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Check if a machine is online with better UI
I have used single packet, and in a silent mode with no display of ping stats. This is with color and UI improvement to the http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/10220/check-if-a-machine-is-online. It is as per the enhancements suggested.

Command line calculator
This opens a python command line. You can use math and random and float-division is enabled (without appending .0 to integers). I just don't know how to specify a standard precision.

ping a host until it responds, then play a sound, then exit
Audio acknowledgement for host availability. When running the command from a Linux systems, you can use "festival" or "espeak" instead of "say".

Watch and cat the last file to enter a directory
Great for watching things like Maildir's or any other queue directory.

Extract audio from a video

Never rewrites a file while copying (or moving)
Allows you to preserve your files when using cp, mv, ln, install or patch. When the target file exists, it will generate a file named XXX.~N~ (N is an auto-incremental number) instead of deleting the target file.

Extract a IRC like chat log out of an Adium xml logfile

delete a line from your shell history
If you're a moron like me, sometimes your fingers get away from you and you, for example, enter your password when you're already authenticated to ssh-agent, sudo, etc., and your password ends up in shell history. Here's how to get it out.

tree by modify time with newest file at bottom
Go look at sample output first This is kind of like the ls command but displays by modify time with size, date and color. The newest files at the bottom of the screen (reverse using tac)

Create an alias, store it in ~/.bash_aliases and source your new alias into the ~/.bashrc
This is useful if you use a shell with a lot of other users. You will be able to run "topu" to see your running processes instead of the complete 'top -u username'. Read more on alias: http://man.cx/alias


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