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Backup a directory structure
Copies a directory structure from /home/ to /backups/home (notice that the destination does not have a trailing slash)

Redefine the cd command's behavior
Often, the very next command after the cd command is 'ls', so why not combine them?. Tested on a Red Hat derivative and Mac OS X Leopard Update: changed ${1:-$HOME} to "${@:-$HOME}" to accomodate directories with spaces in the names

Create the signature base string required for a Twitter stream feed
This is the SECOND command in a set for five that are needed for a Twitter stream feed. This command creates variable "b", the so-called "base string" required for oauth in Twitter stream feed requests. (The 256 char limit prevents giving it a better name) We use five environment variables created by a previous step: id, k1, once, ts and k3. The five environment variables are created in a separate command, please see my other commands. For more information on the signature base string, see dev.twitter.com/apps, click on any app (or create a new one) and then go to the "OAuth Tool" tab.

Generate a Change Log with git
Generate a changelog between the v1 and v2 tags

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Immediately put execute permission on any file saved/created in $HOME/bin

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

Easily decode unix-time (funtion)
More recent versions of the date command finally have the ability to decode the unix epoch time into a human readable date. This function makes it simple to utilize this feature quickly.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

Sort processes by CPU Usage
Short list about top 10 processes, sorted by CPU usage


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