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Unzip and untar a *.tar.gz file in one go to a specific directory
A *.tar.gz file needs to be unzipped & then untarred. Previously I might have unzipped first with $gunzip -d file.tar.gz and then untarred the result with $tar -xvf file.tar (Options are extract, verbose, file) Using the -z (decompress) option on tar avoids the use of gzip (or gunzip) first. Additionally the -C option will specify the directory to extract to.

Find the package that installed a command

A simple X11 tea timer
wrapping the snippet in $( )& puts the whole thing in the background so you don't tie up your login session.

Get a list of ssh servers on the local subnet
Scan the local network for servers who have the ssh port open.

Debug pytest failures in the terminal
pudb is an ncurses debugger. This command will allow interactive debugging of test failures in pytest using pudb.

Stream YouTube URL directly to mplayer
The original doesn't work for me - but this does. I'm guessing that Youtube updated the video page so the original doesn't work.

split and combine different pages from different pdf's
The command shows the real power of the pdftk tool, you can do basically everything you want with multiple pdf's. In the command a book is created from chapters, headings and covers.

List mp3 files with less than 320 kbps bitrate.

Create a transition between two videos
We take the first 50 frames of a.mp4 for track a, and 24 blank frames followed by b.mp4 for track b. We then create a transition from track a to track b starting from frame 25 and ending at frame 49. The output is stored in out.mp4 To view the results without saving remove "-consumer avformat:out.mp4" from the end. Documentation of the mlt framework and the melt command can be found here: http://www.mltframework.org/bin/view/MLT/Documentation

check open ports without netstat or lsof


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