Command Line

The command line interface is an alternate method of interacting with macOS and Mac OS X, relying on text based command entry to execute commands and perform tasks. It is accessed on the Mac by using the Terminal application. Generally, the command line is considered advanced, and thus it’s usage tends to be more complex than many standard procedures on a Mac.

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Enable Single Application Mode in Mac OS X

Jun 7, 2010 - 1 Comment
Single Application Mode in Mac OS X

Single Application Mode is an interesting feature of MacOS and Mac OS X that is often misunderstood, we’ll discuss what the feature is, how it works, and how to enable it on your Mac running nearly any version of Mac OS still in use, whether that’s macOS 12, 11, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, or newer.

Kill Mac OS X Mouse Acceleration from the command line

Jun 2, 2010 - 55 Comments

You might be asking yourself, what’s mouse acceleration? Essentially mouse acceleration is an algorithm that is deployed in an attempt to make mouse movements feel “natural”. For many PC users, when you first use a Mac, it becomes quite obvious that the mouse is behaving very differently. It will feel sluggish, unpredictable and unresponsive (to varying degrees depending … Read More

How to Find a Websites IP Address

Jun 1, 2010 - 9 Comments
Get the IP Address of a Domain or Website

Finding the numerical IP address of a website or domain URL is pretty easy. We’ll use a terminal utility called nslookup, the command can be used to discover whatever domain resolves to a specific IP. This works for Macs with OS X but also in other unix varieties and even Windows DOS prompt too.

How to Join a Network from Command Line in Mac OS X

May 27, 2010 - 2 Comments

The networksetup utility allows you to join any available network, whether or not it is a router connected through Ethernet, a wi-fi router that is or is not broadcasting an SSID, and whether or not it has any password encryption required. Since most networking is done with wireless communications these days, we’ll focus on joining … Read More

Easily Add Line Numbers to a Text File with the Command Line

May 20, 2010 - 7 Comments

Brian asks: “I need to add line numbers to a text file. I don’t mean line numbers in the text editor, I mean adding a number next to each item inside a text file. Is this possible to automate or do I have to manually edit the file typing 1, 2, 3 and going insane?” … Read More

Re-Run the Last Used Command Exactly With or Without Super User Privileges

May 17, 2010 - Leave a Comment
Terminal

Want to re-run the last executed command? Or what about re-running the last used command but running it as root? You can do both! Ever typed a nice fancy string command into the terminal and been frustrated to discover that you need to run it all over again? Or perhaps you discovered that the aforementioned … Read More

Discover the last used command beginning with anything without executing it

May 10, 2010 - 1 Comment

If you want to discover the last time a specific command was used without actually executing it, follow this format at the command line: !sudo:p The above example will print back the last usage of the ‘sudo’ command without actually executing it, which is very useful in some situations (like the situation below, where the … Read More

Create an Instant Web Server via Terminal Command Line and Python

May 7, 2010 - 11 Comments
python web server

Want to quickly share a file, test some code, or broadcast something? You can instantly create a web server out of the current directory by using nothing but python, yup, no apache, no nginx, no litespeed, all python, which ships with pretty much every unix variation these days. The command is remarkably simple considering how … Read More

Speed Up a Slow Terminal by Clearing Log Files

May 6, 2010 - 54 Comments

The Mac OS X Terminal can become slow to launch over time, but there’s an easy solution to speed it up again. By deleting the Apple System Logs, you can shave the lag in opening and launching new Terminal windows/tabs dramatically, in my case from about a three second delay to instantaneous! Here’s how to … Read More

How to Use ping on Mac: Pinging Websites, Domains, or IP Addresses

Apr 28, 2010 - 7 Comments
Network Utility in Mac OS

Ping is an essential utility for network administrators, but it’s also pretty handy to check if websites are online, how your internet connection is working, if you are experiencing lag or packet loss on a network connection, or to determine if a network resource is available. Mac users can access and use ping to target … Read More

Post a Twitter Update via the Command Line

Apr 20, 2010 - 11 Comments

You can quickly post a tweet from the command line using the curl command, all you’ll need is your Twitter username and password.

Disable Dock Bouncing in Mac OS X

Feb 19, 2010 - 8 Comments

The bouncing Dock icons are a nice GUI feature that let you know an app is launching on the Mac, but for some people those little bouncing icons are just really annoying. Additionally, Dock icons will bounce to notify you that an alert is active in the app, or the app needs your attention. If … Read More

TTYtter, the command line Twitter client

Feb 17, 2010 - Leave a Comment

TTYtter is a rather fun command line based Twitter client. Written in Perl, it’s got all the essential ingredients needed for basic Twitter needs without ever leaving a Terminal window. Running TTYtter is easy enough, it just needs your login information and off it goes. You can either run it through perl with: perl /path/to/ttytter.pl … Read More

How to Disable Access to System Preferences on Mac

Feb 11, 2010 - 9 Comments
System Preferences in Mac OS X

In some situations, you may wish to disable access to the System Preferences on a Mac. Often this is for lab environments or public use workstations, or perhaps for locking down a particular workstation for various reasons. While a common approach is to create a new user account that has limited access to system features … Read More

Change the Delay When Dragging Windows Within Spaces on Mac

Feb 10, 2010 - 8 Comments

Spaces is a really nice feature of Mac OS X that lets you place different windows and applications within their own workspace. Dragging a window to a new Space is just a matter of holding onto the window and pulling it towards the end of the screen. You may have noticed that there’s a delay … Read More

Go Back to the Previous Directory via Command Line

Feb 9, 2010 - 5 Comments

It’s easy to accidentally change directories to something you weren’t intending to (say, accidentally hitting cd and returning home, thus losing your place in a complicated directory structure seep in the file system somewhere), but thankfully there’s a command that will immediately take you back to the previous directory, regardless of what it was. The … Read More

Lock the Dock in Mac OS X

Feb 8, 2010 - 11 Comments

If you need to prevent the Dock icons from changing or being modified on a Mac, you can use defaults command strings to lock down the OS X Dock and prevent any adjustments or changes to how it appears on screen.

Track an Applications Usage in Mac OS X with opensnoop

Jan 27, 2010 - 4 Comments

Using the command line tool ‘opensnoop’ you can track any Mac applications (or system process) usage of the file system. This is a very handy tool for administrators and troubleshooting! The simplest way to use it is as follows:

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