Mac: Terminal tricks while flying

While flying back from California today I figured I'd use some of my down time to play with my MacBook and see what I could learn. I found a couple of really cool little tricks for the terminal:


You can control the opacity of a shell window, making it slightly transparent. This is really handy when you are following a series of directions on an underlying web page - no need to switch back and forth between windows.  On a machine with a smaller display this is pretty valuable.

The other thing I learned was that you can create tabs in a terminal window. Just hit Command-T and a new tab appears. You can drag a tab out of the terminal window to create a new window as well as use the Window pull down menu to merge disparate windows together.

And now for the bonus picture...
I also managed to leverage my Canon SD1100 IS while we were flying out. Here's a quick pic of the Queen Mary in Long Beach as seen from a JetBlue A320:


Anyone know what's in what used to be in the white dome in the center of the picture? Hint: It's made of wood.

Comments

RetroMacCast said…
Why the Spruce Goose of course!
April 3, 2008 at 6:33 AM
David Alison said…
@Retromaccast: Winner!
April 3, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Anonymous said…
Actually, the Spruce Goose left that dome way back in 1992. It now resides at the Evergreen Avation & Space Museum, www.sprucegoose.org, in McMinnville Oregon.
April 3, 2008 at 9:33 AM
David Alison said…
@Tim: Ha! I didn't know that it had moved! Original post corrected. New Winner!
April 3, 2008 at 9:43 AM
Unknown said…
I actually just went and saw the Spruce Goose over the weekend. Its size blew me away.
April 3, 2008 at 11:57 AM
coolwatters said…
40% of the dome is used by Carnival Cruise lines when they have a ship in port. The remaining 60% has been used as a soundstage (scenes from one of the Batman movies, and Spielberg's AI were filmed there) and most recently it housed the traveling Star Trek exhibit. Most of the time it lies empty and is used for storage.
April 3, 2008 at 1:53 PM
Jeff Bellamy said…
Had a little trouble seeing the boat so I had to hit Command Option + to Zoom the screen.

jeff bellamy
April 3, 2008 at 3:20 PM
bdavidson said…
The Queen Mary is right next to the Spruce Goose I think.
April 3, 2008 at 7:19 PM
bdavidson said…
doh... read the whole post first Brad
April 3, 2008 at 7:21 PM
Pecos Bill said…
wikipedia.org has a great image comparing huge aircraft. Reportedly, the Spruce Goose only lacked power. Presumably, if runways were large enough, it might have done better with less resistance too.
April 7, 2008 at 1:23 PM
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