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Convert PNG to GIF
(relies on 'imagemagick') Convert all .png files to .gif. This can also go the other way if you reverse the file extensions in the command, e.g.: $ for file in *.gif; do convert "$file" "$(basename $file .gif).png"; done If the file is named 'example1.png' it will be named 'example1.gif' when it is complete.

archlinux: check which repository packages have updates available
Shows which packages from the official repositories (not aur) have updates available. For most accurate output, the mirrors and package lists should be up to date.

Get all IPs via ifconfig
and, a lot uglier, with sed: $ ifconfig | sed -n '/inet addr:/s/[^:]\+:\(\S\+\).*/\1/p' Edit: Wanted to be shorter than the perl version. Still think that the perl version is the best..

Simulate typing but with mistakes
The output will show jerk, then wonderful person since echo parses the \b character.

Show available conversions
aliases on each line. i.e. txt2html: $recode ..HTML file.html txt to Base64: $recode ../b64 file.b64 and so on.

Multiple variable assignments from command output in BASH
It's quite easy to capture the output of a command and assign it in a shell's variable: $ day=$(date +%d) $ month=$(date +%m) But, what if we want to perform the same task with just one program invocation? Here comes the power of eval! date(1) outputs a string like "day=29; month=07; year=11" (notice the semicolons I added on purpose at date's custom output) which is a legal shell line. This like is then parsed and executed by the shell once again with the help of eval. Just setting 3 variables! Inspired by LinuxJournal's column "Dave Taylor's Work the Shell".

leave a stale ssh session
When your ssh session hanged (probably due to some network issues) you can "kill" it by hitting those 3 keys instead of closing the entire terminal.

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"

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

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