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backup system over ssh, exlucde common dirs

Trigger a command each time a file is created in a directory (inotify)
Listens for events in the directory. Each created file is displayed on stdout. Then each fileline is read by the loop and a command is run. This can be used to force permissions in a directory, as an alternative for umask. More details: http://en.positon.org/post/A-solution-to-the-umask-problem%3A-inotify-to-force-permissions

Use lynx to run repeating website actions
This command will tell lynx to read keystrokes from the specified file - which can be used in a cronjob to auto-login on websites that give you points for logging in once a day *cough cough* (which is why I used -accept_all_cookies). For creating your keystroke file, use: $ lynx -cmd_log yourfile

Determine the version of a specific package with RPM
In this case, I'm getting the package version for 'redhat-release', but of course, this can be applied to any package installed on the filesystem. This is very handy in scripts that need to determine just the version of the package, without the package name and all the sed and grep hackery to get to the data you want. To find out all the support format strings that 'rpm --qf' supports: $ rpm --querytags

Offcloud - add a link as remote download
You will get an json respond if all is fine

Extract audio from Mythtv recording to Rockbox iPod using ffmpeg
There are some pretty good live performances on late night TV. With Mythtv I record David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, and Conan nightly all in HD from over the air broadcasts. If I find a live performance I like I copy it to my Rockboxed iPod using this command. The Rockbox firmware knows how to downmix 5.1 audio. The command above extracts the audio from the video starting at 58 minutes and 15 seconds. It ends at the end of the file since this was the last performance of the recording. The command creates an ac3 file. I copy the ac3 file to my Rockbox iPod and rock on.

Single use vnc-over-ssh connection
This command 1. SSH into a machine 2. Tunnels VNC port to your local computer ("-L 5900:localhost:5900") 3. Runs a single use vnc server ("x11vnc -safer -localhost -nopw -once -display :0") 4. Goes into the background ("-f") 5. Runs VNC viewer on the local computer connecting to the remote machine via the newly created SSH tunnel ("vinagre localhost:5900")

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"

draw mesh

Random unsigned integer
Reads 4 bytes from the random device and formats them as unsigned integer between 0 and 2^32-1.


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