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A child process which survives the parent's death (for sure)
Test scenario: * Open xterm (or konsole, ...) * Start xeyes with: ( xeyes & ) * Close the xterminal The xeyes process should be still running.

Command to rename multiple file in one go
An entirely shell-based solution (should work on any bourne-style shell), more portable on relying on the rename command, the exact nature of which varies from distro to distro.

online MAC address lookup

Create a backup copy of a MySQL database on the same host
This should probably only be used for testing in a dev environment as it's not terribly efficient, but if you're doing something that might trash a DB and you still want the old data available, this works like a charm.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

copy paste multiple binary files
Useful when you have multiple files or binary files that you need to transfer to a different host and scp or the like is unavailable. To unpack on the destination host copy paste output using the opposite order: openssl enc -d -base64 | gunzip | tar -x Terminate openssl input using ^d Note: gzip is outside of tar because using -z in tar produces lots of extra padding.

Does a traceroute. Lookup and display the network or AS names and AS numbers.
From the man page. lft ? display the route packets take to a network host/socket using one of several layer-4 protocols and methods; optionally show heuristic network information in transitu -A Enable lookup and display of of AS (autonomous system) numbers (e.g., [1]). This option queries one of several whois servers (see options 'C' and 'r') in order to ascertain the origin ASN of the IP address in question. By default, LFT uses the pWhoIs service whose ASN data tends to be more accurate and more timely than using the RADB as it is derived from the Internet's global routing table. -N Enable lookup and display of network or AS names (e.g., [GNTY-NETBLK-4]). This option queries Prefix WhoIs, RIPE NCC, or the RADB (as requested). In the case of Prefix WhoIs or RADB, the network name is displayed. In the case of RIPE NCC, the AS name is displayed.

Print without executing the last command that starts with...
It happens that sometime you remember that you used a special command short time before and you want to check the command again. WIth this command you can just put the beginning of a command and then bash will look for you and it will print back safely withou executing

Convert all Flac in a directory to Mp3 using maximum quality variable bitrate

Pronounce an English word using Merriam-Webster.com
Looks up a word on merriam-webster.com, does a screen scrape for the FIRST audio pronunciation and plays it. USAGE: Put this one-liner into a shell script (e.g., ~/bin/pronounce) and run it from the command line giving it the word to say: $ pronounce lek If the word isn't found in merriam-webster, no audio is played and the script returns an error value. However, M-W is a fairly complete dictionary (better than howjsay.com which won't let you hear how to pronounce naughty words). ASSUMPTIONS: GNU's sed (which supports -r for extended regular expressions) and Linux's aplay. Aplay can be replaced by any program that can play .WAV files from stdin. KNOWN BUGS: only the FIRST pronunciation is played, which is problematic if you wanted a particular form (plural, adjectival, etc) of the word. For example, if you run this: $ pronounce onomatopoetic you'll hear a voice saying "onomatopoeia". Playing the correct form of the word is possible, but doing so might make the screen scraper even more fragile than it already is. (The slightest change to the format of m-w.com could break it).


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