Even though I have probably set up a new Mac at least a dozen times in the last few years I keep forgetting the most basic step in the world of Terminal…creating a .bash_profile and adding an export path. This is key because it tells Terminal where to look for executable binaries. Hopefully writing the steps down will make sure I never forget this again.

1. Open TextEdit (or your favorite text editor)
2. Add export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" on the first line
3. Save in your home directory (~/) as .bash_profile
4. If Terminal is open, restart it

If you really want to become a command line junky check out these dotfiles.