Correcting time problems in Kubuntu

After a serious misstep during a Grub correction, I installed a base install over my existing install. This resulted in network configuration going away and timezone problems. I fixed the network configuration easily enough, but the timezone stuff drove me crazy.

I finally found a post referencing the command tzconfig, which resolved my problems. Run it as follows:

$ sudo tzconfig

It will ask about your timezone and magically correct problems. My problems were with the desktop clock, the timestamp on Pidgin messages and the creation times of files created with Eclipse.

Adding default startup applications to Kubuntu

I wanted to have my gmail notifier start up with KDE on my Kubuntu 7.04 installation, so I Googled how to do it. Although the post I found was either incorrect or outdated, it let me down the right path.

To add a startup application, go to your .kde directory, then to the Autostart directory. In here, create a soft link to the application you wish to start.

$ cd
$ cd .kde
$ cd Autostart
$ ln -s /usr/bin/checkgmail checkgmail

Log out and login again and you should see the checkgmail application start.

Additionally, the checkgmail application is a Linux taskbar tool that monitors (unfortunately) one gmail account for new mail. Very much like the one Google makes for Win/Mac users. Highly recommended.

How to make Firefox built-in search open a new browser tab

I wanted to make Firefox 2's search window open a new tab rather then updating the current tab with the search results. After searching far and wide, I found that entering about:config in the address area brings up a geeky browser configuration page.

The setting I wanted was:

browser.search.openintab

Double-click that entry to toggle it from false to true, and you're there.