Backshift is a deduplicating (variable-sized, content-based blocks), compressing (xz or bz2) backup program. Full saves and incrementals are pretty indistinct other than the amount of data transmitted, somewhat like with "rsync --link-dest" but without the huge number of hardlinks. It also de-duplicates large file content at a granularity of about 2 megabytes on average; there tends to be a unique copy of each file with size less than around 2 megabytes on average.
The "converting binary" suite of programs includes "endian" to determine the "byte sex" of a machine, "byte-swap" to swap bytes between little-endian and big-endian orders, "real-ascii-real" to convert from native reals to ASCII and then back again, an example program that converts a file of variable length records, and "strip-fortran-framing" which can strip off some of the Fortran runtime's record framing for the benefit of language runtimes that do not assume such framing.
DRS Looper is a program for running a list of commands, a certain number of commands at a time. It facilitates a variety of forms of parameterization, including hostnames for ssh or rsync. It features good error checking. Output is saved in one file per command, optionally interleaving output to stdout. It can exit on the first success or failure, or run all commands irrespective of their exit status.