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repeat a command every one second
Short method of "while x=0; do foo ; sleep 1 ; done"

ROT13 using the tr command

Easy and fast access to often executed commands that are very long and complex.
When using reverse-i-search you have to type some part of the command that you want to retrieve. However, if the command is very complex it might be difficult to recall the parts that will uniquely identify this command. Using the above trick it's possible to label your commands and access them easily by pressing ^R and typing the label (should be short and descriptive). UPDATE: One might suggest using aliases. But in that case it would be difficult to change some parts of the command (such as options, file/directory names, etc).

Mortality Countdown
watch the seconds of your life tick away - replace YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:ss w/ your birthtime.

Rename files in batch

Multi-thread any command
For instance: $ find . -type f -name '*.wav' -print0 |xargs -0 -P 3 -n 1 flac -V8 will encode all .wav files into FLAC in parallel. Explanation of xargs flags: -P [max-procs]: Max number of invocations to run at once. Set to 0 to run all at once [potentially dangerous re: excessive RAM usage]. -n [max-args]: Max number of arguments from the list to send to each invocation. -0: Stdin is a null-terminated list. I use xargs to build parallel-processing frameworks into my scripts like the one here: http://pastebin.com/1GvcifYa

Monitor the queries being run by MySQL
Watch is a very useful command for periodically running another command - in this using mysqladmin to display the processlist. This is useful for monitoring which queries are causing your server to clog up. More info here: http://codeinthehole.com/archives/2-Monitoring-MySQL-processes.html

return external ip
curl inet-ip.info -> 113.33.232.62\n curl inet-ip.info/ip -> 113.33.232.62 curl inet-ip.info/json -> JSON print curl inet-ip.info/json/indent -> JSON pretty print curl inet-ip.info/yaml -> YAML format curl inet-ip.info/toml -> TOML format http://inet-ip.info

Add existing user to a group

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.


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