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Put terminal into vi mode
For if you want to use vi key bindings in the terminal

How to backup hard disk timely?
Creates files in $DATE and hardlinks existing files to $PREVDATE. Thus full backup in each directory. Only drawback is changed modification time. Recommend a wrapper script to determine $DATE and $PREVDATE. Works like a charm. (Dirvish handrolled)

network interface and routing summary

Display Dilbert strip of the day
Requires display. Corrected version thanks to sputnick and eightmillion user.

shutdown pc in 4 hours without needing to keep terminal open / user logged in.
From the 'disown' man page: disown prevents the current shell from sending a HUP signal to each of the given jobs when the current shell terminates a login session.

Set access and modification timestamps of a file using another one as reference
atime and mtime timestamps of $FILE2 is changed according to the ones of $FILE1. If $FILE2 doesn't exist is created.

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"

Lists unambigously names of all xml elements used in files in current directory
This set of commands was very convenient for me when I was preparing some xml files for typesetting a book. I wanted to check what styles I had to prepare but coudn't remember all tags that I used. This one saved me from error-prone browsing of all my files. It should be also useful if one tries to process xml files with xsl, when using own xml application.

How to establish a remote Gnu screen session that you can re-connect to
Long before tabbed terminals existed, people have been using Gnu screen to open many shells in a single text terminal. Combined with ssh, it gives you the ability to have many open shells with a single remote connection using the above options. If you detach with "Ctrl-a d" or if the ssh session is accidentally terminated, all processes running in your remote shells remain undisturbed, ready for you to reconnect. Other useful screen commands are "Ctrl-a c" (open new shell) and "Ctrl-a a" (alternate between shells). Read this quick reference for more screen commands: http://aperiodic.net/screen/quick_reference

Dump HTTP header using wget
Let me suggest using wget for obtaining the HTTP header only as the last resort because it generates considerable textual overhead. The first ellipsis of the sample output stands for Spider mode enabled. Check if remote file exists. --2009-03-31 20:42:46-- http://www.example.com/ Resolving www.example.com... 208.77.188.166 Connecting to www.example.com|208.77.188.166|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... and the second one looks for Length: 438 [text/html] Remote file exists and could contain further links, but recursion is disabled -- not retrieving.


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