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monitor network traffic and throughput in real time
see http://iptraf.seul.org/ for all kinds of documentation and screenshots

Determine MAC address of remote host when you know its IP address
arping sends ARP requests to a neighboring host. This won't work if there is an ARP subnet gateway in the middle. If there is, you'll just get the gateway's MAC address not the host's address you are really trying to get to.

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

Download streaming video in mms
require mimms package

Advanced python tracing
Trace python statement execution and syscalls invoked during that simultaneously

Execute a command with a timeout
In this example the command "somecommand" will be executed and sent a SIGALARM signal if it runs for more than 10 seconds. It uses the perl alarm function. It's not 100% accurate on timing, but close enough. I found this really useful when executing scripts and commands that I knew might hang E.g. ones that connect to services that might not be running. Importantly this can be used within a sequential script. The command will not release control until either the command completes or the timeout is hit.

Remove all cached images for icons related to your profile
Run inside Command Prompt (cmd.exe) as admin. Note that you must close explorer.exe first, and even so some files will not be deleted, will say "Access is denied." To definitely delete them enter with another admin user or from other operating system and access the drive.

Summarize the number of open TCP connections by state
Useful for checking the number and state of TCP connections.

Search and play youtube videos directly to terminal (no X needed)
Same as other command, however uses youtube-dl internal search (thanks to qoxxxx mentioning this) It does however seem to be a little buggy and youtube-dl crashes sometimes. ## pyt 'Stairway to heaven - Led Zeppelin' pyt 'brain damage - Pink Floyd' No web browser or even X needed. Just a cli and internet connection! mplayer is pauseable and can skip ahead This may break if youtube changes their search html.

create an screenshot, upload it to your server via scp and then open that screenshot in firefox
I often need to send screenshots to other people to explain settings and whatever. So I created this oneline which I use to create the screenshot with imagemagik, upload it via scp to my server and then the command opens an firefox tab with the screenshot. The screenshot can be a region or a window. You just have to replace the parts beginning with YOUR.


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