[Blind-sysadmins] Log and Performance monitoring help please?

Hi all, I hopefully might find myself doing more sys administration tasks, one of which is to ensure that servers are performing optimally, as well as looking at system/application logs when it comes to troubleshooting. I'd like to know how have you gone about this in an accessible way please? I remember trying to look at event viewer logs with JFW and that the MMC console kept crashing or that jaws was really sluggish in the console? Are their alternative apps when it comes to log analysis from an accessibility standpoint? How about graphs regarding CPU/Memory/Disk performance? I apologize for the many questions, Your help would really be appreciated. Kind Regards