That command is pretty long, and typing it out would probably get on my nerves. You can use an alias to effectively shorten it. Here’s how we’ll do that, also at the command line…

Let’s say we want to be able to type in lock, to lock the screen. If I just type in lock, I get nothing. So I need to create an alias for this command. An alias is just like what it sounds like. It’s assigning another name to a certain command. At the command line enter…

gedit .bashrc


There’s a certain section of this file that talks about aliases. You can add this line of text to that section of the file…


alias lock='gnome-screensaver-command --lock'


This tells Ubuntu that when you type in lock, it executes gnome-screensaver-command –lock. Click the Save button and close the text editor. The next time you login, the change will have taken effect. Try it out and see how you like it.

Here’s what it should look like…

Open Evolution from the  Applications > Office menu.

Click on Calenders in the bottom left corner.

Double-click on a date and/or time where you want to place an appointment. A dialog box will open up, fill in the details and click Save to make an appointment.

Click on the time & date on your upper toolbar, in the upper right hand corner of the screen. You’ll see a calender drop down. You’ll notice that whatever day you have put a calender event will be in bold text.

Click on that day, and you’ll get a little display of your appointments for that day.

That’s it, all very quick, and without having to open you calender application.

Here’s what it will look like when you click on a day that you have an appointment scheduled.

Download the automatic installer file here, the sourceforge page for hplip. Once downloaded follow the instructions on the download page to complete the installation. It will download some more stuff, and then install everything. It will also configure your HP printer. Now you’ll have the HP Device Manager in the Accessories menu, and you’ll also have nice, smooth printing.

sudo apt-get install aptoncd

Now that you have it installed you can find it in System > Administration > APTonCD.

Upon opening it up you’re greeted with 2 options. To make a backup of your programs, click Create.

Now you simply check everything you want to make a backup of (everything is checked by default). A right-click gives check all, and uncheck all options. Click Burn to begin the backup process.

APTonCD has created an *.iso image of your packages ready to be burnt onto a CD or DVD. You can then choose your burning application. I just use the default nautilus cd burner.

Now choose whether you want a CD, or DVD, and the name of your image. The box marked Create a meta-package is a useful tool. It will create a little package on the disc that you can then use upon installation to install every package at once without having to select each and every one of them.

Choose your drive, and write speed. A lower speed will allow a greater chance for disc integrity, I always use 4x. That’s it, your backup disc will be done shortly. Later, we’ll cover how to install or restore from this disc.

First of all, you must be logged in as a user with administrative privileges.

Then you need to open a text editor with administrative rights. Here’s a simple way to do it.

Hit ALT+F2 to open a ‘Run Application’ dialog box.

Type in… gksudo gedit /etc/hosts

Press Enter, & type in your password, and the file will open.

Add one line to the end of the file for each site you want to block, like this…

0.0.0.0 www.example.com

Note that there is a space between the 0.0.0.0 & the web site address. This will tell you computer to look for www.example.com at the ip address of 0.0.0.0. It won’t be there of course, and they won’t be able to get to the website. This can be done with any site, and with any number of sites. Just keep adding lines to that file. Once you’re finished modifying the file, click the Save button. The changes will take effect upon your next boot up, and the changes will affect every user on the computer. You can even find pre-made hosts file online that will block a lot of advertising that pops up while online.

Here’s what the file should look like if you want to block MySpace & Worldcat…

If you type a line that begins with a “#”, the computer will ignore that line, like my line “# Blocked web sites by How To Ubuntu”

The quickest and easiest way to do this is to simply hit CTRL+ALT+L. This will automatically lock your screen, and start the screensaver. If, however, you don’t want to use that keyboard combination, there are other ways to do this. In this case, you’ll need to bring up this box, and choose the Lock Screen option.

You can bring this box up a few different ways. You can also hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, or you can go to the System menu and select Quit, or you can click on the Exit icon on the taskbar. If someone tries to wake your computer up from the screensaver, this is what they’ll see…

If they don’t have your password, they won’t get into your system. They can login as a different user, and this won’t affect what you’re doing. When that other user logs out, the machine will just go back to yourscreensaver. Another nice little feature is the ability for someone to leave you a message when your machine is locked. All they have to do is click the Leave Message box after they wake it from the screensaver. They type their message, hit Save, and leave. When you come back & login, that message is displayed in the lower right hand corner of the screen until you close it. Very cool!

Notice the non-darkened area

Zoomed in view

[digg=http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_to_lock_your_screen_in_Ubuntu]

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sudo apt-get install rkhunter

That’ll download & install the software.  It gets run from the command line, and you can see how to use it by executing the help feature…

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rkhunter

You will also want to update it’s definitions file…

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sudo rkhunter – -update

Now you have an up to date, root kit detection application.