If you used the Windows shell a lot, you would likely have used the "start" command to launch an explorer window from the command prompt. The same can be easily done with Nautilus in Ubuntu. Create a shell script with the following content (in my case /opt/bin/browse.sh):

echo "nohup nautilus $1 2> /dev/null > /dev/null &" > /opt/bin/browse.sh
nohup is used so that the new process runs in the background and all output is discarded.

Make the file executable:

chmod ug+x /opt/bin/browse.sh

To make the script accessible you can do one of two things:
Either add an alias to your .bashrc file

echo "alias browse='/opt/bin/browse.sh'" >> ~/.bashrc

or Add a symbolic link to the /usr/bin directory:

sudo ln -s /opt/bin/browse.sh /usr/bin/browse

Usage: browse [target-directory]

Install xmlstarlet (download from http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/ or on ubuntu sudo apt-get install xmlstarlet).

Let's look at a simple XML file (menu.xml):

<BREAKFAST_MENU>
<FOOD NAME="Belgian Waffles" PRICE="$5.95">
<DESCRIPTION>two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup</DESCRIPTION>
<CALORIES>650</CALORIES>
</FOOD>
<FOOD NAME="Strawberry Belgian Waffles" PRICE="$7.95">
<DESCRIPTION>light Belgian waffles covered with strawberries and whipped cream</DESCRIPTION>
<CALORIES>900</CALORIES>
</FOOD>
</BREAKFAST_MENU>

Convert the XML to PYX:

The new file will now look like this:

(BREAKFAST_MENU
-\n\t
(FOOD
ANAME Belgian Waffles
APRICE $5.95
-\n\t\t
(DESCRIPTION
-two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup
)DESCRIPTION
-\n\t\t
(CALORIES
-650
)CALORIES
-\n\t
)FOOD
-\n\t
(FOOD
ANAME Strawberry Belgian Waffles
APRICE $7.95
-\n\t\t
(DESCRIPTION
-light Belgian waffles covered with strawberries and whipped cream
)DESCRIPTION
-\n\t\t
(CALORIES
-900
)CALORIES
-\n\t
)FOOD
-\n
)BREAKFAST_MENU

Now we need to convert the lines beginning with "(" and ")" to lower case, and the first word of the lines beginning with an "A" (except the first "A").

cat menu.pyx | awk '{if (/^\(/) print tolower($0); else if (/^\)/) print tolower($0); else if (/^A/) print substr($0, 1, 1) tolower(substr($0, 2, index($0, " ")-1)) substr($0, index($0, " ")+1); else print $0; }' > menu.tmp

We now have the converted PYX file and this can be convert back to XML

That's it, we have the converted XML file:

<breakfast_menu>
<food name="Belgian Waffles" price="$5.95">
<description>two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup</description>
<calories>650</calories>
</food>
<food name="Strawberry Belgian Waffles" price="$7.95">
<description>light Belgian waffles covered with strawberries and whipped cream</description>
<calories>900</calories>
</food>
</breakfast_menu>

The cat command is one of the most frequently used commands on Linux/Unix like operating systems. Needless to say it could also be very useful on your Windows system.

Here is the C# code to create your own cat command...

Program.cs:

using System;

namespace cat {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            if (null != args && args.Length > 0) {
                foreach (string arg in args) {
                    if (System.IO.File.Exists(arg)) {
                        Console.Write(System.IO.File.ReadAllText(arg));
                        Console.Write(Environment.NewLine);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The usage should be mostly the same as with it’s Unix counterpart.

To learn more see The cat Command.