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bash function to check for something every 5 seconds
checkfor: have the shell check anything you're waiting for. 'while : ; do' is an infinite loop '$*' executes the command passed in 'sleep 5' - change for your tastes, sleep for 5 seconds bash, ksh, likely sh, maybe zsh Ctrl-c to break the loop

Get decimal ascii code from character
the shortest command for character 'a' i know

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Limit the cpu usage of a process
This will limit the average amount of CPU it consumes.

Synchronize date and time with a server over ssh
Set Remote Server Date using Local Server Time (push)

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Virtualbox: setup hardware
where - memory 256 assign 256 Mb RAM - acpi on enable ACPI (mandatory if you use Winfog 2000 - ioapic off disable the IO APIC. Not useful if you use one CPU (on virtual machine or a 32 bit operative system). As ACPI, this switch is mandatory for Winbug 2000 - pae on enable the Phisical Address Extension how to use more than 4Gb of RAM on x86 CPU - hwvirtex on enables hardware virtualization extensions for microprocessors that have this feature (which should be also enabled in the BIOS of the motherboard) - nestedpaging on allows part of the processes of memory management hardware are made directly

positions the mysql slave at a specific master position
say you want to reinitialize the slave database without resetting the master positions. You stop the slave, dump the master database with --master-data=2 then execute the command on the slave and wait for it to stop at the exact position of the dump. reinit the slave db and start the slave. enjoy.

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

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