[99]http://lwn.net/Articles/91371
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Triggering one of several options with Juk and KHotkeys

   Jimmy O'Regan ([100]The LG Answer Gang)

   I posted a story on [101]http://dot.kde.org mentioning that LG has two
   [102]KDE related articles this month, and someone asked how to have multiple
   possible actions attached to a single key - launch Juk if it isn't running,
   pause if playing and vice versa, and play if stopped. This script does that:

                       See attached [103]juk.bash.txt

     [Ben] Intermediate-level shell tip for the above situation:

ps aux|grep '[j]uk'

     Will ignore the 'grep' line every time. Why? Well...

ben@Fenrir:~$ find / [f]oo > /dev/null 2>&1 &
[1] 8099
ben@Fenrir:~$ ps --pid 8099
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 8099 pts/0    00:00:02 find / [f]oo

     Note that 'ps' lists the command exactly as invoked - square brackets and
     all. 'grep' itself, however, interprets the square brackets as a character
     class: that is, it looks for a match for any character(s) contained within
     the brackets. Since the only character within the brackets is 'f', '[f]oo'
     is interpreted simply as 'foo'. As a result, 'grep' is searching for 'foo'
     - but the 'grep' line itself, as listed by 'ps ax', does not contain
     'foo'; it contains '[f]oo', which does not match.

     The concept is a bit difficult to understand the first time, obvious - and
     handy! - forever after. :)

   I'd forgotten this; handy. Only works, of course, if the argument to grep is
   a  literal. Well, more accurately, it's even harder to understand (and
   possibly might break other things) if you put it in a variable... 

     [Ben] You're right: it can be made to work but would Not Be Conducive to
     Understanding. Something like

# [104]YANETUT
first=${var:0:1}
last=${var:1}
ps ax|grep "[$first]$last"

     Ugh.
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Using Windows Keyboard Media Buttons In Linux

   john frey ([105]iaargh from shaw.ca)

   For years now I have been staring at the extra keys on my Logitech Freedom
   Optical with despair in my heart. I told myself I did not really need them,
   but somehow I felt less than a windows drone because I paid the money for a
   cordless keyboard and mouse and did not have full function.

   Then I read this article, tried a few of the hotkeys for launching email,
   web browser and local file browser. That was all very neat but what i really
   wanted was to use the dial on the keyboard for volume control. My speakers
   have buttons to push for volume control but they are clunky and response is
   slow,  using  a  slider  on  Kmix  is equally unwieldy. When the email
   notification suddenly blares out (because I just finished watching a movie
   and forgot to lower the sound) I want to turn the sound down before the last
   tones fade out.

   I muddled about in the [106]KDE control centre a bit with not much success
   then hit on the astounding idea that maybe I could configure this from Kmix.
   Right click on the master volume control -> define keys......a few short
   clicks later and I had the dial working to raise and lower sound and the
   mute button as well. I felt f***n great. Can you say eeeasssy, can you say
   in-tui-tive? Wow, this is really the cats pajamas!

   Sometimes the smallest things just make life worth living again ;~)
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Telnet's nice, netcat's better

   Flavio Poletti ([107]anonymous)

   Sending some network traffic from the shell. 

   Some time ago (actually, a long time ago) I needed to send some TCP traffic
   towards a host on a regular basis. So... the only tool I knew was telnet, I
   had no clue about socket programming, and I had to study expect in order to
   get the job done. No need to say, it was a real pain - what else should I
   /expect/? (For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest to
   perform more-than-trivial interaction with some server on ports other than
   the telnet one). 

   Some time later, I learnt socket programming, so I was able to do the job
   inside C and call my program from the shell. But you can bet on it - it was
   some  very  focused  application  and  proved  to give me no help in a
   similar-but-different context. 

   It was then that I discovered netcat.