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List all symbolic links in a directory matching a string
Finds all symbolic links in the specified directory which match the specified string pattern. I used this when upgrading from an Apple-supported version of Java 6 (1.6.0_65) to an Oracle-supported version (1.7.0_55) on Mac OS X 10.8.5 to find out which executables were pointing to /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands (Apple version) vs. /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_55.jdk/Contents/Home/bin (Oracle version). However, it appears the current JDK installation script already takes care of modifying the links.

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS
Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

Force the script to be started as root
Place this code at the beginning of your script to ensure that it can only be executed by the root.

execute command on all files of certain types excluding folders that match pattern

Grep only files matching certain pattern (Advanced)

Get your Firefox history
This is the way to get access to your Firefox history...

Remove BOM (Byte Order Mark) from text file
Takes file (text.txt), removes BOM from it, and outputs the result to a new file (newFile.txt). BOM is "Byte Order Mark" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark]), an invisible, non-breaking, zero-length character. In other words, if you see a DIFF with "" at the beginning, you've got a byte order mark, which can't be removed without this command or a hex editor. It can appear for a number of reasons, such as getting copied to/from a UNIX filesystem...

Set file access control lists
The file myfile is owned by tom and has read and write permissions for tom. Group and other permissions are empty which make myfile readable and writable only by tom. setfacl enables user tom to give read permission to user john only. The command 'ls -l' shows a '+' sign telling us that file access control list has been setup for myfile.

Mark packages installed with build-dep for autoremove (on Debian/Ubuntu)
Replace PACKAGE with desired package name. Found here: http://mikebeach.org/2011/04/undo-apt-get-build-dep/

Installing True-Type fonts
First you have to create a directory in your system, where the fonts will be stored, and copy them. $ sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/miscttf; sudo cp *.ttf /usr/share/fonts/miscttf After recharge cache with the command


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