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Test http request every second, fancy display.
Use the command watch, which is really hard to pass nested quotes to, and insert newlines where they are supposed to go in the HTTP request. that is after 1.1 after the host and two newlines at the end before the EOF. i use this all day what? no support for HEREDOCs on commandlinefu's interface? need more fu.

Serial console to a Vmware VM
Create a serial console with "socket (named pipe)" of "/tmp/socket", "from:server, to:virtual machine" in vmware player, etc.. gui. Run the above command after you have booted the guest OS (which should also be configured for serial console).

Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server
Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

diff the same file in two directories.
This is useful when you're diffing two files of the same name in radically different directory trees. For example: Set $ path1='/some/long/convoluted/path/to/all/of/your/source/from/a/long/dead/machine' then $ path2='/local/version/of/same/file' then run the command. Much easier on the eyes when you're looking back across your command history, especially if you're doing the same diff over and over again.

delete at start of each line until character
GNU grep's PCRE(Perl-compatible regular expressions).

Check if a string is into a variable
Returns true (0) if the string is into $var, or false (1) if not.

get xclip to own the clipboard contents
"Copying" things to the X clipboard doesn't normally create a copy. Rather the data to be 'copied' is referenced. This means that if the application that you 'copied' stuff from is closed, that data is lost. If the application that you 'copied' from is suspended with CTRL-Z, there could be some issues if you try to paste it into something. This command will create a copy of referenced data and have xclip be the provider of it, so you can then go ahead and close the app that contains the original information. Caveat: I'm not sure if this is binary-safe (though i would expect it to be), and don't know what would happen if you used it to clip a 20 meg gimp image. This technique becomes more convenient if you set it up as an action in a clipboard manager (eg klipper, parcellite). Some of these applets can take automatic action based on a variety of parameters, so you could probably just get it to always own the clipped data whenever data is clipped.

Identify differences between directories (possibly on different servers)
This can be much faster than downloading one or both trees to a common servers and comparing the files there. After, only those files could be copied down for deeper comparison if needed.

Lint Git unstaged PHP files
Checks for syntax errors in PHP files modified in current working copy of a Git repository.


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