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Ping all hosts on 192.168.1.0/24
Pings all the hosts on 192.168.1.0/24 in parallel, so it is very fast. Alive host IP addresses are echoed to stdout as pings are responded to.

Combines an arbitrary number of transparent png files into one file
This one liner; combines all sequentially numbered files; in this example IMG_0001.png to IMG_1121.png by generating the shell script, making the shell script executable and then running the shell script to combine the 1121 png into a single png file named _final.png tested on Mac OS X 10.6.3 with ImageMagick 6.5.8-0 2009-11-22 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org

Renaming a file without overwiting an existing file name
Sometimes in a hurry you may move or copy a file using an already existent file name. If you aliased the cp and mv command with the -i option you are prompted for a confirmation before overwriting but if your aliases aren't there you will loose the target file! The -b option will force the mv command to check if the destination file already exists and if it is already there a backup copy with an ending ~ is created.

Decrypt passwords from Google Chrome and Chromium.
Read this before you down voting and comment that it is not working -> Wont work on latest versions ~75> since database file is locked and has to be decrypted. This is useful if you have an old hdd with a chrome installation and want to decrypt your old passwords fast.

Commit command to history file immedeately after execution
This could be added to .bashrc. Background: Linux usually saves history only on clean exit of shell. If shell ends unclean, history is lost. Also numerous terminals might confuse their history. With this variable set, history is immedeately written, accessible to all other open shells.

Check the status of a network interface
no need for installing mii-tools, all generic tools working under archlinux.

Quickly ping range of IP adresses and return only those that are online

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.

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

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


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