How to delete an entire folder
You already know how to remove a file. Just type rm followed by the name of the file and you’re set. To remove an entire folder, you’d have to type rm -rf followed by the name of the folder. What this actually does is to remove all the contents of the folder and eventually the folder as well. You should use this carefully, ’cause unlike removing a folder from the Finder, this command doesn’t move anything into Trash. You can’t recover things deleted using rm. The good part, though, is that, whenever you are stuck with some file or folder that simply won’t let itself be erased in the classic ways, you can try removing it from the Terminal command line.

How to rename a file/folder in Apple Terminal
The command to rename a file or folder starts to show its strength. All you have to do is type “mv” followed by the name of the file/folder to rename and the new name you want to call it.
mycomputer:~ Alex$ mv Research/ Research1
Typing this (using the shortcut with the “Tab” key mentioned last time) is actually faster for experienced users than opening up Finder, browsing around to find the folder/file in question, Ctrl+Clicking it, selecting Rename and eventually typing the new name.

How to copy a file/folder from Apple Terminal
You already guess the answer to this one, as it combines what you learned in the previous tips: the command for it is “cp” (as in CoPy), it takes two parameters at the minimum – the name of the file to be copied, and the name of the new file. However, if you want to copy a folder, you’ll have to add the extra parameter “-rf” right after the “cp” command.

The IP address
I promised last time that I would teach you how to check out your IP address. That’s the address your computer has on the internet/local network, and sometimes you need to know it. One way to do it would be to open up System Preferences, then Network, then Configure, then TCP/IP. One other way would be to open up the System Profile utility (available in Applications/Utilities or by clicking on the apple icon in the top menu bar, chosing “About this Mac” and “More Info..”) and look into the Network menu for the IPv4 Addresses values.
The Terminal way to do this is much simpler: just type ifconfig in the command line. You’ll be presented with a long list with information on all the network devices present in your computer. The one of interest for now is en1 (might be different in your case), namely the one with information on the inet address. The value of inet is the IP address of your computer.

Aliases
Aliases are shortcuts to existing files or folders on your system. You can create them by right-clicking(Ctrl+Click) in the Finder on an existing file/folder, selecting the option “Make Alias”. This creates a shortcut that you can rename or move around without messing with the original.
Creating aliases in Terminal is extremely easy – just type in ln -s followed by the name of the file/folder you want to create the shortcut to, and by the name you want to give to the shortcut.

mycomputer:~ Alex$ ln -s Research/ Researchalias

What about stubborn commands?
Let’s say you just want to remove or rename a system file or folder. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you probably shouldn’t. Still, you might at times need to do some stuff that your system won’t let you(it would say “Permission denied”). The solution is the sudo command – you prefix the command you want to run by the sudo word. When you press enter, you’ll be asked to type the Administrator password. On most computers this password is absent, so pressing the Enter key is enough. Sudo is a powerful command that shouldn’t be taken lightly, or you risk messing up your system.

I think you already feel the scary power hidden beneath the Terminal application. Off course, we’ve only scratched the surface of a vast subject. Trying to initiate you further might be a bit out of our goal. That’s why I’m going to stop here and point you to a couple of resources around the web:

• Linux – learning the shell
• Ten OS X Command Line Utilities you might not know about
• Command-line lifesavers
• Linux command line tips
• Force empty the Trash

Next week, we’ll show you how to do the same things from within Quicksilver – a bit less powerful than Terminal, but with a much more beautiful user interface.

First, here’s the context: I’ve seen lots of people for whom simple computer taks such as launching Word, Firefox or Outlook take at least half a minute. Most of the time is spent with: minimizing the opened windows, slowly moving the mouse aiming it towards the Start button, clicking on the Programs Menu in the Start Menu, missing it, finally getting it right, slowly looking for the right application folder & icon, risking to click outside the Programs menu and restart the process, etc. Average users are a bit more productive – they save frequently-used applications shortcuts on the desktop. But this forces you to minimize everything on it to find the right shortcut and clutters the desktop with shortcuts. On Apple computers the issue is similar for the ordinary user – sure, there’s the Dock, but it has a limited shortcut capacity and to find a less frequently used application you’d still have to open the Finder, open the Applications folder and look, again, for the app you wanted.

So what can you do?
Remember, you want to stop wasting your time moving the mouse all around looking for applications, folders or files. A first step would be to get your desktop organized – instead of just throwing stuff on it, you create folders for the most important tasks and start placing things right where they belong. For more info on how I did this, take a look at my article – Turn your Desktop into a Productivity tool. But the power user trick is to use the right tools for the job, and this can only happen once you start using your keyboard more.

What are Application Launchers?
Application Launcher is a fancy term for a simple tool – a piece of software that stays in the background and, when you type a given key combination, gets up and helps you find the right application, file or action you want to execute. Instead of moving your mouse around, aiming and clicking at things, you just type a shortcut (usually Ctrl+Space), start typing the name of the program you want to execute and hit Enter. Simple and fast, and takes a tenth of the time you’d have needed to search the shortcut with your mouse.

Neat trick, but what’s the software I should use?
There are, as always, free pieces of software and for-money ones that do the trick. Some of them do more, some do less, but for the simple task of launching apps, the free ones will do:

Mac OSX:

• Spotlight
  
  Apple’s OSX comes with a built-in desktop search engine that helps you find (most)anything. It’s one shortcut away(Cmd + Space) so, if all you want is look for stuff, it’s a decent already-installed choice. But because if searches on your entire computer and within the document contents, it gets overwhelming if you just want to find Applications to launch. So, although perfect as a general search engine, it’s not at all the productivity tool we are looking for.
• QuickSilver
  
  much can be said about this swiss tool of the Mac power users, a Mac OSX utility that really makes you more efficient at work. You can do most anything on it, from sending email to creating TODO lists to uploading photos to Flickr. But this is overwhelming, and I know plenty of people who refrain from using QuickSilver because of this. All the hype about the capabilities of QuickSilver make me, instead of curious, reticent to use such a powerful tool. So I’ll just stick to ONE tip for you today – install it for free and start using it. Just for launching apps, at first. It does a great job at it. It’s smart and sorts them by most-used basis, so, for instance, if you’re a frequent Firefox user, a simple Ctrl+Space followed by F and Enter will be enough to launch your favorite browser. Once you get the hang of it and want to do extra things, feel free to experiment with the plugins and other shortcuts it has; and you can read some of the tutorials on Lifehacker.com.
• Butler
  
  Butler is similar in many ways to QuickSilver, but some argue that it’s less scary and has a better documentation. It’s free as well, so I’ll let YOU decide.

Linux

• Katapult
  
  If you are a Linux user then you probably are a more power-user than me. Still, you may not have heard of Katapult, a cool QuickSilver’s Linux clone with plugins, cute design and powerful uses. Once installed you can configure what shortcuts it can react to. Oh, and it works on both KDE and Gnome. Read more about it here.

Windows:

• Google Desktop Search
  Doing for Windows what Spotlight does for Mac, and more – has widgets, web search, etc. But, just like Spotlight, although it can do the job of launching apps, it’s not the perfect tool for the job, but quite the opposite – searching a program with Google Desktop Search takes a lot more keystrokes and mouse clicks than looking for the icon shortcut.
• Colibri
  This was my Windows launcher of choice and the one I got addicted to most. However the website seems to be down and I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to find it anymore. It’s free and does a simple thing – in just a few keystrokes, it starts any program of the Start Menu/Programs list. For a more thorough review, check out this article.
• Launchy
  Now that the Colibri website is unnacessible, the popularity vote goes to Launchy, a cool launcher app that, just like QuickSilver, has plugins and a strong community. Just like for Colibri, I bet that once you get used to it, you’ll never want to go back to the slow mouse.
• If the Windows apps I listed weren’t enough, you can find a larger list on lifehack.org : besides Colibri or Launchy, the list includes AppRocket , ActiveWords , Dave’s Quick Search Bar, Find and Run Robot, Slickrun , SmartStartMenu, slimKEYS. Some of them cost, some of them are ugly, but you can still take a look and see if anything tickles your fancy…

The conclusion? A simple one: you have no more excuses to just drag that mouse around like a cannonball. You can now start programs faster, find documents easier and generally become a better computer user. All it takes is a bit of will power. But we’ll talk about this some other time…