[globalpanic]

find . -name "file-wildcard" -exec "string" {} ";" -print

is something I use a lot - plus xargs sometimes

[martinced]

I use variations on "find" so often that I've created several little commands "fij" (find in any java source), "fit" (find in any text / org file), "fix" (find in any XML file) etc. which I use all the time

[prakashk]

You might want try `ack` then. (http://betterthangrep.com/).

On Ubuntu/Debian systems, it is packaged as `ack-grep`.