OS 10.8 allows you to control notification centre using terminal. -- First, install the package in terminal with
sudo gem install terminal-notifier
Now type your alert into terminal (you have to include the quotation marks):
terminal-notifier -message "your message here" -title "your alert title here"
You can also use this to enable commands on click and other useful things. For a full list of conditionals type
terminal-notifier -man into the terminal window.
If you want to make the notification stay on screen rather than slide away after a few seconds, locate it in
System Prefs -> Notifications and change the style from Banners to Alerts.
