Techbits #14: Console - Enhanced CLI for Windows

First, a Techbit for tabbed text editor in the form of Notepad++. Then, a Techbit for tabbed browser in the form of Firefox. And then, a Techbit for tabbed Telnet/SSH terminal emulator in the form of PuTTY Connection Manager. What else could one ask for, huh? Well, one could ask for a Techbit for tabbed version of command line client for Windows.

If you find yourselves working from the command line interface on Windows, then you'd have experienced all the niceties of the default "cmd.exe"! This is where "Console" comes to your rescue which is an enhancement for the Windows console and solves many problems.

Aside from the tabs (which in itself is pretty great), Console adds copy and paste functionality to the command line along with several display tweaking options (color, transparency, etc.) and fully-configurable keyboard shortcuts.

You can download this from http://console.sourceforge.net/.

Techbits #13: Unix "vi" Editor - ZZ

Given the depth of the previous Techbit, let's make this a short one.

If you're working on Unix-based systems, you must have used the "vi" command at one or other point of time.

While using "vi" in escape mode, you can use ZZ (shift+zz) to save the file. I found this much more convenient than its equivalent ":wq" or ":wq!". However, the percentage of people whom I've seen using this is very less.

Now, what could be the reason as to why this did not become very popular? Some say that it could be because Ctrl and Shift keys are adjacent to each other due to which one might accidentally press Ctrl instead of Shift - this then pushes the current process (vi) to background due to Ctrl+z (the first z itself). All of a sudden, the user will see himself/herself at the command line prompt. This might confuse the users and hence it might not have been published or popularized so widely.