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Get info about a GitHub user
In this example 'git' is the user name and the output format is YAML but you can change this to XML or JSON, eg: curl http://github.com/api/v1/json/usernamehere

Switch to the previous branch used in git(1)
Very useful if you keep switching between the same two branches all the time.

Watch the progress of 'dd'
This version was mentioned in the comments. Credits go to flatcap.

List all authors of a particular git project
Gets the authors, sorts by number of commits (as a vague way of estimating how much of the project is their work, i.e. the higher in the list, the more they've done) and then outputs the results.

Get all shellcode on binary file from objdump
Tired copy paste to get opcode from objdump huh ? Get more @ http://gunslingerc0de.wordpress.com

Converting video file (.flv, .avi etc.) to .3gp
ffmpeg -i = input file name -s = set frame size, qcif=176x144 -vcodec = force video codec -r = frame-rate [default = 25] -b = bit-rate [200 kb/s] -acodec = force audio codec -ab = audio bitrate in bits/s [64k] -ac = no. of audio channels [1] -ar = audio sampling frequency [44100 Hz] optional: -sameq = use same video quality as source (implies VBR) -f = force format -y = overwrite output files

identify NEEDED sonames in a path
This works in combination with http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/10496/identify-exported-sonames-in-a-path as it reports the NEEDED entries present in the files within a given path. You can then compare it with the libraries that are exported to make sure that, when cross-building a firmware image, you're not bringing in dependencies from the build host. The short version of it as can be seen in the same output is $ scanelf -RBnq -F "+n#f" $1 | tr ',' '\n' | sort -u

A DESTRUCTIVE command to render a drive unbootable
Overwrites the boot sector. Since this doesn't overwrite any data, you can usually recover by re-creating the partition table exactly the same as before you zeroed it. This can also help sometimes if you install a new drive in a Windows machine which can't read it.

Group OR'd commands where you expect only one to work
Something to stuff in an alias when you are working in multiple environments. The double-pipe OR will fall through until one of the commands succeeds, and the rest won't be executed. Any STDERR will fall out, but the STDOUT from the correct command will bubble out of the parenthesis to the less command, or some other command you specify.

Disable graphical login on Solaris
With a full installation of Solaris 10, the graphical login and desktop will start by default. This command will disable that feature. To enable it again use: /usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -e


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