Improved notify for long running terminal tasks

gistfile1.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

# I tried the notify script at http://www.simplicidade.org/notes/archives/2007/08/tip_use_growlno.html but
# I always received errors with it. Not being a bash guy, I wrote mine in python.

# To use this, just save it as something like "n" in your bin/, mark it as executable and prepend it to 
# whatever you plan on calling. For example.
# nj rm -rf blah 

import sys
from subprocess import call
from tempfile import TemporaryFile

with TemporaryFile() as stdout:
    with TemporaryFile() as stderr:
        out = call(sys.argv[1:], stdout=stdout, stderr=stderr)
        cmd = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])[:80]
        if out == 0:
            stdout.seek(0)
            allout = stdout.read()
            call(["notify-send", "'%s' finished" % cmd, allout[:120]])
        else:
            stderr.seek(0)
            allout = stderr.read()
            call(["notify-send", "'%s' FAILED!" % cmd, allout[:120]])
        print allout