This Anti-TarBomb function makes it easy to unpack a .tar.gz without worrying about the possibility that it will "explode" in your current directory. I've usually always created a temporary folder in which I extracted the tarball first, but I got tired of having to reorganize the files afterwards. Just add this function to your .zshrc / .bashrc and use it like this;

and it will create a folder for the extracted files, if they aren't already in a single folder.

This only works for .tar.gz, but it's very easy to edit the function to suit your needs, if you want to extract .tgz, .tar.bz2 or just .tar.

More info about tarbombs at http://www.linfo.org/tarbomb.html

Tested in zsh and bash.

UPDATE: This function works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in zsh (not working in bash):

UPDATE2: From the comments; bepaald came with a variant that works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in bash:

Not as taxing on the CPU.

Simple way of having random mrxvt backgrounds. Add this to your bashrc and change the path names for the pictures.

I'm not sure why you would want to do this, but this seems a lot simpler (easier to understand) than the version someone submitted using awk.

Gets the latest podcast show from from your favorite Podcast. Uses curl and xmlstarlet.

Make sure you change out the items between brackets.

Ever wanted to stream your favorite podcast across the network, well now you can.

This command will parse the iTunes enabled podcast and stream the latest episode across the network through ssh encryption.

first off, if you just want a random UUID, here's the actual command to use:

Your chances of finding a duplicate after running this nonstop for a year are about the same as being hit by a meteorite before finishing this sentence

The reason for the command I have is that it's more provably unique than the one that uuidgen creates. uuidgen creates a random one by default, or an unencrypted one based on time and network address if you give it the -t option.

Mine uses the mac address of the ethernet interface, the process id of the caller, and the system time down to nanosecond resolution, which is provably unique over all computers past, present, and future, subject to collisions in the cryptographic hash used, and the uniqueness of your mac address.

Warning: feel free to experiment, but be warned that the stdin of the hash is binary data at that point, which may mess up your terminal if you don't pipe it into something. If it does mess up though, just type

using tail first won't do it because tail counts from the bottom of the file. You could do it this way but I don't suggest it

tail -n X | head -n 1

prints a specific line, where X is the line number

using

("sort -S1G" - Linux/GNU sort only) will also do the job but as some drawbacks (caused by space/time complexity of sorting) for bigger files...

Generates a random 8-character password that can be typed using only the left hand on a QWERTY keyboard. Useful to avoid taking your hand off of the mouse, especially if your username is left-handed. Change the 8 to your length of choice, add or remove characters from the list based on your preferences or kezboard layout, etc.

This alternative cleans HISTTIMEFORMAT environment variable and calls gnuplot just after /tmp/cmds is closed, to avoid some errors.

Plot your most used commands with gnuplot.

Same as original, but works in bash

Matrix Screen HPUX

This is useful when you got a reserved IP address like 192.168.0.100 and want to find out what IP address is used to access the Internet. You have to know a server with 'efingerd -n' configured, like www.linuxbanks.cn as above.

Other method to find out this information are for example access www.tell-my-ip.com and grep the output. The finger method have the advantage that it is easy to deploy a service like www.tell-my-ip.com, as you only need to get efingerd installed.