Various simple scripts for Linux:

Network

• essids: print a list of available wireless ESSIDs and their signal strength
• externalip: print external IP address (as seen from outside the NAT router)
• gateway: print network gateway IP address
• ipaddr: print IP address
• macaddr: print MAC address
• netdev: print network device name

MATE desktop scripts

In the MATE desktop environment, scripts in the ~/.config/caja/scripts directory can be invoked on the desktop, or in the Caja file browser, by right-clicking on selected files, then clicking on Scripts, then on the particular script.

• Resize_images resizes one or more images to the maximum desired dimension. The resized images are placed in a subdirectory named resized_to_N, where N is the maximum dimension.

• Rotate_images rotates one or more images by the selected number of degrees (a multiple of 90). The original images are replaced by the rotated images.

Miscellaneous

• cookies : convert Firefox's cookies.sqlite format to Netscape cookies
• detab - filter to changes tabs to spaces
• diskusers : print summary every ten seconds of processes using disk
• dupefiles : recursively search a directory for duplicate files
• excuse-generator : generate a random excuse
• filesbetween: find files with modification times in a date range
• firefox-dpms : disable screensaver when Firefox plays sounds/videos
• mdump: hexadecimal file dumper
• redirect.cgi: CGI script to allow censored URLs to be posted on Reddit and Twitter
• trackpoint : set sensitivity, speed, drift time, and acceleration of ThinkPad TrackPoint

Ogg Vorbis scripts

There are four Ruby scripts here related to tagging and ripping Ogg Vorbis files:

• cdmakealbum: Create an album description file from a CD
• oggalbum: Tag a set of Ogg Vorbis files using an album description file
• oggmakealbum: Create an album description file from a set of Ogg Vorbis files
• oggripalbum: Rip a CD info a set of Ogg Vorbis files

Tagging Ogg Vorbis files

The scripts oggalbum and oggmakealbum make it easier (for me, at least) to edit the comment tags in Ogg Vorbis audio files. I dislike using GUI tools for this purpose, so these scripts use (or create) album description files, which are plain text and easy to edit. The scripts also support the tagging needed for classical music, which differs from pop music in these ways:

• the performer and composer are not usually the same
• a single album might have several works
• a single album might have several performers

These requirements are met with the use of the following tags, which are recognized by the Classical Music Tagger app for Android:

• GROUPING: the name of a work, which may be composed of several tracks
• SUBTITLE: the subtitle of the work's name
• ARTIST: the performer
• COMPOSER: the composer

Here is a sample album descriptor for a CD that has two works:

ALBUM=Piano Quartets CD 1 - Domus
DATE=1988
ARTIST=Domus
GENRE=Classical
TRACKTOTAL=8
COMPOSER=Johannes Brahms
GROUPING=Piano Quartet No. 1 in g minor
SUBTITLE=Opus 25
01 - No.1 G Minor Op.25 -I- Allegro.ogg=I. Allegro
02 - No.1 G Minor Op.25 -II- Intermezzo. Allegro (ma non troppo).ogg=II. Intermezzo
03 - No.1 G Minor Op.25 -III- Andante con moto.ogg=III. Andante
04 - No.1 G Minor Op.25 -IV- Rondo alla Zingarese. Presto.ogg=IV. Rondo alla Zingarese
GROUPING=Piano Quartet No. 3 in c minor
SUBTITLE=Opus 60
05 - No.3 C Minor Op.60 -I- Allegro non troppo.ogg=I. Allegro non troppo
06 - No.3 C Minor Op.60 -II- Scherzo. Allegro.ogg=II. Scherzo. Allegro
07 - No.3 C Minor Op.60 -III- Andante.ogg=III. Andante
08 - No.3 C Minor Op.60 -IV- Finale. Allegro comodo.ogg=IV. Finale. Allegro comodo

There are two types of lines in the album description:

• A track descriptor in the form filename.ogg=title
• A tag in the form TAG=VALUE

Tags do not need to be specified for each track; instead, all previously seen tags are applied to the current track. You only need to specify tags that are going to change for the following tracks. We can see that in the example above, where there are two works, and the GROUPING and SUBTITLE tags are changed just before the list of tracks for the second work.

To change the tags for a set of Ogg Vorbis files, use oggalbum <albumfile> where <albumfile> is an album descriptor file, as shown above. (I typically use the filename album.txt for album descriptors.)

To generate an album descriptor from a set of Ogg Vorbis files, use oggalbum file.... You can use wildcard filenames, but be aware that that the sort order of the filenames may not be the same as the track order. To prevent this problem when ripping an album, make sure that the first characters in the filename are the track number. The ripping scripts described below can help with this.

Ripping Ogg Vorbis files

Use the scripts cdmakealbum and oggripalbum to rip a CD into Ogg Vorbis files.

First use cdmakealbum to create a first cut at an album descriptor file. This script reads the CD in the /dev/cdrom device and queries two online music databases (Gnudb and MusicBrainz) for album and track information. It then prints the equivalent album descriptors for all the discs found in these databases. This can result in multiple descriptors being printed, but this is useful because these databases often have incorrect or missing information, and you can edit the output to create a suitable album descriptor.

By default, cdmakealbum generates track listings in which the filenames consists of the track number, followed by the track title, and terminated with .ogg. This scheme ensures that the filename sort order will be the same as the track number sort order. Use the -f option to change the way the filename is constructed. You can also edit the resulting album descriptor manually to use any naming convention you choose, perhaps to simplify or shorten the filenames.

Once you have a good album descriptor in a file (which I typically name album.txt), use the script oggripalbum to rip the CD tracks into a set of Ogg Vorbis files. The tags specified in the album descriptor will be applied to the Ogg files. You can check this by running oggmakealbum *.ogg after the ripping is done; the result should be identical with the album descriptor file.