A long time ago, while I was studying, I had a PC running Microsoft Windows 2 (yes indeed, Windows version 2). It came with a program called Write, which I was using to type my homework and eventually my graduation assignment. This thing was unstable, it crashed so often that I learned to press CTRL+S at the end of every line of text that I typed on it, to be sure that I didn’t lose my work. The habit never left me. It wasn’t until about 4 or 5 years ago, long after I had already switched to Mac and didn’t need to worry about CTRL+S, that I finally lost the habit of instinctively hitting that key combination every few minutes.
I have an annoying issue with my Mac, it just randomly loses network connection, sometimes it won’t connect at all for a few minutes. After a couple of updates that promised to have fixed the issue, it’s still there. I made this shortcut, very short bash scripts that I placed in my .bash_profile startup script.
$ alias down-discoveryd='sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist' $ alias up-discoveryd='sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist' $ alias restart-network='down-discoveryd && sleep 3 && up-discoveryd'
One line would have been enough, but I wanted it a little pretty, so I made three. I added a small delay, for good measure, though I think it could also be omitted. The only command I need to run is the last one, restart-network, I get prompted for the admin password, and the service is restarted. If the network is still not restored, I run it again, and again. After 2 or 3 attempts, I get my network connection back and I can continue working.
I find myself using this shortcut very frequently. It has become my new CTRL+S. Unfortunately.