Here follows an incomplete collection of a couple Mac OS X commands. Just open up Terminal.app, and try them out.
If you are familiar with UNIX you are lucky since most UNIX commands work.
ifconfig lists the IP address and a lot more network information. To keep the output shorter try ifconfig | grep inet.
locate finds files
pico opens a text editor in the shell
df displays how much free disk space is available
mkdir -p x/y/z creates all directories at once
pkgutil –pkgs list installed packages, to get details use pkgutil –pkg-info <package-name>
!$ refers to the last parameter and can be reused in the next command
find . -name *.xml | xargs grep MyString finds a string “MyString” in files in or below the current dir
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod a-w changes write permissions recursively. Works if the files contain spaces slashes etc. Use -type d if you need to change the dirs instead.
Here are some additional commands: http://ss64.com/osx/
Non shell commands:
Capture a screen shot:
- To capture the entire desktop, press Command-Shift-3. The screen shot will be automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop
- To copy the entire desktop, press Command-Control-Shift-3. The screen shot will be placed on your clipboard for you to paste into another program.
- To capture a portion of the desktop, pressCommand-Shift-4. A cross-hair cursor will appear and you can click and drag to select the area you wish to capture. When you release the mouse button, the screen shot will be automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop. (The file is saved as PDF in Mac OS 10.3 and earlier.)
- More screen shot possibilities: here and here
Show hidden files like files starting with a dot
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
And to revert back set it to FALSE
I found a great Unix tips article in the IBM website. Its a little old but I’m sure your readers will find it useful. Here’s the link http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-badunixhabits.html