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List files older than one year, exluding those in the .snapshot directory
Useful when you want to cron a daily deletion task in order to keep files not older than one year. The command excludes .snapshot directory to prevent backup deletion. One can append -delete to this command to delete the files : $ find /path/to/directory -not \( -name .snapshot -prune \) -type f -mtime +365 -delete

Repoint an existing symlink to a new location
Instead of deleting an existing symlink and then re-creating it pointing at the new location, it is possible to perform the same action with this one command. Interesting discussion on whether this is possible to do atomically here: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=526119

a shell function to print a ruler the width of the terminal window.
A similar version for Bash that doesn't require cut and shortens the function in a few places. And it uses local variables. (similar to a version by eightmillion in a comment on the another version)

Press Any Key to Continue
Halt script progress until a key has been pressed. Source: http://bash-hackers.org/wiki/doku.php/mirroring/bashfaq/065

Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server
Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

Display time of accounts connection on a system
Works on CentOS ad OpenBSD too, display time of accounts connection on a system, -p option print individual user's statistics.

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

cd into another dir to run a one-liner, but implicitly drop back to your $OLD_PWD after
Obviously the example given is necessarily simple, but this command not only saves time on the command line (saves you using "cd -" or, worse, having to type a fully qualified path if your command cd's more than once), but is vital in scripts, where I've found the behaviour of "cd -" to be a little broken at times.

Get My Public IP Address

SSH to a machine's internet address if it is not present on your local network
Ping machine once, waiting 1 second for response until failing. Upon fail, ssh globally, otherwise ssh locally.


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