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Cleanup Python bytecode files
This command will erase all bytecode versions of Python modules under the current directory.

automount samba shares as devices in /mnt/
the middle command between the ; and ; is the vi commands that insert that line into the last line of the file, the esc with the carets is literally hitting the escape key, you have to have the smbfs package installed to do it, I use it to access my iTunes music on my mac from my linux PC's with amarok so I can play the music anywhere in the house. among other things, it allows you to access the files on that share from your computer anytime you're on that network.

Create a favicon
Create a favicon suitable for use on your web site. Note: ppmtowinicon is part of libpbm, not ImageMagick.

Compare two CSV files, discarding any repeated lines
The value for the sort command's -k argument is the column in the CSV file to sort on. In this example, it sorts on the second column. You must use some form of the sort command in order for uniq to work properly.

Check reverse DNS
I'm just a simple programmer. I find dig too verbose. host tells me alias(es) and IP address in a quick to grok format with nothing special to remember for input parameters. With thanks to http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-test-or-check-reverse-dns/

quickly backup or copy a file with bash
less symbols, tab completion. including # export SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX="_`date +%F`" in your .bashrc provides you to easily timestamp your files

list files recursively by size

Calculate pi to an arbitrary number of decimal places
Change the scale to adjust number of decimal places prefix the command with "time" to benchmark the computer (compare how long it takes to calculate 10000 digits of pi on various computers).

Batch rename extension of all files in a folder, in the example from .txt to .md
Same thing using bash built-in features instead of a sub-shell.

Combine all .mpeg files in current directory into one big one.
Good old cat & output redirection. Using this method you can combine all kinds of things - even mpeg files. My video camera makes a series of .mpeg files that are broken into 4gb chunks. Using this command I can easily join them together. Even better, combined with the cp command the files can be copied and joined in one step.


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