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detect the fastest ldap server on a intranet
This command line detect ldap hosts, by mandatory dns entry, then ping them to detect response average. based on ping response average it sorts and print the faster server in first output line

check open ports without netstat or lsof

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

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

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"

disable history for current shell session
this will cause any commands that you have executed in the current shell session to not be written in your bash_history file upon logout

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Open a file in a GTK+ dialog window
I use zenity because it's a rewrite of gdialog and also replaces gmessage and has more useful options. Using --text-info allows you to select and copy the text to your clipboard. To see a file in a list dialog: cat /etc/passwd | zenity --width 800 --height 600 --list --column Entries If you don't have zenity, you'll have to download it via apt-get install zenity, etc.

Switch 2 characters on a command line.
If you typed 'sl', put the cursor on the 'l' and hit ctrl-t to get 'ls'.

Create an animated gif from a Youtube video
requires "youtube-dl" -- sure you can do this with wget and some more obscurity but why waste your time when this great tool is available? the guts consist of mplayer converting a video to a gif -- study this command and read the man page for more information $ mplayer video.flv -ss 00:23 -endpos 6 -vo gif89a:fps=5:output=output.gif -vf scale=400:300 -nosound generates a 6 second gif starting at 23 seconds of play time at 5 fps and a scale of 400x300 start time (-ss)/end time (-endpos) formats: 00:00:00.000 end time should be relative to start time, not absolute. i.e. -endpos 5 == seconds after 0:42 = 0:47 end point play with fps and scale for lower gif sizes the subshell is a solution for the -b flag on youtube-dl which downloads the best quality video, sometimes, which can be various video formats $(ls ${url##*=}*| tail -n1)


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