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clone directory structure
dir1 and all its subdirs and subdirs of subdirs ... but *no files* will be copied to dir2 (not even symbolic links of files will be made). To preserve ownerships & permissions: $ cp -Rps dir1 dir2 Yes, you can do it with $ rsync -a --include '*/' --exclude '*' /path/to/source /path/to/dest too, but I didn't test if this can handle attributes correctly (experiment rsync command yourself with --dry-run switch to avoid harming your file system) You must be in the parent directory of dir1 while executing this command (place dir2 where you will), else soft links of files in dir2 will be made. I couldn't find how to avoid this "limitation" (yet). Playing with recursive unlink command loop maybe? PS. Bash will complain, but the job will be done.

Auto Rotate Cube (compiz)
Strip my code to: wmctrl -o 0,0 # autorotates to the first face. In fact [0-1279],0 wmctrl - 1280,0 # goes to the second face wmctrl -o 2560,0 # goes to the third face, and so on. # Use multiples of the horizontal display resolution. My example work for 1280x800 display, been 1280 the number of interest. Tweak the number, try a biiiig one and see your cube spinning... I put a complex example to show how fun things can be, even for my ademco and paradox alarm central network advisor interface xpto etc. It rotates two faces, print the alarm message, and goes back tho where it was. Tested on BIGLINUX 4.2, equivalent to ubuntu LTS hardy. Do not forget to activate 3D efects ( compiz cube )

convert binary data to shellcode

reduce mp3 bitrate (and size, of course)
Useful if you have to put some mp3 files into mobile devices (ie mobile phones with no much memory)

Disable sending of start/stop characters
This command disable sending of start/stop characters. It's useful when you want to use incremental reverse history search forward shortcut (Ctrl+s). To enable again, type: $ stty -ixoff

A simple command to toggle mute with pulseaudio (any sink)
0 can also be replaced by the source name, e.g. alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo

Sort on multiple dis-contiguous keys/fields (can even specify key number/field from the end)
Notes: 1) -n-1 means sort key is the last field 2) -l is important if each separate record is on a new line (usually so for text files) 3) -j tells msort not to create log file (msort.log) in the working directory 4) may need to install msort package. 5) msort does lot more. Check man msort

use SHIFT + ALT to toggle between two keyboard layouts
change the last two-character abbreviation to any layout abbreviation you want. This command will only run in the current session, add to your ~/.bashrc to make this permanent.

Find files modified since a specific date
This command uses -newerXY to show you the files that are modified since a specific date. I recommend looking for "-newerXY" on the manpage to get the specifics.


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