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tar exclude files or directories
If you want to exclude only one file or directory you should use as --exclude=file_or_directory

Make sure your script runs with a minimum Bash version
If you use new features of a certain Bash version in your shell script, make sure that it actually runs with the required version.

recursive search and replace old with new string, inside files
Using -Z with grep and -0 with xargs handles file names with spaces and special characters.

Get the full path of a bash script's Git repository head.
Rather than complicated and fragile paths relative to a script like "../../other", this command will retrieve the full path of the file's repository head. Safe with spaces in directory names. Works within a symlinked directory. Broken down: $cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" temporarily changes directories within this expansion. Double quoted "$(dirname" and ")" with unquoted ${BASH_SOURCE[0]} allows spaces in the path. $git rev-parse --show-toplevel gets the full path of the repository head of the current working directory, which was temporarily changed by the "cd".

Dock Thunderbird in system tray and hide main window
Dock Thunderbird in system tray and hide main window. Very useful for startup scripts. Of course you can dock any app of your choice.

Email HTML content
Note, this works because smtp is running

Recording the desktop and an application audio source for webcast
You will have to use the sound preferences (record) to choose the audio source and set it to internal.

Count the number of characters in a string from the standard input.

dump the whole database

rsync...


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