Need to work on focusing? Try out the Tea Time timer on Launchpad. You can set up set periods of time. Depending on your work style that might include a timer for when you need to look away from your display, how long you should be in ‘flow’ time hacking on your code (vs. answering emails). Neat, clean app. Love it.


$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teatime/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install teatime-unity


If you’d like to get some nice thumbnails of your OpenOffice/LibreOffice documents, follow these instructions from Webupd8:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flimm/ooo-thumbnailer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ooo-thumbnailer

Once installed, restart Nautilus:

nautilus -q

Nice and simple!

I know how to mess with fstab and get this new internal backup drive to mount automatically, but I’d like to do it with a GUI. Why? Maybe I’m sick but I like using GUI software. But nothing that ships in Ubuntu can help me there. Instead simply install Storage Device Manager from the Software Center (pysdm). It’s free and has what you need to get this done.

Install via Ubuntu Software CenterStorage Device Manager

After installing, open the tool.

One big design flaw, is that you either have to already know everything about the drive to find it in the Partition List, or else, like me, you hunt around for it. When you select the drive in question you’ll be asked if you want to configure the drive now. Click OK.

If you’re just starting with a drive, here’s a tip I found earlier- if you want the drive to show up in the Devices list in Nautilus, mount it at /media, otherwise use /mnt. I chose /mnt/Backup and clicked Apply. All set! I’m hopeful that this type of functionality will eventually be built into the stock Disk Utility app that ships with Ubuntu, but this works for now.