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Merge several pdf files into a single file
merge a.pdf b.pdf and c.pdf and create ./out.pdf

Ring the system bell after finishing a long script/compile
This will ring the system bell once if your script exits successfully and twice if it fails. So you can go look at something else and it will alert you when done. Don't forget to use 'xset b [vol [pitch [duration]]]' to get the bell to sound the way you want.

How many days until the end of the year

Rename files in batch

Get me yesterday's date, even if today is 1-Mar-2008 and yesterday was 29-Feb-2008
Fool date by setting the timezone out by 24 hours and you get yesterday's date. Try TZ=XYZ-24 to get tomorrow's date. I live in TZ=GMT0BST so you might need to shift the number 24 by the hours in your timezone.

Transfer large files/directories with no overhead over the network
This invokes tar on the remote machine and pipes the resulting tarfile over the network using ssh and is saved on the local machine. This is useful for making a one-off backup of a directory tree with zero storage overhead on the source. Variations on this include using compression on the source by using 'tar cfvp' or compression at the destination via $ ssh user@host "cd dir; tar cfp - *" | gzip - > file.tar.gz

Search previous commands from your .bash_history
This is not actually a command, it's just a keyboard shortchut. But a very useful one.

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 JSON to YAML

awk date convert
Convert readable date/time with `date` command


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