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strip non-constant number of directories from tar archive while decompressing
If you want to decompress the files from an archive to current directory by stripping all directory paths, use --transform option to strip path information. Unfortunately, --strip-components option is good if the target files have same and constant depth of folders. The idea was taken from http://www.unix.com/solaris/145941-how-extract-files-tar-file-without-creating-directories.html

tar.gz with gpg-encryption on the fly
Create a encrypted tar.gz file from a directory on the fly. The encryption is done by GPG with a public key. The resulting filename is tagged with the date of creation. Very usefull for encrypted snapshots of folders.

Print current runlevel
Prints current runlevel and system start time. On older systems it also shows the last init state. Pretty useful on remote systems, pretty useless on local ones :)

random xkcd comic
i sorta stole this from http://www.shell-fu.org/lister.php?id=878#MTC_form but it didn't work, so here it is, fixed. --- updated to work with jpegs, and to use a fancy positive look behind assertion.

Alias to securely run X from tty and close that tty afterwards.
There are different ways to run X, I prefer to run it without xdm/gdm. The problem is you can't lock X because one can press Ctrl+Alt+F1, press Ctrl+Z and kill you X locking process. Of course you can disable Ctrl+Alt* or Ctrl+Alt+Backspace keys, but it's inconvinient if you really need to switch into console.

Print today's date in ISO format without calling an external command (bash 4)

Get your Tweets from the command line
Gets the latest Tweets in your friends timeline from Twitter. Uses curl and xmlstarlet.

Extract domain from URl
Extracts 2nd-level domain part (or 3rd level, for co.* or com.*) from the URI's hostname. See sample output.

check the status of 'dd' in progress (OS X)
"killall -USR1 dd" does not work in OS X for me. However, sending INFO instead of USR1 works.

Search for files in rpm repositorys. (Mandriva linux)
Look for an rpm that supplies a specific file that you don't yet have installed. extremely useful when you need something and don't know where it is.. or what its called. note: uses grep like syntax.


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