To discover information about the nodes in a given type. Something I'm cooking up to keep a better eye on important things in Drupal.

get_nodes_statuses.php

<?php
/**
 * To discover information about the nodes in a given type
 * @param  $type a string, choose a content type machine name
 * @return a string
 */
function get_nodes_statuses($type) {
  $result = db_query('SELECT n.nid, n.title, n.changed FROM {node} n WHERE n.type = :type', array(':type' => $type));
  $i = 0;
  if ($result) {
    while ($row = $result->fetchAssoc()) {
      $node_status[$i][] = $row['nid'];
      $node_status[$i][] = $row['title'];
      $node_status[$i][] = date('F j, g:ia' ,$row['changed']);
      $i++;
    }
  }
  $device_lines = "";
  foreach ($node_status as $individual_node) {
      $device_lines .= $individual_node[1] ."\t". $individual_node[2];
  }
  return "total: ". $i ."\ntitle\tlast modified\t\n". $device_lines;
}
?>