This will remove GDM from the startup scripts, meaning you can still fire up the graphical interface (*) if you want, but it will start Ubuntu without loading any graphics stuff. This is very useful to save on RAM, startup time and processing power, which even if not that useful for a desktop machine is incredible beneficial when you have several virtual machines running in a single physical server.

(*) More precisely, if you have users that need it. Remember though, if it can’t be done in console mode, it ain’t worth doing.

Using something called Compa you can add a meta-widget, that will display the output of any CLI program. This means, of course, that you have all the power of the console to use in your custom made widgets. Need to check your laptop’s battery? No need to search for a widget anymore, just cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state. Need to check the weather? Just wget your favorite forecast page and parse it with grep, sed an awk. OK, maybe that’s a little bit too much.

Once more this proves that anything can be done in console mode – and whatever you can’t isn’t worth doing anyway.

(*) Wow, this article has been written a LONG time ago!

If you are on Windows I think you have to install a new map, and then guess where the key would be. Or use an alt+something magic spell. In Ubuntu, it works by default you just need to add a compose key, Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > Options > compose key position, select right alt (or whatever you fancy), there you go, now it works. Try it by typing alt + ‘ + a.

Why TF is regedit still used in Gnome? I’d switch to KDE, if only I wasn’t so lazy.

Say what?
I know what you are thinking. “Why the hell did I eat so much cake?”. And probably something like “WTF? Monitor temperature? Mine is running cool, k thx bye” too. The monitor temperature (color temperature, to be more accurate) is the percieved temperature of an object emiting light at the specific wavelength of that color:

So, a blueish color means a higher temperature, and it’s the natural ambience light color you see during the day. Towards the night the color temperature begins too cool down towards a more orange color. This is the temperature Redshift changes.

So what?
Fair question. After a couple million years our brains got used to seeing a hot color temperature during the day (do I have any reader that old?) so staring at a blue monitor all day will keep you awake all night long, the theory being that switching its temperature towards a reder color will help you sleep at night.

Does it work?
Probably not, but that doesn’t make it any less cool (pun not intended). I think if you fine-tune this app to your sleeping hours it may be of some use, because otherwise you’ll get a very dark screen at 5pm (don’t you people know the timezone in Argentina is FOOBAR’d).

To fix this problem (more like hacking it away, actually) I keep a handy bash script in the top left corner on my desktop:

Also, as I have two nice rotable monitors at work it’s nice that now Ubuntu supports actually rotating the picture displayed in the monitor (thanks Ubuntu for coming up to speed… with windows 98, that is). Obviously I keep another script for this, as it doesn’t really work by default:

Even though I love bashing Ubuntu (and bash) I’m quite confident most, if not all, of this issues will be gone in future versions of the OS.

* Right click the file for which you want to change default associations and click properties
* Select “open with” tab
* …
* Profit!

Someone recommended me Inconsolata as a nice programming font (it’s monospaced). I’m using it right now and it’s not bad. Let’s see how can you install it:

Easy and it looks even better when used with gVim. You can go to Edit > Select font to change the font preference, however this won’t set a new default for the next time you start gVim. To do this we need to add it to the .vimrc, and again, to do this we need to know the font’s name.

Type “:set guifont?” to see the font’s name. In my case it’s “Inconsolata Medium 14″ (I changed size and type). Now add the following to your .vimrc:

Notice I added a backslash before the spaces, otherwise Vim will try to parse Medium and 14 as separated parameters to “Inconsolata”, which obviously won’t understand. Have fun with your new fonts.

Fortunately, in Ubuntu JJ having a dual screen setup is a breeze. Just plug the two monitors and hope it works. Of course, it may not. If that’s the case you can go to System > Preferences > Screen for a nice GUI, which will let you select each screen’s resolution and position. Nothing better for productivity than having your monitors swapped, or even better, flipped upside down.

Well, sometimes “Screen Preferences” won’t work either, too bad. In that’ case you’ll have to get dirty with xrandr. It’s not too difficult but it’s console based (you’re not scared of the console, are you?).

Though the man page for xrandr is a little bit intimidating at first you’ll just have to do it once, so I won’t write about using it, I will just copy & paste a script I keep in my desktop to fix the screen whenever it brakes (my lapop tends to foobar my screen when being docked or undocked, not sure why)

I am sure you can figure out the rest on your own – enjoy the dual screen setup!

Now, gnome keyboard shortcuts already have defined actions, so how can we change them to invoke  a custom command? Easy enough:

1. Open gconf-editor
2. Go to apps > metacity > keybinding_commands
3. Set a command from the list. In my case I’m going to set command_1 to “mocp -S”, command_2 to “mocp -f” and command_3 to “mocp -r”
4. Go to apps > metacity > global_keybinding
5. Set the corresponding run_command_* to the keyboard shortcut. For me that’s 0xA2 for run_command_1, 0xE9 for run_command_2 and 0xEA for run_command_3; beware it changes between keyboards.

Troubleshooting tips:

• If you use gconf-editor for a key binding don’t use it again System > Preferences > Key bindings
• For hex value keybindings (like the ones I used on the example) use uppercase
• If it’s not working and you can’t figure out why try with an already working command and a simple keybinding (e.g. gnome-screenshot and <Ctrl>p) then change each one in turn, see where it breaks. Divide and conquer!!