My tip isn't really a tip or trick either - it's the command 'reset' in linux.

Every once in a while, while searching through my files for something specific, I'll accidentally cat the wrong file and send binary data streaming to the screen. Sometimes it exits gracefully, but other times it screws up the display so bad that even the prompt displays as garbage. For nearly two years, the only solution I knew for this problem was to log out and log back in. Even the "experts" I knew did the same thing, so I figured it was just a penalty for my stupid act of catting a binary file. Then I found the reset command. It resets your current terminal and removes the damage you caused by catting the file without forcing you to log out.

While I'm sure this probably isn't anything new to a lot of you, I thought it was very cool and no one ever told me it existed, so I thought I'd pass it on.