Using GNOME Terminal Custom Commands

There are numerous terminal session managers and profile managers, etc... for use by people [typically network and system administrators] who have to SSH or telnet to lots of hosts.   But most of these aren't packages or very well maintained - fortunately there is an almost stealth solution built into the familiar gnome-terminal application.
Multiple profiles can be created in gnome-terminal and profiles can be assigned to "Run a custom command instread of my shell";  this command can be anything.  So that profile can automatically telnet or SSH to another host, potentiall even launch an application on that host (such as firing up GNU screen).

The defined profiles are conveniently available in "Files" / "Open Terminal" and "File" / "Open Tab" menu.  Simply create a profile for each host or device that you typically jump on to. If SSH is in use the automatic tie-in to the GNOME passphrase and keyring will kick in.
Generally you don't want a terminal emulator to grab your keystrokes - you want them to go to the application or session.  Under gnome-terminal's "Edit" / "Keyboard Shortcuts" you can enable F10 to activate the ring-menu which will allow you to conveniently navigate to profiles using just the keyboard.

Sound Converter

A common issue is to have an audio file in one format at to need it in another for compatibility with some specific application or device.  And how to covert the file and know the quality of the result, etc...?  Well... there is a simple application called ... wait for it .... "soundconverter".  It is packaged for just about every distribution and available on openSUSE through the normal repositories.  How obvious can it get?  Apparently not so obvious I couldn't have overlooked it for a long long time.

The soundconverter application.

With soundconverter you can convert between FLAC, MP3, OGG, and WAV.  Add the files you want to covert, use preferences to select the output format, and away you go.  Nice job.

All those SQLite databases...

Many current application use the SQLite database for tracking information; this includes F-Spot, Banshee, Hamster, Evolution, and others.  Even the WebKit component uses SQLite [you might be surprised to discover ~/.local/share/webkit/databases].  It is wonderfully efficient that there is one common local data storage technique all these applications can use,  especially since it is one that is managable using a universally known dialect [SQL]. But there is a dark-side to SQLite.  Much like old Dbase databases it needs to be vacuumed.  And how reliably are all those applications providing their little databases with the required affection?  Also, do you trust those lazy developers to have dealt with the condition of a corrupted database?   If an application hangs, or is slow, or doesn't open... maybe that little database is corrupted?

Aside: As a system administrator for almost two decades I do not trust developers. They still put error messages in applications like "File not found!".  Argh!

On the other hand SQLite provides a handy means of performing an integrity check on databases - the "PRAGMA integrity_check" command.  I've watched a few of these little databases and discovered that (a) they aren't often all that little, and (b) manually performing a VACUUM may dramatically reduce their on-disk size.  Both these facts indicate that developers are lazy and should not be trusted.

Note: in at least one of these cases the application has subsequently been improved. Developers do respond rather quickly when offered a blend of compliments spiced with bug reports.  No, I'm not going to name offending applications as that is too easily used as fodder by nattering nabobs.  And even the laziest Open Source developer is working harder than their proprietary brothers.

In light of this situation my solution is a hack - a Python script [download] that crawls around looking for SQLite databases.  First the script attempts to open the database in exclusive mode, then it performs an integrity check, and if that succeeds it performs a vacuum operation.  Currently it looks for databases in "~/.local/share" [where it will find databases managed by application appropriately following the XDG specification], "~/.cache", "~/.pki", "~/.rcc", and "~/.config".
Download the script and run it. Worst thing that happens is that it accomplishes nothing.  On the other hand it might recover some disk space, improve application performance, or reveal a busted database.

Disabling GNOME Automount

When you connect a mass storage device to a computer running the GNOME desktop environment it automatically mounts the device in /media and places a short-cut to the device on your desktop.  This is an excellent default behavior;  but if you are working with various devices sometimes it can get in the way.  To correctly disable this feature simply execute:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/media_automount false

The devices will still appear in computer:/// (in nautilus) where you can right click on them to select the mount action if and when you want them to be mounted.  If and when you want to re-enable to auto-mounting feature execute:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/media_automount true