• Right-click empty space on your desktop to create NEW SHORTCUT
• Enter “%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder” in the LOCATION field and click NEXT
• Name the new shortcut “Recycle Bin” and click FINISH
• Right-click the new shortcut and select PROPERTIES
• In the SHORTCUT tab, click CHANGE ICON
• You can use the opaque Recycle Bin icon shown here, or find the transparent one in “%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll“
• Click APPLY and OK where appropriate
• You can now pin (drag-n-drop) a copy of this new Recycle Bin shortcut to your Task Bar
• You can safely delete the Desktop copy of the new shortcut without affecting the pinned copy

You can optionally remove the default Recycle Bin icon from your Desktop as well:

• Right-click empty space on your Desktop, and select PERSONALIZE
• Click the CHANGE DESKTOP ICONS link
• In the DESKTOP ICONS tab, uncheck any icons you don’t want to appear on your Desktop
• Click APPLY and OK where appropriate

If UAC is enabled in Vista or 7, use a command shell with elevated rights before proceeding. Once you have the appropriate command shell available:

• X:\>netstat -a | Display connections and ports
• X:\>netstat -n | Display IP addresses in numeric form
• X:\>netstat -f | Display FQDNs
• X:\>netstat -b | Display binary associated with connection
• X:\>netstat -o | Display PID associated with connection
• X:\>netstat -r | Display local route tables
• X:\>netstat -es | Display ethernet and protocol statistics
• X:\>netstat -h | Display HELP and optional hooks

If you require elevated rights to execute binaries in a Windows Vista or 7 command shell:

• Click START
• Type “cmd” but do not press [ENTER] key
• Right-click the “cmd.exe” icon in the Search Results list
• Select “RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR” and satisfy any UAC prompts you may have
• You should now have an open command shell with elevated rights
• When finished using the shell, you can execute the “exit” command to close it

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On the Ubuntu workstation or server, it is assumed you have already setup a folder, partition or filesystem that contains the files you’d like to add to the Windows Media Center collection. On the same Ubuntu machine, install the necessary libraries by running the following commands. You may want to visit the SoundForge Webmin website to determine whether or not a newer version of Webmin exists. As of the date this article was written, Webmin was revved at 1.500.
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If you haven’t previously created or installed a PGP key on the client machine, you can do so by performing the following steps:

• APPLICATIONS -> ACCESSORIES -> PASSWORDS AND ENCRYPTION KEYS
• Click FILE -> NEW -> PGP KEY -> [CONTINUE]
• Enter your name and the email address you’d like the key bound to. Comments are optional but recommended if you plan to submit this key to a public keyserver in the future.
• Under ADVANCED OPTIONS, choose the encryption type. You can choose Elgamal (recommended). Digital-signing-only key types will not allow you to encrypt files.
• Also under ADVANCED OPTIONS, you can choose larger key strength bit sizes which are more secure, but also increase CPU overhead.
• You can also choose to make the key permanent, or choose to have the key auto-expire after a certain date & time.
• Click [CREATE] and set a passphrase for your key. This passphrase is primarily used to authenticate you as the legitimate owner of the private key when decrypting a file. It is not the key itself.
• Depending on how much detectable entropy is occuring on your client machine, the keygen process may take a few minutes. Believe it or not, the more external activity your machine has to perform, the faster the key will be generated.
• Once the keygen process has completed, you should see your new key located under the MY PERSONAL KEYS tab in the PASSWORDS AND ENCRYPTION KEYS application.
• Alternately, you can publish your public keys to keyservers such as hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371 using the REMOTE -> SYNC AND PUBLISH KEYS. This is not required for using local encryption however.

You can now use NAUTILUS to encrypt / decrypt individual files or multiple files in folders or drives on the fly with the RIGHT-CLICK -> ENCRYPT or DECRYPT context menus.

Please note, this does not encrypt folders or drives themselves, merely each file located in a folder or drive individually. For complete drive encryption, please [read this article here].

While UNETBOOTIN works quite well to create bootable USB thumb drives from just about any bootable image, Ubuntu itself has the ability to create other Ubuntu-only bootable drives natively through the STARTUP DISK CREATOR utility. Both use bootable disk images in ISO format, while UNETBOOTIN has additional capabilities. However, if you are looking for a quick and dirty way to create an Ubuntu bootable USB drive, this is much simpler than installing unetbootin.

• You will need an unmounted USB drive with all partitions removed, and an Ubuntu ISO file containing the bootable environment you want to install on the USB drive.
• SYSTEM -> ADMINSTRATION -> USB STARTUP DISK CREATOR
• Browse to the ISO to select it as the source.
• Select the disk or device to use as the target.
• You can choose to discard session files or save them when booting from this new drive.

- Click [CREATE STARTUP DISK]

• Insert a USB drive and unmount it if automount is enabled.
• Install cryptsetup if it isn’t already: $ sudo apt-get install cryptsetup
• SYSTEM -> ADMINISTRATIO -> DISK UTILITY to start PALIMPSEST
• Select the drive and delete any existing partitions.
• In the now unallocated space, enter SIZE, LABEL, FS TYPE values
• Select ENCRYPT UNDERLYING DEVICE checkbox
• Click [CREATE] button
• Enter a new, custom passphrase for this drive
• Once the new partition has been created, you can exit PALIMPSEST.
• You can now use NAUTILUS to SAFELY REMOVE DEVICE or UNMOUNT the USB drive
• Once you reinsert the USB drive, NAUTILUS should automatically prompt you for your LUKS passphrase

Please note you can also use these same steps on an existing LUKS encrypted device to change the passphrase in the future.

To verify integrity of your downloads in Ubuntu from sources that also provide MD5 hashed checksums, compare the value of the downloaded file’s checksum using “md5sum” to the provider’s documented checksum.

$ md5sum [fileName.ext*]

Desktop Drapes is a automated wallpaper changer for your desktop and is available via Synaptic as “drapes”. Once installed the application is available via SYSTEM -> PREFERENCES -> DESKTOP DRAPES. Once you execute the application, it begins as a systray application, not as a window. Right-click the systray icon, and select PREFERENCES. You can choose which images you want to use in your wallpaper rotation, how often you want to rotate, etc.