If you’re like most Mac users, the UNIX command line is the red-headed stepchild of the operating system. It’s always there, but you’re not going to acknowledge its existence — that is, until you need to run an SQL query, make an rsync backup, or generally muck about in the system internals.

Thankfully, TheAppleBlog’s Andrew Bednarz has assembled a compendium of Mac OS X terminal tips, tweaks, and tricks. He shows how to use Visor, a cool program that provides an always-accessible pulldown terminal prompt just like the console in the video game Quake. He also shares some insider UNIX knowledge on tweaking Terminal.app to display color-coded directory listings and more informative command prompts.

Go check out his list of tips. Your command line will thank you.

Having trouble finding a needle in a haystack? You can always use grep --color to find what you are looking for. This method is best used for finding a specific piece of text in a document that is all on one line, or a unique string of text within a repetitious document. I have provided the syntax for this grep option below:

grep --color "text" filename

Example: