Configuring OS X Serial terminal emulation using Terminal and Screen

If you use Mac OS X on a daily basis like I do, you may or may not be aware that there is no included Serial terminal emulation software included with the Operating System. For most people this would not be of any concern, I mean how many people actually use HyperTerminal right? But for those of us who configure Serial based devices like Cisco Routers, Switches, and Load Balancers, on a regular basis I was having trouble finding a good solution.

There are no good free Serial terminal applications out there, there are some that will work, but they're not pretty, not Universal Binaries, or they cost money. Me personally I don't think I should have to pay for software like that, you can't make an application like that so nice and so feature packed that anyone should ever have to pay for a simple Serial Terminal app, that's like charging money for screen savers... Of all the ways to make a quick buck.

So my solution to the issue was a simple one, I wish I had thought of it much sooner and spared my life from Minicom. What I did was configure the built in OS X Terminal application to fire off the Screen program inside itself automatically, and boom instant Serial Terminal.

It goes a little something like this...

• Open the Finder -> Applications -> Utilities, and click on Terminal.

• Now click the Terminal menu -> Preferences -> Settings tab, and create a Settings/Profile entry either by using the + or Duplicating your existing one.

• With your new profile selected on the right side click on the Shell tab and Check "Run command:" and enter "screen /dev/tty.COM_PORT_HERE", where the com port is your USB to Serial converter or in my case SocketCom Bluetooth to Serial adapter.

• That's all there is to it, now you can go up to the Terminal menu and click on Shell -> New Window -> Your Profile, or Shell -> New Tab -> Your Profile.

Also for those of you who didn't know you can use Terminal for SCP and SSH, check out New Remote Connection on the Shell menu.

So now that I've shown you how to do it, here's a copy of my Terminal Profile that you can just import it instead. =)

Serial.terminal

~Matt

Missing Money

For those of you who have not heard of unclaimed property, let me share a little secret the government doesn't really advertise to the public. Just about every State in the US has what is called an unclaimed property program for things like:

• Bank accounts and safe deposit box contents
• Stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and dividends
• Uncashed checks and wages
• Insurance policies, CD's, trust funds
• Utility deposits, escrow accounts

Say you forget about an account, you move, change jobs, or how about a relative sets up an account on your behalf? Well when the account is deemed inactive that money ends up (usually) at that States unclaimed property office after about a year and it sits there for various amounts of time depending on the state. For example a family member of mine left a job and they still owed them over $600 from payroll and was unable to reach them, after a year the money automatically goes to the unclaimed property office and he was able to file a claim and receive a check in the mail for the missing money.

Which brings me to the topic of Missing Money, there's actually a website called just that http://www.missingmoney.com/ which is a database linked to participating websites in the US, and Canadia which allows people to search unclaimed property programs for your missing money!

Each State website can be located here with the following link http://www.missingmoney.com/Main/StateSites.cfm

There are also some helpful links for places to search for other unclaimed stuff http://www.unclaimed.org/other/

Good luck!