rsync + FAT32 filesystem

Found a useful nugget in the rsync FAQ: if your destination filesystem when using rsync is a FAT32 filesystem you need to add the --modify-window=1 option due to problems with the modified times on FAT32. A working example would be:

rsync \
 --progress \
 --delete \
 --verbose \
 --archive \
 --modify-window=1 \
 /path/to/source/dir/ \
 /path/to/fat32/dir/

As always, remember to be careful about those trailing slashes!

Enabling color "ls" on Mac OS X

In ~/.bashrc, add:

export CLICOLOR=1

And if you don't have it already, add to ~/.bash_profile:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
        source ~/.bashrc
fi

Sometimes, it's the little things that you're used to seeing that make you feel at $HOME.

Setting the Mac OS X hostname

I know you can set the hostname in Preferences > Sharing > Computer Name, but it gets overwritten if you're on a foreign DHCP network that has hostnames assign. To prevent that from happening:

sudo scutil --set HostName {custom_hostname}

Found on this superuser.com thread.