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Empty a file
Immediately make a file empty. This even works if the file is still being written to. Great for cleaning up huge log files!

updatedb for MAC OSX
MAC OSX doesn't come with an updatedb command by default, this will emulate the updatedb thats on a typical Linux OS. Simply add it to your ~/.bash_profile

Given $PID, print all child processes on stdout
Simpler.

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS
Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

Change pidgin status
Thanks for the comment oshazard, i wasn't aware of purple-remote existence.

Make the "tree" command pretty and useful by default
I got really tired of having tree always show me tons of .svn and .git stuff that I don't care about. With this alias, "tree" uses pretty colors, snazzy line graphics, and ignores any source control and package mumbojumbo. (Customize the *.*.package glob, of course.)

Convert CSV to JSON
Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

change up n directories
Change n directories up, without parameters change one up

Benchmark report generator
Nicely display in html format a detailed report of the machine, including cpu benchmarks.

Converting video file (.flv, .avi etc.) to .3gp
ffmpeg -i = input file name -s = set frame size, qcif=176x144 -vcodec = force video codec -r = frame-rate [default = 25] -b = bit-rate [200 kb/s] -acodec = force audio codec -ab = audio bitrate in bits/s [64k] -ac = no. of audio channels [1] -ar = audio sampling frequency [44100 Hz] optional: -sameq = use same video quality as source (implies VBR) -f = force format -y = overwrite output files


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