TextExpander is a tool I’ve had installed on my Macbook Pro for awhile now, but never really utilized it all that often (other than the built-in spelling corrections I only had 1 or two custom expansions configured).  Recently I started using it more and I think it can be very helpful in home lab environments where you are constantly configuring things over and over with the same (or similar) settings.  I’ve configured a few NetApp simulators in my home lab and rather than remember what settings I apply each time to the simulator and configure them, I have it all configured within TextExpander so that when I type /ntapsim it will replace that line with everything I want set.  In my case it will then run the following:

options security.passwd.rules.enable off
snap reserve -A aggr0 0
snap sched -A aggr0 0
options autosupport.enable off
aggr options aggr0 raidsize 28
disk assign all
license add DZDACHD
license add PZKEAZL
yes
license add NAZOMKC
license add ANLEAZL
license add BSLRLTG
license add NQBYFJJ
license add ELNRLTG
license add MTVVGAF
license add BQOEAZL
license add RKBAFSN
license add HNGEAZL
license add BCJEAZL
license add DFVXFJJ
license add XJQIVFK
license add DNDCBQH
license add JQAACHD
license add ZYICXLC
license add PVOIVFK
license add PDXMQMI
license add RQAYBFE
license add ZOFNMID
license add ZOPRKAM
license add RIQTKCL
aggr add aggr0 24
ndmpd on
options nfs.export.auto-update off

You get the idea, but that will automatically disable AutoSupport, disable the aggregate snapshot reserve and increase the default RAID group size to squeeze a little extra usable space out of the sim, and apply all the simulator license keys for me.  I also have snippets set up for applying a default Cisco switch/router config for me which has been extremely helpful when initially configuring everything in a GNS lab.  I also have one for ESXi hosts that will tweak a couple of settings for my lab such as allowing ESXi to use less RAM.  In that case, the specific tweak was mentioned here and I just chose to insert it via the echo command instead of using vi manually.

That’s just some lab examples of what I use it for, but in reality there are tons of uses for this – almost every file on my machine is date stamped in the format yyyy-mm-dd and I have a quick two character snippet setup to automatically insert the current date in that format for when I’m creating a new folder/file.  Other examples that I use are for inserting my work phone number (I can never remember it), my address, an email signature, and a few for web addresses that I frequent.

If you aren’t willing to shell out the $35 for TextExpander (which, in my opinion, is a little high for a utility app – though it is incredibly useful), there are other ways to accomplish this.  Built in to OSX (and iOS 5 for that matter) is native text expansion, the downside is that it isn’t quite as easy to quickly add in new snippets, or modify old ones.  However, it’s free and as long as you are running OSX 10.6 or later – you already have it.  Just go to System Preferences –> Language & Text to create your snippets.

Anyone using TextExpander and have some other snippet examples?  I’d love to hear them.

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