Terminal window for Cygwin

The default Cygwin console sucks - it inherits all the evil features of Window's cmd.exe like bad copy-pasting, getting to full screen mode is a pain...

I have lately been using minTTY and it's been great. You can install it through Cygwin. Other details can be found here. All your favorite linux bash shortcuts, like Alt-B, Ctrl-K, should work fine. The only thing it misses compared to my all time favorite terminal, Konsole, is the ability to have tabs.

You can also taka a look at other options here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/701895/best-terminal-environment-for-cygwin-windows
http://blasphemousbits.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/other-cygwin-console-alternatives/

Setting up email on Cygwin

I couldn't find the mail command on Cygwin. Finally, this what I had to do:

Install email from Cygwin setup.exe.
setup.exe - email is present in the Mail Category packages.

Configure email.conf:

cp /etc/email/email.conf ~/.email.conf

vi ~/.email.conf (change the following lines)

SMTP_SERVER = 'smtp.yourdomain.net'
MY_NAME = 'Sweet Seattle'
MY_EMAIL = 'kirkland.is.awesome@gmail.com'

That's it. You are ready to send emails now:
grep @rest.route rest.py | sort | email -s 'REST calls' somewillsomewontsowhat@takerisks.com

Remember that if you don't configure the email.conf, you'll get an error "sh: /usr/lib/sendmail: No such file or directory" because it's expecting to use sendmail.