If you're a Mac user, did you know that Tetris comes with your Mac? Have a look through your Applications folder - you won't find it there. Thanks to Cory over at TUAW, I now know that Tetris is an Easter Egg that can be found in the Terminal application.

Here are the steps to get the game going:

1. Open Terminal, which you can find in the Utilities sub-folder in your Applications folder
2. In the Terminal window, type "emacs", then press Enter
3. Wait for the Emacs screen to load (you'll see a bunch of welcome information for GNU Emacs)
4. Press the Escape key, then type "x" then type "tetrix" (no space between "x" and "tetris") and press Enter

If you've followed the instructions exactly, you should now be looking at a working game of Tetris. Controlling the blocks is done with your arrow keys.

Yes, this game of tetris isn't the best implementation you will find. It's very narrow, making it quite frustrating to play. But hey - it's free Tetris, and it's built in to your Mac!

Search engines don't get much easier to use than Google. You type what you're looking for into a text box, and the web site will spit results back at you. But if you're looking for a slightly geekier experience, you owe it to yourself to check out goosh.

Goosh has the look and feel of a Unix or Linux shell, but the site is powered by Google. If you want to conduct a web search, just enter a search term, like "download" and hit enter. If you want to search Google News you can type "news download" (without the quotes) or just "n download." You can even search Google Maps by typing "place" before your query. For a complete list of commands, type "help."

The site gives you access to a bunch of Google services from a single web page, which is kind of useful. But the site's true appeal lies in the fact that it's incredibly geeky.

[via Google Blogoscoped]

File this one squarely in the "because we can," category, but the Digital Streets blog has a tip for command line junkies who want to update Twitter without opening a web browser or a 3rd party application. All you need to do is install cURL, a command line utility for Linux, Windows or OS X and then send a message to Twitter with your status updates.

In Ubuntu, here's how to install cURL:

1. Open a terminal
2. Type "sudo apt-get install curl" (without the quotes)
3. Enter your root password when prompted

Once cURL is installed, you just need to type the following to send a tweet (this time you should include the quotation marks around your message): curl -u yourusername:yourpassword -d status="Your Message Here" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

It's up to you to figure out why you would actually want to do this, but now you can.

Open Terminal is a small program that provides quick Terminal access directly to specified folders. For instance, if you're five folders deep in Finder and realize you need Terminal access to that folder to edit a .plist, it's a pain to launch Terminal and type cd /users/todd/folder1/folder2/folder3. Instead, you could use Open Terminal in one of three ways:

• Drag the "folder3" icon onto Open Terminal which will launch a Terminal window already active in "folder3"
• Stick Open Terminal in your Finder toolbar (hold down the Command key while dragging the .app onto the toolbar), so you can drag "folder3" onto the Open Terminal icon directly above the folder list
• Install the included contextual-menu plugin which will add an option in the right-click menu to launch Open Terminal to your desired folder (this requires installing Open Terminal and having it run in the background)

Open Terminal 2.0.4 is only for Leopard and supports Terminal tabs, but the developer has older versions available for Mac OS 10.2 through 10.4.

Windows XP users should check out the "Open Command Window Here" powertoy for similar functionality. Vista users can hold the shift key while right-clicking a folder and click "Open command window here" in the context menu.

[Via MacUpdate]

It happens to the best of us. We forget where we put things. Car keys. Flash drives. Yes, sometimes we even forget where certain files are on our computers. We can't really help you with the car keys and flash drives (although we inexplicably find things like that in the refrigerator here), we can help you out with finding missing files.

Coming from a Windows environment, you might be familiar with the graphical Search Files/Folder application. You know the one, it has the weird little cartoon dog that sometimes finds your files and folders, sometimes returns a lot of stuff you don't need, or sometimes doesn't return anything at all, even though you know it exists.

Linux also has graphical search applications. With them, you're able to configure your search parameters a little more tightly than with Windows (or maybe it just seems so, because we're not rushing to get the search done and make the freaky little dog go away). However, this usually isn't the quickest, or easiest, way to find your files.

This is definitely one of those times it's more productive for both old pro and new Linux users to use the command line. The confusing thing, even for some more experienced Linux users, is choosing which command to actually use to find the file or folder in question.

Looking for a good way to load YouTube videos onto your iPod, organize your digital camera photos, keep your Mac software up to date, or protect your privacy while surfing on a public computer? Download Squad's got you covered. Here's a roundup of some our favorite stories from the past week.

Keeping it private (and safe!) on public computers

Ever find yourself looking up health advice or other potentially sensitive information while at the library? Our resident librarian has some tips for protecting your privacy when using public computers. Some tips are common sense: don't enter sensitive data like your social security information on a public PC, but there are some other basic steps you can take to keep your browsing sessions safe.

Tooble: Get YouTube videos on iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV

Sure, programs which download and convert YouTube videos to formats you can watch on a portable media player are a dime a dozen. Cheaper, actually, since most are free. But if you've got a Mac, you owe it to yourself to check out Tooble, a freeware YouTube video converter which does everything you could ever dream and more with just a few clicks.

The command line. It strikes fear in the hearts of many a new Linux user. They open their terminals reluctantly, and there the prompt sits, with the cursor blinking in rhythm with their racing hearts. What does that blinking cursor want? It's expecting something... It wants something...

All right, so maybe it's not horror movie material.

But it is intimidating for many new users. Navigating the command line might be a mystery to you, or maybe you've read a little about it and wonder: out of all those commands, which ones am I really going to use? Which ones are the most help in a given situation?

Either way, we've got you covered. These are the commands we've found are most useful to new users. They range from basic navigation to commands that are great for troubleshooting.

No Apple hasn't finally given us what we want by releasing an official iPhone SDK so developers can create true apps for the phone, but that doesn't seem to be holding back enterprising hackers. Erica Sadun at our sister site The Unofficial Apple Weblog has released a basic text editor and even a screenshot app for the iPhone, while Gizmodo has MobileTerminal, a command line app that should allow for all kinds of iPhone hackery goodness.

Gizmodo also makes a great point: the code for MobileTerminal is being hosted at Google Code, which could mean a number of things, including:

• Apple hasn't fired up the cease & desist engine just yet
• They are quietly sanctioning this kind of hacking
• They're listening to demand and are working on opening the phone up
• They already have an iPhone SDK prepared and are waiting for something like Leopard in October because of specific code constraints

While we're likely to never hear word from tight-lipped Apple on an official iPhone SDK until it's actually made available to download, power users and iPhone enthusiasts are sure to take some solace in the fact that iPhone hackers seem to have opened it up quite a bit on their own already. We'll definitely be keeping an eye on what grassroots iPhone apps appear.

Not with a real vacuum, silly, but with SQLite's vacuum command! If you fancy yourself a bit of Terminal adventure, this simple command can supposedly increase Mail's responsiveness. Especially helpful if you have a hefty mailbox like I do.

1. Quit Mail (if it's open)
2. Open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities)
3. At the shell prompt, type: sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index and press Enter.

You'll be greeted with:

SQLite version 3.1.3
Enter ".help" for insructions
sqlite>

4. At the sqlite> prompt type: vacuum subjects; and press Enter.
There will be a short delay while sqlite optimizes the subjects table, depending on how large your mailbox is this could take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes or more.
5. Once you're returned to the sqlite> prompt, press Control-D to exit.
6. Restart Mail and enjoy your newfound speediness!

Please be aware that you do this at your own risk. There's a potential for data loss, so if you want to be extra cautious backup the ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index file before attempting this trick.

[via Hackszine.com]

Path Finder is the uber-replacement for the Mac OS X Finder which has many features (and forethought) that the stock Finder could use. Even after its shiny metal facelift in Mac OS X 10.3, the Finder has felt very little in the way of new features or changes as of late, much like a cute puppy whose name you can't remember. My favorite features of Path Finder are its tabs, the drop stack, the integrated Terminal panel and the wicked Select tool. It can feel a bit foreign to switch from the Finder to something new, but if you are determined I bet you can make it through the 21-day free trial without much trouble. As Merlin Mann shows, you can either have as much "frippery" enabled as you want, or you can play it simple and straightforward.

With WWDC just around the corner and Mac OS X Leopard details gently leaking around the Web, what do you Download Squad readers think would be a good addition to the Mac OS X Finder? What features, no matter how crazy you think they are, do you think would be a valuable addition? Or should it stay simple and sweet, leaving the talented third parties to take it to the next step?

[Via 43 Folders]

Ever wanted to access a UNIX terminal from, say, an Internet cafe or airport kiosk? Check out AjaxTerm. It's a Python app that uses the magic of Ajax to let you use a full-fledged terminal in any web browser. All it takes is a machine running Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, or Cygwin on Windows and an Apache web server. It even supports terminal colors. It's only as secure as a regular terminal session, but the AjaxTerm web site has instructions for securing it with HTTPS.

[Via Anarchaia]

Sure, anyone can set their terminal font to green on black and feel l33t but if you really want to go old-school you need GLTerminal. It's a full-screen terminal app for OS X that will make your screen look like an old 1970s tube monitor "complete with flaws in brightness, warped display curvature, and flicker." It also simulates screen lag and you can choose green or amber text. Though it really does work, GLTerminal is "slighly broken," not open source, and abandonware, but industrious hackers are working as we speak to smooth out some of the kinks.

[Via Boing Boing]