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convert wav files to ogg
cd to the folder containing the wav files and convert them all to ogg format. in my sample output i use the -a and -l flags to set the author and album title. to get the oggenc program in ubuntu linux run: sudo apt-get install oggenc

Monitor a file with tail with timestamps added
This is useful when watching a log file that does not contain timestamps itself. If the file already has content when starting the command, the first lines will have the "wrong" timestamp when the command was started and not when the lines were originally written.

Strace all signals processes based on a name ( The processes already started... ) with bash built-in
Especially for sysadmins when they don't want to waste time to add -p flag on the N processes of a processname. In the old school, you did ; $ pgrep processname and typing strace -f -p 456 -p 678 -p 974... You can add -f argument to the function. That way, the function will deal with pgrep to match the command-line. Example : $ processname -f jrockit

Copy a directory recursively without data/files

List directories recursively showing its sizes using only ls and grep
ls -lhR Lists everithing using -l "long listing format" wich includes the space used by the folder. Displays it in -h "human readable form" (i.e. 2.2G, 32K), and -R recurses subfolders. grep -e using a regex, show lines containing the word "total" or a ":" at the end of the line (those with the name of the folder) only.

View all new log messages in real time with color
This will show all changes in all log files under /var/log/ that are regular files and don't end with `gz` nor with a number

Validate all XML files in the current directory and below
If everything validates, there's no output. Can be handy to run on a cron job set up to email output.

Open a manpage in the default (graphical) web browser
An easy alias for opening a manpage, nicely HTML formatted, in your set internet browser. If you get a "command exited with status 3" error you need to install groff.

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

Mac OS X: Change Color of the ls Command
I use terminal with black background on the Mac. Unfortunately, the default ls color for the directory is blue, which is very hard to see. By including the line above in my ~/.bash_profile file, I changed the directory's color to cyan, which is easer to see. For more information on the syntax of the LSCOLORS shell variable: $ man ls I tested this command on Mac OS X Leopard


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