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exclude a column with cut
Show all columns except 5th. This might help you save some typing if you are trying to exclude some columns from the output.

See a full list of compiler defined symbols
From http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/01/msg00971.html .

Make vim open in tabs by default (save to .profile)
I always add this to my .profile rc so I can do things like: "vim *.c" and the files are opened in tabs.

Find
A lot of X applications accept --geometry parameter so that you can set application size and position. But how can you figure out the exact arguments for --geometry? Launch an application, resize and reposition its window as needed, then launch xwininfo in a terminal an click on the application window. You will see some useful window info including its geometry.

print text in color red
eg: $printTextInColorRed foo bar foo bar [in red color]

Click on a GUI window and show its process ID and command used to run the process
This command is useful when you want to know what process is responsible for a certain GUI application and what command you need to issue to launch it in terminal.

Clean up poorly named TV shows.
Replace 'SHOWNAME' with the name of the TV show. Add -n to test the command without renaming files. Check the 'sample output'.

archive all files containing local changes (svn)
Create a tgz archive of all the files containing local changes relative to a subversion repository. Add the '-q' option to only include files under version control: $svn st -q | cut -c 8- | sed 's/^/\"/;s/$/\"/' | xargs tar -czvf ../backup.tgz Useful if you are not able to commit yet but want to create a quick backup of your work. Of course if you find yourself needing this it's probably a sign you should be using a branch, patches or distributed version control (git, mercurial, etc..)

generate random password
-B flag = don't include characters that can be confused for other characters (this helps when you give someone their password for the first time so they don't cause a lockout with, for example, denyhosts or fail2ban) -s flag = make a "secure", or hard-to-crack password -y flag = include special characters (not used in the example because so many people hate it -- however I recommend it) "1 10" = output 1 password, make it 10 characters in length For even more secure passwords please use the -y flag to include special characters like so: $ pwgen -Bsy 10 1 output>> }&^Y?.>7Wu

Execute MySQL query send results from stdout to CSV
You can, of course, tell MySQL to output results to a file and dictate how to terminate lines, etc. But sometimes you don't have access to the file system MySQL is running on, complicating outputting your results to a CSV, necessitating either annoying hacks or this simple command :D


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