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Join a folder full of split files
If you use newsgroups then you'll have come across split files before. Joining together a whole batch of them can be a pain so this will do the whole folder in one.

Random file naming

a find and replace within text-based files, to locate and rewrite text en mass.
syntax follows regular command line expression. example: let's say you have a directory (with subdirs) that has say 4000 .php files. All of these files were made via script, but uh-oh, there was a typo! if the typo is "let's go jome!" but you meant it to say "let's go home!" find . -name "*.php" | xargs perl -pi -e "s/let\'s\ go\ jome\!/let\'s\ go\ home\!/g" all better :) multiline: find . -name "*.php" | xargs perl -p0777i -e 's/knownline1\nknownline2/replaced/m' indescriminate line replace: find ./ -name '*.php' | xargs perl -pi -e 's/\".*$\"/\new\ line\ content/g'

On screen display of a command.
This is very useful if you need to show someone some text from a distance. (Like someone standing over your shoulder...) I'd recommend aliasing it to something like: alias osd_cat="osd_cat -o 400 -s 8 -c blue -d 60 -f -*-bitstream\ vera\ sans-*-*-*--200-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" xosd is the utility that provides osd_cat.

connect via ssh using mac address
Instead of looking for the right ip address, just pick whatever address you like and set a static ip mapping.

Convert files from DOS line endings to UNIX line endings
The old dos2unix from sysutils has been deprecated on Debian systems to this tool.

Setting global redirection of STDERR to STDOUT in a script
You have a script where =ALL= STDERR should be redirected to STDIN and you don't want to add "2>&1" at the end of each command... E.G.: $ ls -al /foo/bar 2>&1 Than just add this piece of code at the beginning of your script! I hope this can help someone. :)

Ease your directory exploration
Usage : tt [OCCURRENCE] tt will display a tree from your actual path tt .svn will display only line containing .svn

List all TCP opened ports on localhost in LISTEN mode
Alternative of OJM snippet : This one show the IP too, where ports bind. It's very important, because if there's only 127.0.0.1 instead of 0.0.0.0, connections from internet are rejected.

send kernel log (dmesg) notifications to root via cron
this is helpful because dmesg is where i/o errors, etc are logged to... you will also be able to see when the system reboots or someone attaches a thumb drive, etc. don't forget to set yourself up in /etc/aliases to get roots email.


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