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PRINT LINE the width of screen or specified using any char including Colors, Escapes and metachars
One of the first functions programmers learn is how to print a line. This is my 100% bash builtin function to do it, which makes it as optimal as a function can be. The COLUMNS environment variable is also set by bash (including bash resetting its value when you resize your term) so its very efficient. I like pretty-output in my shells and have experimented with several ways to output a line the width of the screen using a minimal amount of code. This is like version 9,000 lol. This function is what I use, though when using colors or other terminal features I create separate functions that call this one, since this is the lowest level type of function. It might be better named printl(), but since I use it so much it's more optimal to have the name contain less chars (both for my programming and for the internal workings). If you do use terminal escapes this will reset to default. $ tput sgr0 For implementation ideas, check my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html

Ripping VCD in Linux
Ripping VCD in Linux

put current directory in LAN quickly
This works on all versions of python 2.X. Tested on Linux and bundled python versions on Mac OSX and Solaris / UNIX Note: Serves globally on port 8000. Ctrl+c to stop. Don't start the server and leave it on a internet connected machine. :)

Find the package that installed a command

Simple XML tag extract with sed
Limited, but useful construct to extract text embedded in XML tags. This will only work if bar is all on one line. If nobody posts an alternative for the multiline sed version, I'll figure it out later...

Get yesterday's date or a previous time
With this command you can get a previous or future date or time. Where can you use this? How about finding all files modified or created in the last 5 mins? touch -t `echo $(date -d "5 minute ago" "+%G%m%d%H%M.%S")` me && find . -type f -newer me List all directories created since last week? touch -t `echo $(date -d "1 week ago" "+%G%m%d%H%M.%S")` me && find . -type d -cnewer me I'm sure you can think of more ways to use it. Requires coreutils package.

Change every instance of OLD to NEW in file FILE
Very quick way to change a word in a file. I use it all the time to change variable names in my PHP scripts (sed -i 's/$oldvar/$newvar/g' index.php)

Reinstall a Synology NAS without loosing any data from commandline.
Seen many questions how-to reinstall synology nas dsm without loosing data, here you go. Wait for a few min and then head over to http://nasip and setup your fresh installed nas.

memory usage

Safe Delete
remove file that has sensitive info safely. Overwrites it 33 times with zeros


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