All Issues

Untar, ungz, gz, tar - how do you remember all the useful options?

I am pretty sure I am not the only one with the following problem: every time I need to uncompress a file in *nix I can't remember all the switches, and end up googling it, which is surprizing considering how often I need to do this. Do you have a good compression cheat sheet? Or how about a mnemonic for all those nasty switches in tar? I am making this article a wiki so that we can create a nice cheat sheet here. Oh, and about man pages: is there's one thing they are not helpful for, it's for figuring out how to uncompress a file.

Installing dig on Debian

I've tried installing dig on Debian, but the apt-get utility doesn't seem to know what it is. Is it part of some larger set of packages? Where can I find this?

VIMRC, SCREENRC, BASHRC, KSHRC, etc. What does the "RC" mean?

In these and other applications what does the "RC" stand for?

Mac OS X Terminal: mouse support?

Is there a native option (ie. without installing extra soft/package/plugins) to enable mouse support in the Terminal app? Actually, I'm using a lot with the option (activating mouse features). But it seems that Terminal doesn't support all xterm's features. It appears (after some googling) that Terminal had once the mouse support, but I wonder where did it go. N.B: I really want mouse support in Terminal, not only for vim, so please, don't suggest MacVim :]

How can I load a file's contents into the clipboard?

I have a files where I need to copy their contents to another file or into an application and rather than open it up, select all the text then copy and paste I'd like to know if I can effectively the file contents into the clipboard. Is this possible? A Windows program would be fine but something that works on Linux would be useful too. I don't use a Mac but it might be useful to others. Bonus points if this can be done on the command line.

How do I convert a DjVu document to PDF in Linux using only command line tools?

I've got some documents in DjVu which I'll like convert to PDF. Is there a way to do this using command line OSS tools?

Hibernate computer with a timeout from command line on Windows 7

I am trying to hibernate my computer from the command. I was using to shutdown the the computer. I change /s to /h to hibernate and now it just returns the usage text as if it doesn't recognise what I have entered. In this is does say Is there something else that I need to use with /h to get it to hibernate?

Safe to delete "C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download"

One of our Windows 2003 servers has a fairly small C-partition, which is approaching full. I've had a quick look round using Disktective as to where the space has gone, and a fair bit of it seems to be taken up with I think this folder is used as a temporary storage for Windows Update, but as all the pending Windows updates have now been installed, is it OK to delete the contents of this folder?

Save a single web page (with background images) with Wget

I want to use Wget to save single web pages (not recursively, not whole sites) for reference. Much like Firefox's "Web Page, complete". My first problem is: I can't get Wget to save background images specified in the CSS. Even if it did save the background image files I don't think --convert-links would convert the background-image URLs in the CSS file to point to the locally saved background images. Firefox has the same problem. My second problem is: If there are images on the page I want to save that are hosted on another server (like ads) these wont be included. --span-hosts doesn't seem to solve that problem with the line below. I'm using:

What are "Super Cow Powers" and why doesn't my aptitude have them?

Is there any benefit to using IPv6 on my home network?

I know that IPv6 is the future because there is only 4 billion IPv4 address, but on a home network, you are not going to have 4 billion users. So are there any other benefits that would make IPv6 on a home network better than using IPv4?

How do I get Java support on Google Chrome in Linux?

Is there a way to run Linux Google Chrome with Java support?

How can I get FileZilla to ignore folder or files (like .svn or CVS)?

How can I get FileZille to ignore folders or files? I don't want to upload my version-control info to my web-server! (question implied in a comment to another answer).

How can I clear the current line of the Windows command prompt?

How can I clear the current line in the command prompt? (I'm using Windows 7.) Too often, I enter a command, execute it, get many lines of output, then wish to enter another command. But before entering the second command, I press the up arrow key to review the first command, then I find I have to hold backspace for 30-or so characters. (I can't just press down again to get an empty line. Nor can I get it by pressing up again.)

.bashrc not sourced in iTerm + Mac OS X

I am using iTerm in Mac OS X 10.6. It seems when I open iTerm, neither nor is sourced. I can tell because the aliases defined in are not set. How to fix?

Move a layer to specific X,Y position in Gimp

How do I move a layer to a specific XY position within the canvas in Gimp? Currently, the only way I can find is to just eyeball it with the guides and/or mouse position. I want to specify the exact X and Y coordinates.

What is the shortcut to access the menubar in Mac OS X?

In Windows, I can access the menubar using the Alt key. How can I achieve the same effect in Mac OS X? Specifically I am using Mac OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard).

How to copy text from PowerShell

Sometimes I want to copy a command from Powershell to paste in a document, or I want to copy the output? How can I select and copy text in Powershell? At least I know a way how to paste a text (or a command) into Powershell: you just right-click on Powershell.

Wget/cURL alternative native to Windows?

Is there a Wget or cURL type command line utility native to Windows Vista? How does it work?

How do I change until the next underscore in VIm?

If I have this text in vim, and my cursor is at the first character: I know that I can do: to change up to the first period, because a (lowercase w) ends at any punctuation OR white space to change the whole address, because a (uppercase w) ends only at whitespace Now, what if I have this: and want to change it to this? Both and change the whole thing, but I just want to change the fragment before the underscore. My fallback technique is , meaning 'change until you hit the next underscore in a search,' but for me, that also causes all underscores to be highlighted as search terms, which is slightly annoying. Is there a specifier like or that doesn't include underscores?