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Cancel all aptitude scheduled actions
Very handy if you have done a package selection mistake in aptitude. Note that it's better to do a Ctrl+U (undo) in aptitude if possible, because the keep-all will clear some package states (like the 'hold' state).

List dot-files and dirs, but not . or ..

Wait for file to stop changing
This loop will finish if a file hasn't changed in the last 10 seconds. . It checks the file's modification timestamp against the clock. If 10 seconds have elapsed without any change to the file, then the loop ends. . This script will give a false positive if there's a 10 second delay between updates, e.g. due to network congestion . How does it work? 'date +%s' gives the current time in seconds 'stat -c %Y' gives the file's last modification time in seconds '$(( ))' is bash's way of doing maths '[ X -lt 10 ]' tests the result is Less Than 10 otherwise sleep for 1 second and repeat . Note: Clever as this script is, inotify is smarter.

ROT13 using the tr command

Best option set for 7zip compression of database dumps or generic text files
These re the best option combination that works fine for compressing my database dumps. It's possible that there are another option or value that might improve the compression ratio, by these are the ones that worked, the syntax for 7zr it's a little messy...

Merge several pdf files into a single file

Diff XML files
Diffs two xml files by formatting them first using xmllint and then invoking diff. Usage: diffxml XMLFile1 XMLFile2

Validate all XML files in the current directory and below
If everything validates, there's no output. Can be handy to run on a cron job set up to email output.

Send email with one or more binary attachments
This command uses mutt to send the mail. You must pipe in a body, otherwise mutt will prompt you for some stuff. If you don't have mutt, it should be dead easy to install.

Search and play MP3 from Skreemr
This use the Screemr search engine to play mp3 songs


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