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Exclude svn directories with grep
exclude-dir option requires grep 2.5.3

Print a list of the 30 last modified mp3s sorted by last first

Create a file of a given size in linux
If you're trying to create a sparse file, you can use dd by 'skip'ing to the last block instance. ls -ls shows the actual size vs. the reported size

Terrorist threat level text
This line provides the same result by reading the output of a less arbitrary value. This is a personal choice on the matter, and the result on different machines may vary.

Find the most recent snapshot for an AWS EBS volume
Uses the python-based AWS CLI (https://aws.amazon.com/cli/) and the JSON query tool, JQ (https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)

Keep track of diff progress
You're running a program that reads LOTS of files and takes a long time. But it doesn't tell you about its progress. First, run a command in the background, e.g. $ find /usr/share/doc -type f -exec cat {} + > output_file.txt Then run the watch command. "watch -d" highlights the changes as they happen In bash: $! is the process id (pid) of the last command run in the background. You can change this to $(pidof my_command) to watch something in particular.

Backup a remote database to your local filesystem
I have this on a daily cronjob to backup the commandlinefu.com database from NearlyFreeSpeech.net (awesome hosts by the way) to my local drive. Note that (on my Ubuntu system at least) you need to escape the % signs on the crontab.

Open Remote Desktop (RDP) from command line having a custom screen size
This example uses xfreerdp, which builds upon the development of rdesktop. This example usage will also send you the remote machine's sound.

Stream the latest offering from your fave netcasts/podcasts
This is a quick line to stream in the latest offerings of your favorite netcasts/podcasts. You will need to have a file named netcast.txt in the directory you run this from. This file should have one and only one of your netcast's/podcst's url per line. When run the line grabs the offering on the top of the netcast/podcast stack and end it over , quietly, to vlc. Since I move around computers during the day I wanted an easy way to listen to my daily dose of news and such without having to worry about downloading to whatever machine I am on. This is just a quick grab and stream of whats current. Future plans... have the list of netcasts be read from the web. possibly an rss or such. I use greader so there might be a way to use it as the source so as not to have to muck with multiple lists

Merge AVI-files without recoding
Useful for when you download movies split into < 700mb parts. Credit to rich @ http://superuser.com/questions/318640/merge-avi-files-without-recoding-in-mac-os-x-lion mencoder is generally included with mplayer. MacPorts: $sudo port install mplayer


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