LinuxQuestions.org - Conky new_mails and tcp

Hi everybody!
I've just posted this question on the openSuSE forum when it hit me that far more Conky users might read it if I post it here. So here it goes:
I spent this weekend fooling around with Conky and trying to customize it. Although it's a powerful little system monitor, Conky is by no means "easy on the resources" as stated in many places all over the web. Specifically, there are two issues I couldn't solve no matter how I tried:
1. The Conky home page on Sourceforge states that Conky can read your mail folders and notify you of new mails; well, I couldn't make the command new_mails work with Kmail no matter what. The command mails for listing your entire Inbox folder works seamlessly, problem is, I'd like to be notified of new mail only, I honestly don't care that my entire Inbox folder contains 17689 mails. I've also experimented with the command mailboxes and what not -- to no avail. Has anyone succeeded in making Conky work with Kmail without resorting to workarounds/scipts?
2. Several of the Conky configuration files circulating the web contain a section for listing your current incoming and outgoing connections. The snippet goes something like this:

Code:

Inbound Connections: ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count} $alignr${color7}Local Service/Port

 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 0} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lport 0}

 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 1} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lport 1}

 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 2} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lport 2}

 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 3} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lport 3}

 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 4} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lport 4}

Outbound Connections: ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 count}$alignr Remote Service/Port$color1

 ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rhost 0} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rport 0}

 ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rhost 1} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rport 1}

 ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rhost 2} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rport 2}

 ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rhost 3} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rport 3}

 ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rhost 4} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 65535 rport 4}

Basically, what it does is list five of your incoming and five of your outgoing connections by domain name and port. Well, I've noticed that this snippet (probably due to extensive DNS lookups that it performs?) slows down Conky almost to a halt; sometimes it takes as much as 10 seconds for it to just redraw its window, which is quite incredible on my dual-core 2GHz machine! Er... make that 15 seconds. Also, with the above snippet enabled, Conky will take as much as 3-4% of processor time, frequently reaching the first place in my Top window and surpassing even Xorg itself! Needless to say, all those problems go away if I delete the above snippet from Conky's config file.
Now, is it only me, or are those assertions about Conky being extremely light on your resources, just a plain lie? What are your personal experiences with Conky -- if any? Particularly regarding the above two issues?
P.S. OpenSuSE 11.0, KDE3.5, Conky, Kmail

Wow! I didn't know you could actually edit your post even a day later! I'm definitely starting to like this forum more and more.