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Rename files in batch

Apply substitution only on the line following a marker
I've been auto-generating some complex GnuPlots; with multiplots the first plot of each group needs to be a 'plot' whereas the others need to be 'replots' to allow overplotting/autoscaling/etc to work properly. This is used to replace only the first instance of 'replot'.

Check if your ISP is intercepting DNS queries
It's somewhat common ISPs to intercept DNS queries at port 53 and resolve them at their own. To check if your ISP is intercepting your DNS queries just type this command in the terminal. "#.abc" it's an OK answer. But if you get something like "I am not an OpenDNS resolver.", yep, you are beign cheated by your ISP.

a function to find the fastest DNS server
http://public-dns.info gives a list of online dns servers. you need to change the country in url (br in this url) with your country code. this command need some time to ping all IP in list.

Get full directory path of a script regardless of where it is run from
Also resolves symlinks, showing the full path of the link target

Runs a command without hangups.
The improvement is that you can re-attach to the screen at a later point.

Print a row of 50 hyphens
This feels more intuitive to me.

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"

Convert a mp3 file to m4a
I use this to convert mp3 files to m4a files that can be used as ringtones on the iPhone. I've documented the process here: http://www.control-d.com/?p=60

Make 'less' behave like 'tail -f'.
Using +F will put less in follow mode. This works similar to 'tail -f'. To stop scrolling, use the interrupt. Then you'll get the normal benefits of less (scroll, etc.). Pressing SHIFT-F will resume the 'tailling'.


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