Deleting Git Branches

Delete the "demo_maintenance" branch on the "origin" remote server.

  git push origin :demo_maintenance # deletes the remote branch
  git branch -d demo_maintenance # deletes the local branch

If you need to 'force' the delete on your local machine, use -D

  git branch -D demo_maintenance # deletes the local branch

Checking Out New Git Branches

First locat the branches, then checkout the one you want (e.g. origin/demo1)

  git branch -r
  git checkout --track -b demo1 origin/demo1

Create a public / private key

  ssh-keygen -t dsa

Clear Your Local DNS Cache

  dscacheutil -flushcache

Dealing with CSV files and MS Excel (.xls / .xlsx)

When dealing with CSV, you need to get your encodings correct.Excel will typically export to ISO-8859-1. This is not good, and should be converted to UTF-8 to support non english files.

To check the encoding of a file

  file -I original_file.csv

To convert between encodings (a few common examples)

  iconv --from-code=ISO-8859-1 --to-code=UTF-8 original_file.csv > new_file.utf8.csv
  iconv --from-code=MacRoman --to-code=UTF-8 original_file.csv > new_file.utf8.csv

When exporting files to be read within Excel, you will need to convert the CSV based on the target platform.

For MAC

  iconv --from-code=UTF-8 --to-code=MacRoman downloaded_file.csv > downloaded_file_mac.excel.csv 

For PC (untested)

  iconv --from-code=UTF-8 --to-code=Windows-1252 downloaded_file.csv > downloaded_file_windows.excel.csv