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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" }

Redirect STDIN
Several times, I find myself hitting my up arrow, and changing the search term. Unfortunately, I find myself wasting too much time typing: $ grep kernel /var/log/messages Redirecting STDIN allows me to put the search term at the end so I less cursor movement to change what I'm searching for: $ < /var/log/messages grep kernel If you're using the emacs keyboard binding, then after you press your up arrow, press CTRL+w to erase the word. If this has already been submitted, I couldn't find it with the search utility.

turn off auto hard disc boot scanning for ext3

Sort the current buffer in vi or vim.
vim 7 or higher has internal sort, too 'sort n' for numbers

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

Build an exhaustive list of maildir folders for mutt
Of course, you can adjust "Maildir" to your config...

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

kill a process(e.g. conky) by its name, useful when debugging conky:)

extract element of xml
poor man's xml parser :)

lists files and folders in a folder
lists files and folders in a folder with summary.


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