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Reboot machine when everything is hanging
If the machine is hanging and the only help would be the power button, this key-combination will help to reboot your machine (more or less) gracefully. R - gives back control of the keyboard S - issues a sync E - sends all processes but init the term singal I - sends all processes but init the kill signal U - mounts all filesystem ro to prevent a fsck at reboot B - reboots the system Save your file before trying this out, this will reboot your machine without warning! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

Push your present working directory to a stack that you can pop later
If are a Bash user and you are in a directory and need to go else where for a while but don't want to lose where you were, use pushd instead of cd. cd /home/complicated/path/.I/dont/want/to/forget pushd /tmp cd thing/in/tmp popd (returns you to /home/complicated/path/.I/dont/want/to/forget)

cpu stress test
For each cpu set mask and then monitor your cpu infos. Temp,load avg. etc. For example for 2nd cpu or 2nd core taskset 0x00000002 yes > /dev/null & For example for 3rd cpu or 3rd core taskset 0x00000004 yes > /dev/null & For example for 4th cpu or 4th core taskset 0x00000008 yes > /dev/null & Monitor your cpu temp with this command if you want watch -n1 "acpi -t" Load avg. from top command top kerim@bayner.com http://www.bayner.com/

Extract raw URLs from a file
you can also use cut instead of awk. less powerful but probably faster. ;)

Find processes stuck in dreaded "D" state aka IO Wait
Lots of fun to run on nfs clients when the server or network connection is having issues

Convert YAML to JSON
Converts YAML file to JSON. Note that you'll need to install PyYAML. Also some YAML data types (like dates) are not supported by JSON).

Find and delete thunderbird's msf files to make your profile work quickly again.

Clone perms and owner group from one file to another
Copy both perms and owner group from one file to another.

ls -qaltr # list directory in chronological order, most recent files at end of list
I find it very handy to be able to quickly see the most recently modified/created files in a directory. Note that the "q" option will reveal any files with non-printable characters in their filename.

Convert multiple files using avidemux
Using avidemux to convert multiple files that are in the folder where the command was executed.


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