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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" }

Insert an element into xml
This inserts an element as last child under /breakfast_menu/food in simple.xml. xml used - http://www.w3schools.com/xml/simple.xml

For a $FILE, extracts the path, filename, filename without extension and extension.
Useful for use in other scripts for renaming, testing for extensions, etc.

Benchmark SQL Query
Benchmark a SQL query against MySQL Server. The example runs the query 10 times, and you get the average runtime in the output. To ensure that the query does not get cached, use `RESET QUERY CACHE;` on top in the query file.

show the real times iso of epochs for a given column
When you have one of those (log)files that only has epoch for time (since no one will ever look at them as a date) this is a way to get the human readable date/time and do further inspection. Mostly perl-fu :-/

start a VNC server for another user

Watch active calls on an Asterisk PBX
This handles when you have a single call or channel. Other commands will strip out the result if there is a single channel or call active because the output changes the noun to be singular instead of plural.

Repeat a portrait eight times so it can be cut out from a 6"x4" photo and used for visa or passport photos
Yes, You could do it in the GIMP or even use Inkscape to auto-align the clones, but the command line is so much easier. NOTE: The +clone and -clone options are just to shorten the command line instead of typing the same filename eight times. It might also speed up the montage by only processing the image once, but I'm not sure. "+clone" duplicates the previous image, the following two "-clone"s duplicate the first two and then the first four images. NOTE2: The -frame option is just so that I have some lines to cut along. BUG: I haven't bothered to calculate the exact geometry (width and height) of each image since that was not critical for the visa photos I need. If it matters for you, it should be easy enough to set using the -geometry flag near the end of the command. For example, if you have your DPI set to 600, you could use "-geometry 800x1200!" to make each subimage 1⅓ x 2 inches. You may want to use ImageMagick's "-density 600" option to put a flag in the JPEG file cuing the printer that it is a 600 DPI image. BUG2: ImageMagick does not autorotate images based on the EXIF information. Since the portrait photo was taken with the camera sideways, I made the JPEG rotate using jhead like so: jhead -autorot 2007-08-25-3685.jpg

Fork bomb (don't actually execute)
Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_bomb More info: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/991142/how-does-this-bash-fork-bomb-work

Send a signed and encrypted email from the command line
A very simple command to send a signed and encrypted message from the command line using GPG Keys


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