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Transfer large files/directories with no overhead over the network
This invokes tar on the remote machine and pipes the resulting tarfile over the network using ssh and is saved on the local machine. This is useful for making a one-off backup of a directory tree with zero storage overhead on the source. Variations on this include using compression on the source by using 'tar cfvp' or compression at the destination via $ ssh user@host "cd dir; tar cfp - *" | gzip - > file.tar.gz

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Efficient remote forensic disk acquisition gpg-crypted for multiple recipients
Acquires a bit-by-bit data image, gzip-compresses it on multiple cores (pigz) and encrypts the data for multiple recipients (gpg -e -r). It finally sends it off to a remote machine.

Google dictionary of word definitions
$ wget -qO - "http://www.google.com/dictionary/json?callback=dict_api.callbacks.id100&q=steering+wheel&sl=en&tl=en&restrict=pr,de&client=te" this does the actual google dictionary query, returns a JSON string encapsulated in some fancy tag $ sed 's/dict_api\.callbacks.id100.//' here we remove the tag beginning $ sed 's/,200,null)//' and here the tag end There are also some special characters which could cause problems with some JSON parsers, so if you get some errors, this is probably the case (sed is your friend). I laso like to trim the "webDefinitions" part, because it (sometimes) contains misleading information. $ sed 's/\,\"webDefinitions.*//' (but remember to append a "}" at the end, because the JSON string will be invalid) The output also contains links to mp3 files with pronounciation. As of now, this is only usable in the English language. If you choose other than English, you will only get webDefinitions (which are crap).

start a vnc server session to connect to a gdm login screen

for newbies, how to get one line info about all /bin programs
Get simple description on each file from /bin dir, in list form, usefull for newbies.

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" }

remove repeated pairs of characters e.g. "xtxtxtxt" will become "xt"
This will remove repeated characters e.g. echo "xtxtxtxt" | sed -ru 's/(..)\1{2,}/\1/g' the output will just be "xt"

keep a log of the active windows
This logs the titles of the active windows, thus you can monitor what you have done during which times. (it is not hard to also log the executable name, but then it is gets too long)

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy


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