Commands using xargs (769)

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Run a program transparently, but print a stack trace if it fails
For automated unit tests I wanted my program to run normally, but if it crashed, to add a stack trace to the output log. I came up with this command so I wouldn't have to mess around with core files. The one downside is that it does smoosh your program's stderr and stdout together.

copy public key

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"

wget progress bar with customized data size for dots

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

run php code inline from the command line
Most people know that you can run a PHP script from the command line like so: $php ./my_script.php But sometimes I just want to run a quick bit of code, the PHP Command Line Interface allows me to do so with the -r option. Requires package php5-cli

get all Google ipv4 subnets for a iptables firewall for example

Look for English words in /dev/urandom
* to get the English dictionary: wget http://www.mavi1.org/web_security/wordlists/webster-dictionary.txt

Delete backward from cursor, useful when you enter the wrong password

How to trim a video using ffmpeg
Will trim the video to 4 seconds starting from the beginning. The -vcodec , -acodec options are required so that ffmpeg knows in what video/audio format you want for the new video.


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