Here are some random things I find useful, related to user interaction (mostly becuase it notifies the user):
Oven timer:
sleep $((20*60)); xmessage "Dinner is done"
Quick macro for automating some repetitive task in a program:
xdotool type "something"; xdotool key Return; xdotool mousemove $x $y; xdotool click 1; (and so on)
Copying a file to/from the clipboard (can also copy from
xclip -in file
Notifying me when some specific thing changed on a website:
CHECKLINE="$(curl -s http://somewebsite.org/somepage.html | grep "currently undergoing maintenence")"
while true; do
sleep 120
[ -z "$CHECKLINE" ] && xmessage "somewebsite is open again" && exit
done
Or just checking for changes in general (I use this for notifying me when something changed when tracking something I ordered, so I know the minute the package is ready to get picked up at the post office):
while true; do
OLD_MD5=${MD5}
CONTENT=$(elinks -dump 1 -dump-charset iso-8859-1 "http://someurl.com/track?id=someid")
MD5=$(echo -n $CONTENT | md5sum -)
[ "${MD5}" != "${OLD_MD5}" ] && {
xmessage "$(printf "New action:
}
sleep 120
done
If you don't want to interrupt what you're doing with a pop-up you can pipe it to osd_cat instead to have the text appear over whatever program you're currently working with. Adding a few beep; beep; beep; beep; is also a good way to get your attention if you're not paying 100% attention to your computer all the time.
The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.