Could anyone recommend a color laser printer for ca. 500 GBP for a small office? Compatibility with Linux and Solaris---essential. BONUS question: should I also buy a monochrome laser for B&W printouts or is an unnecessary overkill when one has a color laser?
posted by noztran on Aug 31, 2009 - 3 answers

I need to pick a seminar/conference/class/training/whatever for work to attend within the next 6 months or so, I have until 10PM to choose, and I have no idea where or what the cool stuff is. It should be at least tangentially related to my job as a Unix Systems Engineer/Python Guy, and preferably within the Northeast (NYC is where I'm located), although feel free to recommend anywhere in the US. [more inside]
posted by Mach5 on Aug 7, 2009 - 3 answers

Why is it OK to have no reserved blocks in ext2 on the Acer Aspire One? [more inside]
posted by Busy Old Fool on Apr 6, 2009 - 4 answers

I have a podcast that downloads as multiple segments over multiple days. Its format arrives as YYYYMMDD_showcode_segment.mp3; so, for example, one download might result in files as 20090323_goofa_01.mp3 through 20090323_goofa_21.mp3, and also within the same download 20090324_goofa_01.mp3 through 20090324_goofa_21.mp3. What I'm looking for is a Unix script (shell, perl, what have you) that would look at a directory and look at what dates are represented there, and let me join all of the segments together by day. I can use mpgtx -j to do the actual joining; I'm looking for the code that would let the script determine what dates are in the directory and then get each day's segments united into a single MP3 for that day's show.
posted by WCityMike on Mar 25, 2009 - 5 answers

I'm looking for a command-line tool that can return a volume value for specific points of time in an MP3 file. [more inside]
posted by joe vrrr on Mar 10, 2009 - 7 answers

Question about changing my terminal prompt (and other matters) in an OS X Bash shell. [more inside]
posted by grumblebee on Oct 15, 2008 - 3 answers

How can I get Quicksilver-style completion in the bash shell? [more inside]
posted by dmd on Jul 11, 2008 - 11 answers

Is there a way that I can access some very old PDF files that are encrypted with a password I cannot remember any longer? I have a system running Mac OS X (Leopard), and I do need to do the decryption myself. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on May 16, 2008 - 12 answers

How do I get bash to automagically execute a line or two of code at login? [more inside]
posted by nakedcodemonkey on Oct 22, 2007 - 25 answers

I would basically like to rip off, wholesale, some command-line script which will provide me a countdown -- only in days. No years, months, minutes, or seconds. Unfortunately, adapting an existing script is beyond my ken. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Sep 27, 2007 - 5 answers

I have Mac OS X, with its Unix underpinnings. I have a number of text files through which I did a search-and-replace. Unfortunately, that altered all of the timestamps on the files. I'm trying to restore things via the "Date Created" info. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Aug 6, 2007 - 12 answers

I saw a really cool unix utility the other day blogged about somewhere, that in addition to some little boring http-ey tasks I can't remember, it also served as a tiny little HTTP-server-in-a-pinch like so: ./magicutil file.tar and boom, http://localhost/file.tar is alive. What was it!? Note: please don't try to find something that can /probably/ do this or show me a cool python script that will - this did some other cool stuff too I can't remember!
posted by floam on Jun 23, 2007 - 9 answers

What's the best media player that works in both OS's in a dual boot setup (XP and Unix) ? [more inside]
posted by philomathoholic on Jan 21, 2007 - 12 answers

How can I use scripting/OS X hacks to notify me in a sweet manner when jobs on remote machines complete? [more inside]
posted by onalark on Oct 15, 2005 - 17 answers