Not really a bash utility, but delegating to this script from vim has been a hug...

Not really a bash utility, but delegating to this script from vim has been a huge timesaver for long running scripts. For instance I can trigger my ruby specs from Vim without vim getting blocked. I wrote a blog post about it here: http://minhajuddin.com/2012/12/25/run-specs-tests-from-withi...

    #!/bin/bash
    #~/.scripts/runinbg
    #Author: Khaja Minhajuddin
    #Script to run a command in background redirecting the
    #STDERR and STDOUT to /tmp/runinbg.log in a background task

    echo "$(date +%Y-%m-%d:%H:%M:%S): started running $@" >> /tmp/runinbg.log
    cmd="$1"
    shift
    $cmd "$@" 1>> /tmp/runinbg.log 2>&1 &
    #comment out the above line and use the line below to get get a notification
    #when the test is complete
    #($cmd "$@" 1>> /tmp/runinbg.log 2>&1; notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$rawcmd")&>/dev/null &