Bash Git Completion with Mac Ports
Git comes with bash completion support which comes in handy for completing branch names and things like that. To get this support when installing git via Mac Ports you must add the bash_completion variant. You’ll also want to install the bash_completion port. After that you need to add the following to your ~/.bashrc file:
if [ -f /opt/local/etc/bash_completion ]; then
. /opt/local/etc/bash_completion
fi
For reference I have the folloowing Git related config in my .bashrc:
Consolas on Mac Update
Today I followed my own directions on installing Consolas on my Mac Pro. The original directions were put together when installing it on my Mac Book. The downloaded disk image had a different volume name, as did the meta package. So the the command I used to launch the font installer was:
open "/Volumes/Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0/Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0.mpkg/Contents/Packages/OpenXML_all_fonts.pkg"
After the installer ran I went about making it the default font in Terminal. After doing so and setting it the same as it was on my Mac Book (13pt, antialiasing on) it looked terrible on the Mac Pro. Compare the two images below. I was after the latter.
After a little bit of confusion I decided to check the font smoothing style in the Appearance preference pane (in System Preferences). Turns out it was set to Automatic (best for main display) on the Mac Pro and Medium (best for Flat Panel) on the Mac Book. Changing to Medium and relaunching Terminal had it looking identical on both machines.
MLUG VirtualBox Workshop
If you’re a Melbourne Linux user interested in getting started with VirtualBox it might be worth checking out the next Melbourne Linux Users Group meeting. They’re holding a workshop on installing a guest with seamless mouse and keyboard integration. I assume the integration part means they will cover installing the VirtualBox additions on the guest. See the MLUG website for all the details.
Free Virtualisation With VirtualBox
Virtualisation software has been around for a long time. This software allows you to host one or more guest operating systems on top of the one you’re already running at near full speed. For example you could run Linux as a guest on Windows or OpenSolaris as a guest on Mac OS X. Some of the reasons you might wish to do this are:
- Testing: Check a web application in browsers only available for particular operating systems.
- Development: Create software for a different target operating system. E.g. You might be developing software for a Linux based device but use Windows on your desktop.
- Security: You can run software in a restricted environment, separate from the host and have the ability to roll back to snapshots taken at a known-good point in time.
- Convenience: Whilst it might be possible to install multiple operating systems on one host you must reboot to use each one. You can use multiple operating systems simultaneously with virtualisation.
- Utilisation: You can take one server and turn it into several. You could run a Solaris database server, Linux webserver and Microsoft Exchange server all from the one (well specced) host.
Gmail Stickers Have Arrived
Back in December there was a post on the Gmail Blog which gave instructions on how to get some stickers for the cost of postage. I thought I’d try it out so I sent them an International Reply Coupon (IRC) (something I’d never heard of before) and what do you know they showed up today. They managed to come all the way from San Francisco in an unsealed envelope too. Now to decide what to stick them to… and who to give the unicorn one to.