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Start dd and show progress every X seconds

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Scan for nearby Bluetooth devices.
Scans local area for visible Bluetooth devices. Use 'hcitool inq' to discover the type of device it is. And use -i hciX option to specify the local Bluetooth device to use.

reset Mageia urpmi media sources to network only
On Mageia (and Mandriva) Linux, this command will clear your existing urpmi configuration and configure it to use only network sources. It can be useful after you have installed from CD/DVD and don't want to continually be prompted to insert CD/DVD each time you install a package. acknowledgement: blino

Cut out a piece of film from a file. Choose an arbitrary length and starting time.
With: -vcodec, you choose what video codec the new file should be encoded with. Run ffmpeg -formats E to list all available video and audio encoders and file formats. copy, you choose the video encoder that just copies the file. -acodec, you choose what audio codec the new file should be encoded with. copy, you choose the audio encoder that just copies the file. -i originalfile, you provide the filename of the original file to ffmpeg -ss 00:01:30, you choose the starting time on the original file in this case 1 min and 30 seconds into the film -t 0:0:20, you choose the length of the new film newfile, you choose the name of the file created. Here is more information of how to use ffmpeg: http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-doc.html

Switch to a user with "nologin" shell
You need sudo privileges for this command. Replace username with actual username.

Fastest segmented parallel sync of a remote directory over ssh
Mirror a remote directory using some tricks to maximize network speed. lftp:: coolest file transfer tool ever -u: username and password (pwd is merely a placeholder if you have ~/.ssh/id_rsa) -e: execute internal lftp commands set sftp:connect-program: use some specific command instead of plain ssh ssh:: -a -x -T: disable useless things -c arcfour: use the most efficient cipher specification -o Compression=no: disable compression to save CPU mirror: copy remote dir subtree to local dir -v: be verbose (cool progress bar and speed meter, one for each file in parallel) -c: continue interrupted file transfers if possible --loop: repeat mirror until no differences found --use-pget-n=3: transfer each file with 3 independent parallel TCP connections -P 2: transfer 2 files in parallel (totalling 6 TCP connections) sftp://remotehost:22: use sftp protocol on port 22 (you can give any other port if appropriate) You can play with values for --use-pget-n and/or -P to achieve maximum speed depending on the particular network. If the files are compressible removing "-o Compression=n" can be beneficial. Better create an alias for the command.

Intercept, monitor and manipulate a TCP connection.
Forwards localhost:1234 to machine:port, running all data through your chain of piped commands. The above command logs inbound and outbound traffic to two files. Tip: replace tee with sed to manipulate the data in real time (use "sed -e 's/400 Bad Request/200 OK/'" to tweak a web server's responses ;-) Limitless possibilities.

List upcoming events on google calendar
Requires googlecl (http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/) Even better when you wrap this in a script and allow the --date=STRING to be $1. Then you can type: whatson "next Thursday" The date string for UNIX date is very flexible. You can also add --cal "[regex]" to the end for multiple calendars.

Lists all directories under the current dir excluding the .svn directory and its contents


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