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Search trought pidgin's conversation logs for "searchterm", and output the result.
will search trought pidgin conversation logs for "searchterm", and output them stripping the html tags. The "sed" command is optionnal if your logs are stored in plain text format.

Display or use a random file from current directory via a small bash one-liner
An other way to run it ( playing a random file ending with avi, flv or mpeg ) from a specified dir and a specified type of extension : making MOVIE array with a glob : $ MOVIE=( /PATH/TO/MY/FAVORITE/MOVIES/*.{avi,flv,mpeg} ) playing the random file from a random key from the array $ mplayer ${MOVIE[ RANDOM % ( ${#i[@]} + 1 ) ]]} I use only globs and a bash array. I use GNU bash, version 3.2.48

extract element of xml
poor man's xml parser :)

Know SELinux status
Usefule to check whether SELinux is in force or disabled. Though you need to be superuser while execute this command.

Display calendar with specific national holidays and week numbers
NB when you run this gcal command in your shell, holidays are highlighted but this highlighting does not show in the sample output (above). To find full details on gcal options: gcal --long-help | less Example for United States, Pennsylvania: gcal -K -q US_PA 2009 # display holidays in USA/Pennsylvania for 2009 (with week numbers) Example for Hong Kong: gcal -K -q HK 2009 # display holidays in Hong Kong for 2009 (with week numbers)

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" }

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

Run 10 curl commands in parallel via xargs (v2, faster then v1)

Command to Show a List of Special Characters for bash prompt (PS1)
I use this command (PS1) to show a list bash prompt's special characters. I tested it against A flavor of Red Hat Linux and Mac OS X

pretend to be busy in office to enjoy a cup of coffee
The first parameter after timeout is the key parameter; number of seconds to wait. With a 6 you have 600 seconds for your coffee break (10min).


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