macOS command-line tools you might not know about

Years ago, I wrote a script to find something in a big blob of data and to alert me when it was done, I added a “say <some glib Rambo or Schwarzenegger>” type phrase upon completion. I forgot about it and went to bed and was jolted awake hours later by what was clearly an “intruder” speaking to his accomplice, in my home office. Quite the relief when I realized what happened.

That's hilarious! Similar vein: there is a Metasploit module to induce the say command on post-exploited mac machines. I haven't seen it used in practice, but I eagerly watch for the eventual twitter thread that reads:

"So, I used the msf module that invokes `say` on a client's laptop"

I use Pushover for a few alerts so years ago I wrote a little bash script called `push` that you pass a title and optionally a body. Was very nice to to `./longRunningCommand && push "Task Done" "Here is a body"`. I'd sometimes combine this with my `beep` script that just makes a noise for when I know I'll still be at my computer but want to know when something finishes.

I often have multiple terminal tabs open. Sometimes I’ll run a command that ends up taking a while and switch away and forget about it.

So I added a fish command completion script that plays a beep with afplay if the task took longer than 5 seconds. It helps me get back on task for those “just long enough” tasks that I run.

I like to use the "research complete" sample from StarCraft for this.

I would pay a lot of money to switch the voice to Arnold.

It's comments like this that remind me that HN is my tribe.

What's the beep script like? Do you use the terminal bell or does it synthesize a tone?

Here is my beep script, it's almost embarrassingly basic. You can pick a different sound, I wanted one that wasn't too offensive/harsh and I've used this for 3-4+ years.

#!/bin/bash

afplay -v 3 /System/Library/Sounds/Glass.aiff