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Create a git alias that will pull and fast-forward the current branch if there are no conflicts
This command will first add an alias known only to git, which will allow you to pull a remote and first-forward the current branch. However, if the remote/branch and your branch have diverged, it will stop before actually trying to merge the two, so you can back out the changes. http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-pull.html Tested on git 1.5.6.1, msysgit (Windows port) Actually this is not really the way I want it. I want it to attempt a fast-foward, but not attempt to merge or change my working copy. Unfortunately git pull doesn't have that functionality (yet?).

Get the Volume labels all bitlocker volumes had before being encrypted
Get information of volume labels of bitlocker volumes, even if they are encrypted and locked (no access to filesystem, no password provided). Note that the volume labels can have spaces, but only if you name then before encryption. Renaming a bitlocker partition after being encrypted does not have the same effect as doing it before.

Do command when logged in from certain ips using ssh
Place in ~/.bashrc If you login to a ssh server from different ips, sometimes you want to do something specific for each. e.g., quickly go into screen -x session from a phone, but not your desktop.

Single words from Amazon Kindle 3 notes
You can use any dictionary you want, in any language. This command will output all single-word annotations that you have underlined in your Kindle device (provided the file) given a list of language-specific words. If you want to learn vocabulary, this command is ideal.

Search and play MP3 from Skreemr
This use the Screemr search engine to play mp3 songs

HTTP Get of a web page via proxy server with login credentials
If you are behind a proxy server and have to authenticate with proxy server to browser web pages then you have to pass proxy server address and its port number along with user credentials to curl to got GET the page using curl. Example : "curl -U srikanth -x 167.85.103.70:8080 http://www.yahoo.com". In case you don't specify the password (as in the above example), curl will prompt to enter the password at the command line.

The fastest remote directory rsync over ssh archival I can muster (40MB/s over 1gb NICs)
This creates an archive that does the following: rsync:: (Everyone seems to like -z, but it is much slower for me) -a: archive mode - rescursive, preserves owner, preserves permissions, preserves modification times, preserves group, copies symlinks as symlinks, preserves device files. -H: preserves hard-links -A: preserves ACLs -X: preserves extended attributes -x: don't cross file-system boundaries -v: increase verbosity --numeric-ds: don't map uid/gid values by user/group name --delete: delete extraneous files from dest dirs (differential clean-up during sync) --progress: show progress during transfer ssh:: -T: turn off pseudo-tty to decrease cpu load on destination. -c arcfour: use the weakest but fastest SSH encryption. Must specify "Ciphers arcfour" in sshd_config on destination. -o Compression=no: Turn off SSH compression. -x: turn off X forwarding if it is on by default. Flip: rsync -aHAXxv --numeric-ids --delete --progress -e "ssh -T -c arcfour -o Compression=no -x" [source_dir] [dest_host:/dest_dir]

Prettify an XML file
Generated XML files often are poorly formatted. Use this command to properly indent and normalize the file in-place.

Test disk I/O
Especially useful to gauge the performance of a VPS.

Get Unique Hostnames from Apache Config Files
Get a list of all the unique hostnames from the apache configuration files. Handy to see what sites are running on a server. A slightly shorter version.


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