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resolve hostname to IP our vice versa with less output
inverted version: resolveip -s 216.34.181.xxx freshmeat.net

create screencast (record text and audio simultaneously) using 'script' and 'arecord'
This shell function takes a single argument, which is used as the base name of the .wav, .timing and .session files created. To create a screencast: $ screencast test type and talk ... then type 'exit' or to exit the screencast. test.wav will contain the audio from your screencast. test.session will contain text and control characters needed to paint the screen test.timing will contain timing information needed to synch individual keystrokes in test.session with the audio. to play back: $ aplay test.wav & scriptreplay test.{timing,session} NOTE: because the shell function uses the variable "$!", and bash likes to expand '!' during history expansion, you will need to turn off bash's history before you enter the shell function. This can be achieved using the command $set +H

What is the use of this switch ?
e.g. $ manswitch grep -o This will take you to the relevant part of the man page, so you can see the description of the switch underneath.

Apply an xdelta patch to a file
xdelta is a command line program for delta encoding, which generates the difference between two files. This is similar to diff and patch, but it is targeted for binary files and does not generate human readable output. http://xdelta.org/

Calculate 1**2 + 2**2 + 3**2 + ...

Run a command that has been aliased without the alias
Most distributions alias cp to 'cp -i', which means when you attempt to copy into a directory that already contains the file, cp will prompt to overwrite. A great default to have, but when you mean to overwrite thousands of files, you don't want to sit there hitting [y] then [enter] thousands of times. Enter the backslash. It runs the command unaliased, so as in the example, cp will happily overwrite existing files much in the way mv works.

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Console clock
Shows a simple clock in the console -t param removes the watch header Ctrl-c to exit

Save a file you edited in vim without the needed permissions
probably just like 1204, but uses tee as a filter (+ I actually understand how this one works)

How to backup hard disk timely?
Creates files in $DATE and hardlinks existing files to $PREVDATE. Thus full backup in each directory. Only drawback is changed modification time. Recommend a wrapper script to determine $DATE and $PREVDATE. Works like a charm. (Dirvish handrolled)


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