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Use mplayer to save video streams to a file
I use this command to save RTSP video streams over night from one of our national TV stations, so I won't have to squeeze the data through my slow internet connection when I want to watch it the next day. For ease of use, you might want to put this in a file: #!/bin/bash FILE="`basename \"$1\"`" mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile "$FILE" -playlist "$1"

Find the package that installed a command

Change attributes of files so you can edit them
I had problems in Ubuntu while trying to edit /etc/resolv.conf, even with sudo I couldn't make any change. After a 2 minutes search on google I found this command. Hope someone finds it useful. It works like chmod, with + and - to denote which attributes are being added and which are being removed. See other attributes on man pages or on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattr

function to verify an IP address - can be used at the shell prompt or in a shell script
When processing IP addresses in the shell (or shell script) it is useful to be able to verify that the value of data is an IP address (an not some random string or non-sensible IP address).

List files with full path
This version is a bit more portable although it isn't extended as easily with '-type f' etc. On AIX the find command doesn't have -maxdepth or equivalent.

How to run a command on a list of remote servers read from a file
The important thing to note in this command, is the "-n" flag.

Batch convert files to utf-8
taken from http://blog.ofirpicazo.com/linux/batch-convert-files-to-utf-8/

aptitude easter eggs
this is a reference to Antoine de St. Exupery's "The Little Prince"

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"

Execute a command with a timeout
A timeout is great, but what if the command is taking longer than expected because it's hung up or ran into some other problem? That's where the -k option comes in. Run "some_command" and timeout after 30s. If the command is still running after 1 minute, it will receive a kill signal.


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