BwanaDik Network Status Indicator

BwanaDik is a menu bar applet that indicates the status of your network connection. It is a great example of software that knows its job and does it well. I first acquired it because of a networking problem I needed to solve, but have also found it useful since then.

Recently I had the disaster of my router dying. It was an all-in-one device: switch, router, and ADSL modem with wireless. For several months it had apparently been misbehaving, with the four wired ports losing contact with the network. At other times, wired would work and wireless wouldn’t. Much troubleshooting and replacement of cheaper hardware couldn’t prevent what I naggingly suspected. And so the unit was replaced.

In a situation like that, with the network address coming and going every few minutes, you can keep OS X’s network status pane in network preferences open, but that is cumbersome and clutters the desktop.

A quick search of MacUpdate turned up BwanaDik, which provides network status right there in the menu bar.

As the developer, John Schilling, says on his website “...another IP address app. Just what the world needs.” BwanaDik is not the first nor the last; however, it is the last I will look at for a long time, as it meets all my needs and then some. For those not in the know (like me, I had to ask him), BwanaDik is a Frank Zappa song.

BwanaDik in action
With my menu bar already cluttered, BwanaDik doesn’t intrude much, displaying a neat little icon that changes color to indicate the network status:

- Green: you are connected to the internet
- Blue: you are connected to the internet, but the server that gives the external (WAN) IP address is busy
- Red: internet connection is not available
- Gray: internet connection not available, reason unknown
- Yellow: BwanaDik is checking the settings and getting your external (WAN) IP address

If you need to, you can check your current IP addresses by clicking on the BwanaDik’s menu bar icon.

In BwanaDik’s preferences you can set the usual settings related to IP updates. You can also set whether to notify by a popup dialog when any of the following occurs:

- When the network becomes available
- When the network becomes unavailable
- When the LAN address changes
- When the WAN address changes

Except for when the network becomes unavailable, alerts can also optionally send an email notification.

For those on the go or on unstable wireless connections, BwanaDik is an essential utility.

Overall
BwanaDik helped save my sanity during the trouble I had and continues to prove to be useful—and reassuring to see that green light. It’s also been very useful for my non-technological wife, who now knows why and when she can’t connect to the internet. I can’t really find any shortcomings or faults with BwanaDik. It is one of those applications that does what it claims, and does it well. 10/10

John Schilling also develops quite a few other little applications, “useless applications” as he calls them. But as I found BwanaDik useful, you might find some of his others useful—or at least entertaining, so go check them out.