Tutorials

In the Windows environment, keyboard shortcuts help us get things done more efficiently, without wasting time using the mouse to navigate. Part of the difficulty in migrating to Ubuntu is that many of the old Windows shortcuts don't work anymore. In this post, I've hunted out some useful keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate Ubuntu more professionally.

1. Lock the screen

You'll want to lock your screen when you're away from your machine for any length of time - it's common sense security. Simply press CTRL+ALT+L and the screensaver will activate, requiring your password to unlock.

If another user wants to use the machine, they can log on without affecting your session.

2. Flip between workspaces

Ubuntu allows you to use virtual workspaces, so you can arrange different applications between these workspaces. Possibly most useful whenever you want to work on something confidential or you want to keep your web browser/IM tools seperate from your wordprocessing and office applications.

Drupal's default way of displaying categories really bugs me. They compile all the categories into an unordered list, which adds a lot of pointless complexity to the theme.

Coming from the WordPress school, I'd much prefer to have a comma-separated list of categories. Well, after an epic battle with my node.tpl.php file and much searching on the Interwebs, I've come up with a solution. It's based heavily on a code snippet used in this Lullabot article.

Essentially, what we need to do is parse through all the terms, build a link for each taxonomy term and then use the implode function to build the comma separated list. Here's a sample of the code I'm using:

Because Ubuntu is a free operating system, they don't feel the need to shove the version in your face in quite the same way their commercial counterparts do. So, when you're on the threshold of doing an upgrade, it's nice to know what version you're upgrading from.

There's a quick, command based way to discover what version of Ubuntu you're using:

cat /etc/issue

Alternatively, for a more detailed output, try this command:

cat /etc/lsb-release

This will return the version of Ubuntu that you're currently using. I used it prior to upgrading, and also after the upgrade to verify that everything had been successful.

Sweet! A new version of Ubuntu is always an exciting occassion: the release schedule is always way more frequent than Windows, and there's always some fascinating development that makes the upgrade worth your while.

So, tonight I'm upgrading my older version of Ubuntu from 8.10 to the latest release, which is 9.04. Otherwise known as Jaunty Jackalope, although the emphasis on animal names seems to be significantly played down on this version.

With this edition, the upgrade process is its easiest ever. Here's a quick step-by-step showing you how to upgrade your version of Ubuntu over the Internet:

Here's another quick Drupal 6 tip: if you have the Update Status module enabled, you can get notifications by email when updated modules for your site are available.

This is a handy thing to have, particularly for security updates. As I understand it, the Update Status module periodically checks against the Drupal website (on each cron run) and will notify you if updates are available. I think it only checks activated modules though, so if there are updates to inactive modules, it won't notify you.

If you've ever installed the TinyMCE module for Drupal (or indeed the WYSIWYG module which seems to be the preferred way forward), you'll have noticed that the default font size is miniscule. My first concern as a web designer is usability. How hard is it to read and edit?