.profile configured, no error message, but no change New to editing my .profile, so please bear with me if my question seems somewhat trivial.

I downloaded software to convert a proprietary data to ASCII, the software being from Trimble. Then I did the following:

cd /Users/my_iMac
mkdir runpkr00
cd runpkr00/
cp ~/Downloads/runpkr00-MountainLion-i386-5-4.40 .
vi ~/.profile


In .profile

export PATH="/Users/my_iMac/runpkr00:$PATH"


Then back out...

source ~/.profile


When I begin typing runpkr and then tab, it is recognised, then trying to convert a .T02 file (in the correct directory), the command is executed and doesn't return an error message, but doesn't convert the files either. After reading about setting variables in the .profile I'm still a bit confused about where programs should be stored (/usr/local/bin or /usr/bin/ or simply /bin/) and whether the program should be stored in either one of these three directories.
The following is an overview of the directories that you mentioned.

/bin  user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

/usr/bin  common utilities, programming tools, and applications

/usr/local/bin  executables, libraries, etc. not included by the basic operating system


Since your application isn't delivered by a package, I would leave it in your home folder.