a feature i would like to see added to the grep family of commands (that is, to all of them) is the ability to specify a limit of how much of the file to scan for matching patterns/expressions. this would not be like the -m NUM/--max-count=NUM option, which counts what is actually matched. the limit i want to also see is effectively a limit of the size of the file. after this much of the file has been read, grep should behave as if the file ended. this would be the number of bytes unless the...

i've been "doing" computers since around 1970 and professionally since 1979, back when mainframes were my thing. i tried some smaller computers, too. most were text. i did try an Apple II and it had some graphical stuff but i mostly did things on it with text commands. through the years, the graphical user interface has improved enough that it is pretty much used by most people for most things, not counting the times people type in their text messages, email, or their LQ blog posts....

too many businesses block email to tech support even when they send responses to you by email. you know that "noreply@example.com" email address. if they have a way to manage support tickets, then they can include email responses.

give tech support a subdomain like support.example.com. then have the mail server accept email addresses to "<ticketnumber>-<code>@support.example.com". make that be the reply address. that way customers can use either...

sometimes i encounter situations where i am putting a command in where i cannot use I/O redirection.

when i am providing a command as token words to a program or other command, using redirection may not work or be understood. the command may be read by the program or be provided in arguments on the command line that runs the program. for example it could be running the provided command somewhere else like a different directory, different user, or different host. maybe the redirection...

Base 57 is the smallest base that can represent 64 bits in just 11 characters. many programmers use higher base values to do this. that forces the use of a larger set of characters that must be used. if you choose base 62 instead of base 64 you avoid the use of special characters. so you can use just letters and number for your 11 encoded digits. with base 57 you can remove 5 characters that look similar to others. for example you might use just one character of 0, O and o instead of all 3...