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Watch the progress of 'dd'
This version was mentioned in the comments. Credits go to flatcap.

Listen to BBC Radio from the command line.
This command lets you select from 10 different BBC stations. When one is chosen, it streams it with mplayer. Requires: mplayer with wma support.

shows history of logins on the server
outputs a history of logins on the server (top 10, when piped to 'head'); optional flags: '-a' put the hostname at the end of the line (good for long hostnames), '-i' post the IP instead of the hostname, '-F' put the full login and logout times, rather than short times.

Change to $HOME - zsh, bash4
To change to $HOME in that manner you need to set a shell option. In zsh it is auto_cd, hence $ setopt -o auto_cd in bash4 it is autocd, hence $ shopt -s autocd What the option does is allow you to cd to a directory by just entering its name. This also works if the directory name is stored in a variable: $ www=/var/www/lighttpd; $www sends you to /var/www/lighttpd. CAUTION: If a command or function name identical to the directory name exists it takes precedence.

Using tput to save, clear and restore the terminal contents
Very useful for interactive scripts where you would like to return the terminal contents to its original state before the script was run. This would be similar to how vi exits and returns you to your original terminal screen. Save and clear the terminal contents with: $tput smcup Execute some commands, then restore the saved terminal contents with: $tput rmcup

batch convert Nikon RAW (nef) images to JPG
converts RAW files from a Nikon DSLR to jpg for easy viewing etc. requires ufraw package

Backup a file with a date-time stamp
$ buf myfile.txt This is useful when you are making small but frequent changes to a file. It keeps things organised and clear for another administrator to see what changed and at what time. An overview of changes can be deduced using a simple: $ ls -ltr

Get MX records for a domain

Convert CSV to JSON
Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

List the Sizes of Folders and Directories
I wanted an easy way to list out the sizes of directories and all of the contents of those directories recursively.


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