed-loop systems, highlighting the challenges of achieving optimal glucose control and the constant need for calibration and adjustments. They appreciated the author's proactive approach to building a tailored solution. Another commenter echoed these sentiments, emphasizing the limitations of current commercial offerings and the burden placed on users, particularly children.

  Some commenters raised concerns about the project's safety and regulatory aspects. One user questioned the implications of relying on a self-built system for such a critical health condition and suggested exploring collaboration with medical professionals. Another commenter inquired about the device's accuracy and reliability, emphasizing the importance of rigorous testing and validation.

  A few commenters offered technical suggestions and resources. One commenter mentioned alternative hardware platforms that might be suitable for the project. Another commenter shared a link to a relevant open-source project, potentially offering valuable insights and code examples.

  Several users praised the open-source nature of the project, expressing hope that it could benefit other individuals with Type 1 diabetes. They appreciated the author's willingness to share their work and contribute to the community.

  Some comments delved into the specific technical details of the project, discussing aspects such as data processing, algorithm design, and user interface development. These comments demonstrated a genuine interest in the project's technical implementation and offered valuable feedback to the author.

  Overall, the comments reflect a mix of admiration, concern, and technical curiosity. The compelling comments highlight the challenges of managing Type 1 diabetes, the potential benefits of customized solutions, and the importance of collaboration and open-source development in addressing complex health problems. They also underscore the need for thorough testing and validation to ensure the safety and reliability of such systems.