Terminal headache relief from time-saving ~/.bashrc shortcuts

Server-side developers will undoubtedly come across platforms and tools which require heavy use of the *nix terminal. For those who prefer sexy GUIs to the shell, it can get rather annoying searching the web or application man-pages for proper command syntax - especially when you're forgetful like me. To lessen the pain and boost your productivity, learn to effectively use .bashrc and .bash_profile terminal shortcuts. Make these scripts your friends and you'll find yourself quickly becoming a terminal pro. Managing an Ubuntu server and developing on a Mac, I've found myself repeatedly typing the same commands to do things like alter configurations, start/stop apache, install updates, and sync changes remotely. While I was familiar with editing environment variables, only recently did I begin to include common commands as single-word aliases in .bashrc. Editing and appending to your user's bashrc configuration is easy. To view and edit I use the built-in nano editor:

nano ~/.bashrc

To quickly append an alias (and enable its use instantly) simply enter:

echo 'alias SHORTCUTNAME="ANNOYING COMMAND"' >> ~/.bashrc && . ~/.bashrc

You can also chain commands using a semicolon, for instance:

#Example
alias SHORTCUT="COMMAND1;COMMAND2"

#gets updates and upgrades in Ubuntu
alias updateUpgrade="sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade"

Below are some simple examples I've included my .bashrc configuration file:

#checkin SVN project
alias svnIn='/usr/local/bin/svn ci'

#retrieve SVN logs
alias svnlog='svn log -gvr 1:head'

#ref Zend Framework script for PHP projects
alias zf='/Applications/MAMP/svn/zendframework/trunk/bin/zf.sh'

#ref local development mySQL
alias mampSQL='/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql'

#ref iOS simulator on MacOSX with Developer Tools installed
alias iPhone='/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone Simulator.app'

Some more complicated (but quite useful) commands I will not explain here are:

#zips a file or folder
zipMe () { zip -r "$1".zip "$1" ; }

#finds file in current directory
findMe () { /usr/bin/find . -name "$@" ; }

#Linux cmd to print t
alias tree='find . -print | sed -e Ã¢Â^ÀÂ^Üs;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;gÃ¢Â^ÀÂ^$

#checkout SVN project
svnOut () { /usr/local/bin/svn co file://$svnDir/$1/trunk . ; }

And some less-used but cool shorcuts:

#lookup a word in Mac Dictionary
dictionary () { open dict:///"$@" ; }

#show hidden files in Mac Finder
alias showHidden='defaults write com.apple.finder ShowAllFiles TRUE'

#hide hidden files in Mac Finder
alias hideHidden='defaults write com.apple.finder ShowAllFiles FALSE'