Linux-like bash prompt in OSX
For those of us who use bash on our MacOSX boxes as well as Linux (at least RedHat systems) and are annoyed that OSX's bash prompt doesn't look like Linux's, adding these lines to your .profile will fix it. This will enable color for ls as well as change the actual prompt to match RHEL's.
Add these lines to the top of your .profile:
export PS1="[\u@\h \W]$"
export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad
Book Forward
I was just asked to write the forward to another book. Going to have to get cracking on that this week. Goes into print really, really soon.
iTunes U is Pretty Awesome
Just a quick blog to bring people's attention to it. iTunes 9 has been released and Apple is trying to get people to check out the material in iTunes U. For those who don't know, these are lectures from various universities in "podcast" form. I put the word "podcast" in quotes since they seem to act more like plain mp3's than actual podcasts on the iPhone.
There are two courses on iTunes U that I'd like to recommend. Both come from Stanford University, and both really tie in to my love of history. The first is Colonial and Revolutionary America, a series of lectures by Jack Rackove, which examines the political and sociological environment in the colonies before, during, and shortly after the Revolution. The second, which I have only just started yesterday, is The Historical Jesus, by Thomas Sheehan, which takes a scholarly look at the life of Jesus the man, not the figure that the early Christians made him into.
It's nice to see Apple starting to publicize iTunes U. There's content from all sorts of educational institutions. I'd like to see some stuff from Princeton end up online.