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convert a web page into a png
This requires the command-line print extension (see #2861 for more details). I use it to make up complex images with formatted text using CSS and whatnot. It's a lot slicker than imagemagick for certain things. Now imagine using a local webserver with PHP and a database to generate the images. Oh, the possibilities...

Find usb device in realtime
Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

use SHIFT + ALT to toggle between two keyboard layouts
change the last two-character abbreviation to any layout abbreviation you want. This command will only run in the current session, add to your ~/.bashrc to make this permanent.

Share a terminal screen with others
If you enable multiuser, then you can permit others to share your screen session. The following conditions apply: 1. screen must be suid root; 2. "multiuser on" must be configured in ~/.screenrc; 3. control the others user(s) access with "aclchg": # ----- from ~/.screenrc-users ----- aclchg someuser +rx "#?" #enable r/o access to "someuser" aclchg someuser -x "#,at,aclchg,acladd,acldel,quit" # don't allow these aclchg otheruser +rwx "#?" # enable r/w access to "otheruser" aclchg otheruser -x "#,at,aclchg,acladd,acldel,quit" # don't allow them to use these commands # ----- After doing this (once), you start your session with: $ screen Then, the other user can join your terminal session(s) with youruserid: $ screen -r youruserid/ Note: the trailing "/" is required. Multiple users can share the same screen simultaneously, each with independent access controlled precisely with "aclchg" in the ~/.screenrc file. I use the following setup: # ~/.screenrc-base # default screenrc on any host source $HOME/.screenrc-base source $HOME/.screenrc-$HOST source $HOME/.screenrc-users # ----- Then, the base configurations are in ~/.screenrc-base; the host-specific configurations are in ~/.screenrc-$HOST, and the user configurations are in ~/.screenrc-users. The host-specific .screenrc file might contain some host-specific screen commands; e.g.: # ~/.screen-myhost # ----- screen -t 'anywhere' /bin/tcsh screen -t 'anywhere1' /bin/tcsh # ---- The .screenrc-base contains: # ~/.screenrc-base ## I find typing ^a (Control-a) awkward. So I set the escape key to CTRL-j instead of a. escape ^Jj termcapinfo xterm* ti@:te@: autodetach on zombie kr verbose on multiuser on

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

Find brute force attempts on SSHd
Searches the /var/log/secure log file for Failed and/or invalid user log in attempts.

Select and Edit a File in the Current Directory
This command displays a simple menu of file names in the current directory. After the user made a choice, the command invokes the default editor to edit that file. * Without the break statement, the select command will loop forever * Setting the PS3 prompt is optional * If the user types an invalid choice (such as the letter q), then the variable $f will become an empty string. * For more information, look up the bash's select command

Control ssh connection
SSH can be controlled trough an ~ escape sequence. Example, to terminate the current ssh connection, type a newline, then the ~ character, and last a . character. This is useful eg when an ssh connection hangs after you reboot a machine and the connection hangs.

aptitude easter eggs
this is a reference to Antoine de St. Exupery's "The Little Prince"

Robust expansion (i.e. crash) of bash variables with a typo
By default bash expands an unbound variable to an empty string. This can be dangerous, if a critical variable name (a path prefix for example) has a typo. The -u option causes bash to treat this as an error, and the -e option causes it to exit in case of an error. These two together will make your scripts a lot safer against typos. The default behaviour can be explicitly requested using the ${NAME:-} syntax. A (less explicit) variation: #!/bin/bash -eu


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