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Unix alias for date command that lets you create timestamps in ISO 8601 format
I often need to add a timestamp to a file, but I never seem to remember the exact format string that has to be passed to the date command to get a compact datetime string like 20090220T231410 (i.e yyyymmddThhmmss, the ISO 8601 format popular outside the US)

Watch command
Repeat command after every 2 secs

Alias HEAD for automatic smart output
Run the alias command, then issue $ps aux | head and resize your terminal window (putty/console/hyperterm/xterm/etc) then issue the same command and you'll understand. $ ${LINES:-`tput lines 2>/dev/null||echo -n 12`} Insructs the shell that if LINES is not set or null to use the output from `tput lines` ( ncurses based terminal access ) to get the number of lines in your terminal. But furthermore, in case that doesn't work either, it will default to using the deafault of 12 (-2 = 10). The default for HEAD is to output the first 10 lines, this alias changes the default to output the first x lines instead, where x is the number of lines currently displayed on your terminal - 2. The -2 is there so that the top line displayed is the command you ran that used HEAD, ie the prompt. Depending on whether your PS1 and/or PROMPT_COMMAND output more than 1 line (mine is 3) you will want to increase from -2. So with my prompt being the following, I need -7, or - 5 if I only want to display the commandline at the top. ( https://www.askapache.com/linux/bash-power-prompt/ ) 275MB/748MB [7995:7993 - 0:186] 06:26:49 Thu Apr 08 [askapache@n1-backbone5:/dev/pts/0 +1] ~ $ In most shells the LINES variable is created automatically at login and updated when the terminal is resized (28 linux, 23/20 others for SIGWINCH) to contain the number of vertical lines that can fit in your terminal window. Because the alias doesn't hard-code the current LINES but relys on the $LINES variable, this is a dynamic alias that will always work on a tty device.

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

The program listening on port 8080 through IPv6

Use Dell Service Tag $1 to Find Machine Model [Model Name and Model Number]
255 Max Characters CommandLineFu for $dellurl='http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/en/details?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=hied&ServiceTag='

list files in mtime order
Simple but useful; list files in the current directory in mtime order. Useful if you've been working on something and then take a day or two off.

Duplicate several drives concurrently
If you have some drive imaging to do, you can boot into any liveCD and use a commodity machine. The drives will be written in parallel. To improve efficiency, specify a larger block size in dd: $dd if=/dev/sda bs=64k | tee >(dd of=/dev/sdb bs=64k) | dd of=/dev/sdc bs=64k To image more drives , insert them as additional arguments to tee: $dd if=/dev/sda | tee >(dd of=/dev/sdb) >(dd of=/dev/sdc) >(dd of=/dev/sdd) | dd of=/dev/sde

copy public key

SSH connection through host in the middle
Unreachable_host is unavailable from local network, but it's available from reachable_host's network. This command creates a connection to unreachable_host through "hidden" connection to reachable_host.


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