I see a lot of shareware applications out there, and some of them are great, but then some of them make me think how easy it would be to write a simple shell script to do the same thing they do. The primary advantages here are twofold:
1) The script, as opposed to the application, is free.
2) The script can be run from the command-line, and, therefore, remotely.
If either of these advantages are more a concern to you than a pretty wrapper around what is essentially a series of shell commands, then this series will be for you. I have been writing a lot of what I think are pretty useful little scripts. These scripts are stupid simple, and I really make them so I don't have to type out a bunch of commands to do certain things, and so that I don't have to scour man pages for syntax when I invariably forget the proper way to write out a command.
I am by no means an advanced scripter, and I'm sure folks can find lots wrong with my scripts, and lots of ways to do things better. And that's great. I really want to learn more -- and better -- scripting methods. So feel free to leave suggestions on the site in the comments section.
Here is the first of many featured scripts. It's a really simple idea inspired by one of the bajillon shareware dealies out there that does what they call "maintenance:" It runs daily, weekly, and periodic maintenance, it will update your system's prebinding, and it will repair permissions. This script does exactly what many of those apps (essentially, GUI wrappers) do, but instead of giving you buttons and checkboxes, you get to enter text in the shell, which, I promise, will make you feel a hundred times cooler. Well, in the geek sense of the word, anyway.
So here it is, for your pleasure. Look for more scripts on an irregular basis in the near future.