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extract element of xml
Prints the value of a XML node rather than the entire node.

Get your external IP address ( 10 characters long )
Shortest url to a external IP-service, 10 characters.

Prepend a text to a file.
Syntax: $ prepend content to add [filename] Uses ed, so no temp files created.

quickly backup or copy a file with bash
less symbols, tab completion. including # export SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX="_`date +%F`" in your .bashrc provides you to easily timestamp your files

Measure, explain and minimize a computer's electrical power consumption
Run this command as root to get enough stats. It works on AMD and Intel machines, including desktops. If ran on a laptop it'll give you suggestions on extending your battery life. You'll need to install PowerTOP if you don't have, via 'apt-get install powertop', etc. To grep the output use: sudo powertop -d | grep ... The many command suggestions PowerTOP gives you alone will increase your command-line fu!

Synchronise a file from a remote server
You will be prompted for a password unless you have your public keys set-up.

Resample a WAV file with sox
Change the sample rate with sox, the swiss army knife of sound processing.

Clear current session history (bash)

pipe output to notify-send
you can put almost any command. $notify-send -t 0 "MOTD" "$(sed -n '/#^4/,/#$4/{/#^4\|#$4/!p}' motd2 | cut -d# -f2)" $notify-send -t 0 "readfile" "$(while read mess; do echo $mess;done < motd2)"

Annotate tail -f with timestamps
Uses the command ts in order to add a timestamp on each line. This command is provided in the moreutils package on Debian, and you may need libtime-duration-perl to be able to format the date.


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