Bash is the default shell in the terminal on many Linux and UNIX based operating system, such as Ubuntu or Mac OS X. I’ve mentioned commandlinefu.com before as a great reference for learning some neat tricks with the terminal. I’ve gained a lot from the site and a few others, such as the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide and the bash hackers wiki. I wanted to share some of the tips I use most often, combined with other information that I’ve compiled through my use of the terminal.

I think I should mention that I’ve been using more applications in the terminal recently. Some people view this as backwards but I argue just the opposite. Limiting the amount of times I need to use the mouse and the number of keystrokes I need to make drastically increases my efficiency. Many bash applications are designed around single keystrokes, layered hotkeys and edit “modes”. GUIs have their place but many of my tasks can be completely more accurately and consistently via the terminal.

With that said, lets dive in.

The Basics

Hotkeys

Moving:
Ctrl + a -> Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on.
Ctrl + e -> Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Alt + f -> Move cursor forward one word on the current line.
Alt + b -> Move cursor backward one word on the current line.

Editing:
Ctrl + u -> Clears from before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + k -> Clear from after the cursor. If you are at the beginning of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + w -> Delete the word before the cursor.
Ctrl + h -> Same as backspace.
Ctrl + t -> Swap the last two characters before the cursor.
Esc + t -> Swap the last two words before the cursor.

Other:
Ctrl + l -> Clear screen (same as clear command).
Ctrl + c -> Kill the current command or process.
Ctrl + z -> Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process, fg to restore it.
Ctrl + d -> Exit the current shell.

Oddly, unlike many terminal applications, Bash hotkeys don’t make a lot of sense to me. There are very few that are “intuitive”.

History

Press the up arrow for the last command or:

!! — repeat last command

echo "hello"
!!

Outputs:

z@zentury:~$ echo "hello"
hello
z@zentury:~$ !!
echo "hello"
hello

ctrl+r is one of the best ways to search through your history. it will initialize a reverse search as you type. To go to the next result, press ctrl+r again

Advanced

History Expansion/Modification

!:0 — will repeat the first token

cd ~
ls -la
!:0

!:1-3 — defining a range: 1-3 will repeat the 2nd to 4th tokens (count starts at 0). It’s important to note that double quotes will group tokens together.

echo "hello there" && ls ~
!:3-4

!!:s/find/replace/ — will allow you to replace a part of the command

echo "hello there"
!!:s/hello/hi/

Outputs:

z@zentury:~$ echo "hello there"
hello there
z@zentury:~$ !!:s/hello/hi/
echo "hi there"
hi there

OR even shorter:

^find^replace

echo "hello there"
^hello^hi

Outputs:

z@zentury:~$ echo "hello there"
hello there
z@zentury:~$ ^hello^hi
echo "hi there"
hi there

Sequences and Pattern Expansion

Typically in a Linux or UNIX environment you have access to a command line tool name “seq” which gone over before. However, it’s good to know that bash has built-in sequence expansion and you don’t need to rely on seq.

echo {a..z}
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

by defining a start and end character with the ‘..’ in between, we tell bash to fill in the rest and echo a list for us. Those are all lowercase, what if you wanted uppercase? simple:

echo {A..Z}
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Or both, with a few extra characters in the mix:

echo {A..z}
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [  ] ^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

It doesn’t always have to be a-z though,

echo {A..G}
A B C D E F G

This also works with numbers:

echo {0..9}
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
echo {0..100}
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

Descending as well as ascending

echo {9..0}
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Echo a specific set

echo {1,4,6,9}
1 4 6 9

Applying it

Quickly backup a file

touch file1.txt
cp file1.txt{,.bak}
ls
file1.txt file1.txt.bak

explanation: the first parameter is empty, the second is .bak, this expands to >> cp file1.txt file1.txt.bak << and creates the copy

Convert an image type

If you have image magick installed, you can convert file types pretty easy using this same concept:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

(To install on Ubuntu)

convert file.{jpg,png}

Permutations

echo {a..c}{a..c}{a..c}
aaa aab aac aba abb abc aca acb acc baa bab bac bba bbb bbc bca bcb bcc caa cab cac cba cbb cbc cca ccb ccc

Stay tuned for Part 2

These are some pretty common techniques I use to reduce the amount of typing and thinking required to complete a task in the terminal. Stay tuned for part 2 and check out some of my creative usages at commandlinefu.com.
-

So I decided to copy them the best of the bunch into geany and modify them with regular expressions. I used column selection to speed up some of the tasks, such as Title Case formatting and typing the prefixes.

# define colors
Black='\e[0;30m'    # Black / Regular
Red='\e[0;31m'      # Red
Green='\e[0;32m'    # Green
Yellow='\e[0;33m'   # Yellow
Blue='\e[0;34m'     # Blue
Purple='\e[0;35m'   # Purple
Cyan='\e[0;36m'     # Cyan
White='\e[0;37m'    # White

BBlack='\e[1;30m'   # BBlack / Bold
BRed='\e[1;31m'     # BRed
BGreen='\e[1;32m'   # BGreen
BYellow='\e[1;33m'  # BYellow
BBlue='\e[1;34m'    # BBlue
BPurple='\e[1;35m'  # BPurple
BCyan='\e[1;36m'    # BCyan
BWhite='\e[1;37m'   # BWhite

UBlack='\e[4;30m'   # UBlack / Underline
URed='\e[4;31m'     # URed
UGreen='\e[4;32m'   # UGreen
UYellow='\e[4;33m'  # UYellow
UBlue='\e[4;34m'    # UBlue
UPurple='\e[4;35m'  # UPurple
UCyan='\e[4;36m'    # UCyan
UWhite='\e[4;37m'   # UWhite

BGBlack='\e[40m'    # BGBlack - background
BGRed='\e[41m'      # BGRed
BGGeeen='\e[42m'    # BGGreen
BGYellow='\e[43m'   # BGYellow
BGBlue='\e[44m'     # BGBlue
BGPurple='\e[45m'   # BGPurple
BGCyan='\e[46m'     # BGCyan
BGWhite='\e[47m'    # BGWhite

NC='\e[0m'          # Text Reset / No Color

Here is a test case:

for c in {,B,U,BG}{Black,Red,Green,Yellow,Blue,Purple,Cyan,White}; do echo -e ${!c}$c${NC}; done; echo -e "${NC}"

Here is the same test case without the aliases

for c in {0,1,4}\;{30..37} {40..47}; do echo -e \\e[${!c}${c}m${c}m\\e[0m; done;

Here's a PS1 you can try it with

PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[${BWhite}\]\u\[${NC}\]\[${Yellow}\]@\[${White}\]\h\[${NC}\]:\[${BBlue}\]\w\[${NC}\]$ "

I plan to use these quite often as I build out my .bash_aliases but the most immediate use you might find useful is the PS1 generation tool I’ve setup an alpha of http://interwebninja.com/ps1-o-matic/

ps1-o-matic-0.5 video in action

Below is a screenshot of how I’m revising the script to use only javascript objects rather than relying on html inputs to store values:

I’m currently at the point where I’m using jquery ui’s draggable and sortable to allow segments to be moved around but I have nothing worth sharing yet. Stay tuned, I’ll be checking the source into my github account soon.

Internet standards, including HTML, CSS, and Flash, are based on a gamma of 2.2, making colors partway between black & white appear darker and higher contrast than 1.8 gamma makes them appear.

Clearly this is a problem, as referenced by Ron, even Apple recommends you change your default gamma from 1.8 to 2.2, where they also link to some further reading.

If images are delivered with the lower gamma information embedded, web browsers on macs tend to* (not all see note below) display them incorrectly if it’s not reading the color profile properly.

As a webdesigner / web developer / photographer, this might worry you. You’ll want it too look the same to everyone or at least the majority (95%+ of the world uses windows). The easiest way I found to fix this in my work flow, using Ubuntu Linux was with pngcrush, a cross-platform application that allows you to not only reduce image filesize loseless, but allows you to remove information that can cause confusion with the way images appear in mac web browsers.

All I had to do to install it on Ubuntu was:

sudo apt-get install pngcrush

Then I wrote the following command to strip all gAMA, cHTM, iCCP and sRGB information from all png files within a directory and move them to a folder called “crushed”

pngcrush -d crushed -rem gAMA -rem cHRM -rem iCCP -rem sRGB *.png

*It’s important to point out that this does not effect OSX 10.6+ (snow leopard and beyond). Further reading on why apple chose 1.8 gamma as the default can be found here.

Quoting the change log:

Almost a year of hard work, 3000 single changes, new developers and players, a few tourneys and lots of matches have passed since the last release.

Today the Alientrap team is proud to bring you a new and improved Nexuiz! Still trying to achieve this fine balance between fun and a challenge, you will notice lots of small additions that will make playing even more fun.

Some larger changes like the new guns and particle effects will make you want to dive into the great and friendly Nexuiz community, while the large additions including the race game mode, some new maps and improved netcode will take away lots of hours of your free time.

Do you dare to take a look and see for yourself what a totally free and open source game can be?

New features include:

• Completely redone HUD and user adjustable scoreboard
• Totally rewritten Client/Server communication to cut the bandwidth usage in half
• New gamemode “Race”. Try to get from start to end of a level as fast as possible. Available as free-for-all and team variant. Further allows to play with or without a qualification period.
• Added several new weapons (on-hand Grappling Hook, Port-O-Launch, T.A.G. Seeker, Heavy Laser Assault Cannon, Rifle)
• Map editor NetRadiant included
• Improved all effects for eye candy and tweakability
• All maps recompiled with external lightmaps which allow for much crisper shadows
• Added maps desertfactory (DM, TDM, MinstaGib), racetrack (Race) and made aggressor support Key Hunt
• New player sounds, announcer sounds/voices, textures, crosshairs, weapon models, effects and menu skins
• Added support for video capture to OggTheora
• Integrated the Havoc mod into the menu! Havoc servers use quite different physics and weapons, give it a try!
• Fixed a crash with ATI drivers on shutdown or vid_restart
• Fixed several problems with lagging gameplay/crashes/wrong display of effects
• Improved bots (teamworking, bunnyhopping, swimming, better way finding, support for ladders, less CPU usage, faster map loading)
• Better visual display of carried items (Strength, Shield, flags and keys)
• Better parental guidance support with cl_gentle and cl_nogibs
• Lots of tourney-related features (timeout/in, spectator-slots, allready, warmup mode, lockteams, unlockteams, movetoteam_red/blue/…, nospectators, records, cointoss)
• Added some effects customization options like cl_casings, cl_weaponpriority
• Many more map entities allowing for more dynamic maps
• Restructured and improved menu: demos menu and multiple campaigns are back, also added an advanced menu containing ALL settings of the game

For a more complete list of changes see: https://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=672474&group_id=81584

As usual, you can download the newest release from our download page.

If you are providing a mirror of the release, please notify us so we can add it to the official mirror list. For any comments, suggestions or questions, please refer to our forum or the FAQ.

Because of many major changes there is NO PATCH available.
To make sure nothing breaks, you should use a new directory to unzip Nexuiz 2.5!

If you use 2.5 and see a server with no gametype it’s an 2.4.2 server, don’t play on those. :)

Alientrap is also currently looking for new coders, modelers, mappers and people experienced with creating sound effects. If you feel like helping improve Nexuiz or Zymotic please contact the team via forum or IRC.

You can Download Nexuiz Here. To run Nexuiz, extract the files anywhere on your computer and run the executable. Try GLX first and if you experience problems, you hardware maybe better suited for the SDL version. The main difference between the two is the software libraries they are compiled for.

If you’d like to spread the word, it’s a good idea to share the Nexuiz 2.5 release on your facebook account. You can digg it here: http://digg.com/pc_games/Nexuiz_2_5_is_released

Email can be a hassle but it doesn’t have to be if you lay out the ground work properly. Folders are a great solution but they only bring you so far. I know I don’t want to manually sort all my email. If you’re like me, you’ll love thunderbird’s filters and tags. Filters allow you to sort, delete, tag and so much more automagically.

To get started, click tools > message filters…

And you are brought to a dialog similar to this (mine obviously has a few filters):

Click ‘new…’ to get started.

In this dialog, conditions are defined at the top and actions are defined below. In the example above, you’ll notice that my condition is based on the Subject of the email. When this condition is true, it will perform the actions below. Move to the BOA folder and tag the message as important.

A little note about this window that confuses people, those + and – buttons are to add and remove conditions/actions. You do not need to click + if you are just filling in the one field, thunderbird knows it’s there.

Also note, Thunderbird allows you to add your own tags with a nice array of colors to choose from (though I would prefer hex).

To access this dialog, click the tag button on the tool bar and select ‘new…’

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message. Happy sorting!

This time around, I decided to utilize folders in the bookmarks toolbar. Maybe I’m blind to this but I feel like most people don’t utilize this helpful feature, I know I didn’t until now. After spending a few days using folders on my toolbar, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is both effective and efficient.

I spend a lot of time developing locally and often do rounds on my live sites and rather than waste 4 seconds typing in a 32 character URL, I’d rather waste 0.4 making two clicks. Yes, that’s right, I’m shaving off seconds to increase my efficiency. It might not seem like a lot but it adds up to minutes a day and hours a year.

Now, because I’m going to be spending a lot of time on my laptop, I needed a global solution to my bookmarks. The path I chose to get is syncing them with the Firefox extension, Bookmark Sync and Sort. If you don’t have your own server, there are some hosted alternatives such as Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer. Those trendy bookmark sites aren’t really the solution for me for a few reasons.

1) I like to control my data.
2) Those sites are usually distracting to me
3) While the Firefox bookmarks manager isn’t the ideal solution, the GUI is far more advanced than something you’ll find on a social bookmarking site.

Admittedly, there is an advantage to these sites, and that’s the fact that I can get to my bookmarks quickly no matter what computer I’m on. But again, I can argue that I can find a link just as fast (if not faster) with SSH by greping the xml file Bookmark Sync and Sort generates.

Back on track, once you have the extension installed, click ‘Bookmarks’ > ‘Synchronize Bookmarks’ and fill in the dialog with your information as such:

What kind of man would I be if I didn’t take advantage of this moment to sort my bookmarks?

Mmm, alphabetical order.

Now I just need to upkeep as best I can… I’ll let you know when I come up with a better solution for that. Right now, I just force myself to take the time to find the correct folder in the hierarchy. It’s a good habit but a hard one to keep. If you have any advice, please share. Good luck and happy bookmarking.

P.S. I edited the file wp-admin/admin-functions.php, line 2126 to increase the generated thumbnail size in wordpress. Just replace ’128′ with the max you wish. Thought maybe some of you could use that information.

I decided to give Konfabulator another shot (now know as Yahoo Widgets. And I must say, I’m quite pleased! Everything runs smoothly, it integrates well with the OS and I haven’t had any crashes.

So if you haven’t tried out Yahoo Widgets, I definitely recommend it.

By the way, here is the todo list that I’m using.

However obsessive, I made it my job, nay, my duty to summon the strength to save and sort ever picture that strikes the slightest bit of interest. This, as you could imagine was a tedious task. Right click, navigate to proper folder, rename image (if needed) and save. My commitment was strong but apparently no match for this mundane method. Slowly, I would stop navigating to sub-folders and just drop them all in a folder I like to call “Internet Garbage”. Currently in the root of this folder, there resides over 3,000 unsorted images.

DON’T WAIT TO SORT YOUR FILES! This is the best advice I can give to anyone. Sure it’s easy to save everything to your desktop but chances are, you’ll mix it up, lose it, delete or whatever. If you put in the extra 20 seconds navigating/creating a relevant folder, you’ll save yourself a boatload of suffering.

Getting back on track though… I came across a Firefox extension a while back called Save Image in Folder. This extension saves you so much time and trouble, that you’d actually be wasting resources by saving files the old fashion way.

Go Install that extension and come back for a tutorial if you too, would like to start saving some ‘Internet Garbage’.

After Installing the extension, right click an image (it can be any image, we’re just using this to set things up quickly). You can use this image if you’d like:

Select “Save Image in Folder… >> Edit folders…”

Select “New”, click the folder button next to the “Path” textbox and create a new folder called “Internet Garbage”. Create all your sub folders inside of that folder.

For this example, I used:

- Art
- Funny
- Gross
- Macro
- Nerdy
- Sexy
- Wallpaper

You can add more whenever you please.

Note: You can prefix or suffice the filenames however you’d like. It’s not a bad idea to prefix the files with a short date… but it’s all up to you.

Once you have all your folders created, it’s a good idea to sort them alphabetically by using the up and down arrows located on the side of the Options dialog.

Now it’s as simple as right clicking an image and picking a folder it’s most relevant to save to.