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Output files without comments or empty lines
Filter comments and empty lines in files. I find this very useful when trying to find what values are actually set in a very long example config file. I often set an alias for it, like : alias nocomment='grep -v "^\($\|#\)"'

Check if a domain is available for purchase
A quick alias to check if a domain is already registered or if it's available for purchase.

run command on a group of nodes in parallel

Generate random valid mac addresses
Shorter and more straightforward. Also in perl: $ perl -e 'print join(":", map { sprintf "%0.2X",rand(256) }(1..6))."\n"'

Replace all backward slashes with forward slashes
Use -i to edit file directly: sed -i 's|\\|\/|g' file

Two command output
Summarize established connections after netstat output. Using tee and /dev/stderr you can send one command output to terminal before executing wc so you can summarize at the bottom of the output.

Show one line summaries of all DEB packages installed on Ubuntu based on pattern search
I sometimes want to know what packages are installed on my Ubuntu system. I still haven't figured out how to use aptitude effectively, so this is the next best thing. This allows finding by name. The grep '^ii' limits the display to only installed packages. If this is not specified, then it includes listing of non-installed packages as well.

Visualizing system performance data

export iPad App list to txt file
This will generate the same output without changing the current directory, and filepath will be relative to the current directory. Note: it will (still) fail if your iTunes library is in a non-standard location.

Find the package that installed a command


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