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Rsync a directory excluding pesky .svn dirs

mirrors directory to a ftp server
http://lftp.yar.ru/

Display the standard deviation of a column of numbers with awk
This will calculate a running standard deviation in one pass and should never have the possibility for overflow that can happen with other implementations. I suppose there is a potential for underflow in the corner case where the deltas are small or the values themselves are small.

Get the date for the last Saturday of a given month
If your locale has Monday as the first day of the week, like mine in the UK, change the two $7 into $6

check open ports without netstat or lsof

recursively change file name from uppercase to lowercase (or viceversa)
Example of zsh globing, glob qualifier, and substitution: -Q state that the parameter will contain a glob qualifier. (**/)(*) is recursive (.) is our glob qualifier, with states the match is a file "." The first parameter $1, is then substituted with $2 but with lowercasing '(L)' ... a (U) would of course be from lower to upper.

Simple word scramble
enlubtsqyuse $ cat /tmp/out subsequently

Capture SMTP / POP3 Email

Take a screenshot of a login screen
when using Gnome or KDE, you will have a hard time getting a screenshot of something like a login screen, or any other screen that occurs before the desktop environment is up and monitoring the printscreen key. (this probably applies for other DEs as well, but I haven't used them) What this command is meant to do is take a screenshot of an X window using a command you can run from your virtual terminals (actual text terminals, not just an emulator) To do this: Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to go to a virtual (text) terminal once your login window comes up Login to the virtual terminal and enter the command (you'll have to type it in) You should now have a file called screenshot.png in your home directory with your screenshot in it. For those of you who are new to the virtual terminal thing, you can use CTRL+ALT+F7 to get back to your regular GUI From http://www.gnome.org

Create the signature base string required for a Twitter stream feed
This is the SECOND command in a set for five that are needed for a Twitter stream feed. This command creates variable "b", the so-called "base string" required for oauth in Twitter stream feed requests. (The 256 char limit prevents giving it a better name) We use five environment variables created by a previous step: id, k1, once, ts and k3. The five environment variables are created in a separate command, please see my other commands. For more information on the signature base string, see dev.twitter.com/apps, click on any app (or create a new one) and then go to the "OAuth Tool" tab.


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