I like to set up my Ubuntu workstation to automatically log into my account and then immediately lock the screen. This allows all my processes to start up and also allows me to VNC into the main console session via the Remote Desktop (vino) server. There are a few ways to set this up:

First, set up auto-login:
System > Administration > Login Window > Security tab
Check ‘Enable Automatic Login’ and choose your username. Click ‘Close’.

As for locking the screen after login, you can try adding the following command to System > Preferences > Sessions:
gnome-screensaver-command --lock
or
xdg-screensaver lock

I found that these commands worked for me when logging in and out of the box. However, I found that they did not work for me when I rebooted my workstation. If any of the other commands listed Sessions utilize gnome-keyring, such as ‘mail-notification’, the gnome-keyring password prompt seems to keep the screen from being locked. To work around this, I created a script called ‘lockstartup’. This script does the following:

1. Pauses for 10 seconds (a step I found necessary in order to get the script to work correctly)
2. Locks the screen
3. Pauses for another 10 seconds (again, a step I found necessary)
4. Starts any applications that use gnome-keyring

Here is what my script looks like:

#!/bin/sh
sleep 10
xdg-screensaver lock
sleep 10
mail-notification

After you save the script, make it executable:
$ chmod +x lockstartup

And then add it to System > Preferences > Sessions. If you reboot, you should be automatically logged in and then see the screen lock. Once you unlock the screen you should be presented with the gnome-keyring password prompt.

I am using this on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. I have not tested this on any other releases.

Here is the syntax to ignore a user in the Xchat IRC application:
/ignore nick!*@* all

Replace ‘nick’ with the nick of the user you want to ignore.

GoDaddy offers free ad-supported web hosting for any domain you register through them. The hosting is the same as their pay Linux Shared Hosting plans, except that they inject a banner advertisement into the top of every page.

I was able to manually install WordPress onto one of my sites that uses this free hosting, however I found that the WordPress RSS feed was broken. When you go to the default address for a Wordpress RSS feed (http://www.domain.com/feed), the page is addressed by a web browser with a mime type of ‘text/html’, even though it is actually an XML document. This results in the GoDaddy ad banner being injected into the XML document, thus invalidating the XML and breaking the RSS feed. Validators will give error messages like:

XML parsing error: :3:0: xml declaration not at start of external entity
Blank line before XML declaration
XML parsing error: <unknown>:199:7: not well-formed (invalid token)

I came up with a workaround that fixes this, here is a summary:
1. Install a plugin that changes the RSS feed paths
2. Write a script to download and cleanup the broken RSS XML files
3. Set up a cron job to update RSS twice an hour

1. Install a plugin that changes the RSS feed paths
Download and install the Feed Locations plugin. Once you enable it, you can access the settings for it in Admin by clicking Tools > Feed Locations. In the configuration screen, I set my feed locations for each feed type to these values:

RSS .92:  http://www.domain.com/rss/rss.xml
RDF (aka RSS 1.0):  http://www.domain.com/rss/rdf.xml
RSS 2.0:  http://www.domain.com/rss/feed.xml
Atom 0.3:  http://www.domain.com/rss/atom.xml
Comments RSS feed:  http://www.domain.com/rss/comments.xml

2. Write a script to download and cleanup the broken RSS XML files
Here is the script file I use to do the rss downloading and code cleanup. I call it ‘rssfeed.sh’. Modify BLOGADDRESS and FEEDPATH to the correct values for your hosting account:

#!/bin/sh
BLOGADDRESS=http://www.domain.com
FEEDPATH=/home/content/d/o/m/domain/html/rss

# NOTHING BELOW THIS LINE SHOULD NEED MODIFIED
# --------------------------------------------
FEEDFILE=${FEEDPATH}/feed.xml
RSSFILE=${FEEDPATH}/rss.xml
RDFFILE=${FEEDPATH}/rdf.xml
ATOMFILE=${FEEDPATH}/atom.xml
COMMENTSFILE=${FEEDPATH}/comments.xml
UBUNTUFILE=${FEEDPATH}/ubuntu.xml


# Remove existing FEEDFILE if it exists
if [ -f ${FEEDFILE} ];
then
   rm ${FEEDFILE}
fi
# Download broken FEEDFILE
wget -q ${BLOGADDRESS}/feed/ -O ${FEEDFILE}
# Remove blank line from beginning of file that breaks FEEDFILE
tail -n +2 ${FEEDFILE} > ${FEEDFILE}1
# Remove GoDaddy code injection from end of file that break FEEDFILE
head -n -2 ${FEEDFILE}1 > ${FEEDFILE}2
# Delete temp file
rm ${FEEDFILE}1
# Update feed url to use new feed.xml address
sed 's/\/feed\/\" rel=\"self\" type=\"application\/rss+xml\" \/>/\/rss\/feed.xml\" rel=\"self\" type=\"application\/rss+xml\" \/>/' ${FEEDFILE}2 >${FEEDFILE}
# Delete temp file
rm ${FEEDFILE}2


# Remove existing RSSFILE if it exists
if [ -f ${RSSFILE} ];
then
   rm ${RSSFILE}
fi
# Download broken RSSFILE
wget -q ${BLOGADDRESS}/feed/rss/ -O ${RSSFILE}
# Remove blank line from beginning of file that breaks RSSFILE
tail -n +2 ${RSSFILE} > ${RSSFILE}1
# Remove GoDaddy code injection from end of file that break RSSFILE
head -n -2 ${RSSFILE}1 > ${RSSFILE}
# Delete temp file
rm ${RSSFILE}1


# Remove existing RDFFILE if it exists
if [ -f ${RDFFILE} ];
then
   rm ${RDFFILE}
fi
# Download broken RDFFILE
wget -q ${BLOGADDRESS}/feed/rdf/ -O ${RDFFILE}
# Remove blank line from beginning of file that breaks RDFFILE
tail -n +2 ${RDFFILE} > ${RDFFILE}1
# Remove GoDaddy code injection from end of file that break RDFFILE
head -n -2 ${RDFFILE}1 > ${RDFFILE}
# Delete temp file
rm ${RDFFILE}1


# Remove existing ATOMFILE if it exists
if [ -f ${ATOMFILE} ];
then
   rm ${ATOMFILE}
fi
# Download broken ATOMFILE
wget -q ${BLOGADDRESS}/feed/atom/ -O ${ATOMFILE}
# Remove blank line from beginning of file that breaks ATOMFILE
tail -n +2 ${ATOMFILE} > ${ATOMFILE}1
# Remove GoDaddy code injection from end of file that break ATOMFILE
head -n -2 ${ATOMFILE}1 > ${ATOMFILE}2
# Delete temp file
rm ${ATOMFILE}1
# Update feed url to use new feed.xml address
sed 's/\/feed\/atom\/" \/>/\/rss\/atom.xml" \/>/' ${ATOMFILE}2 >${ATOMFILE}
# Delete temp file
rm ${ATOMFILE}2


# Remove existing COMMENTSFILE if it exists
if [ -f ${COMMENTSFILE} ];
then
   rm ${COMMENTSFILE}
fi
# Download broken COMMENTSFILE
wget -q ${BLOGADDRESS}/comments/feed/ -O ${COMMENTSFILE}
## Remove blank line from beginning of file that breaks COMMENTSFILE
tail -n +2 ${COMMENTSFILE} > ${COMMENTSFILE}1
# Remove GoDaddy code injection from end of file that break COMMENTSFILE
head -n -2 ${COMMENTSFILE}1 > ${COMMENTSFILE}2
# Delete temp file
rm ${COMMENTSFILE}1
# Update feed url to use new comments.xml address
sed 's/\/comments\/feed\/\" rel=\"self\" type=\"application\/rss+xml\" \/>/\/rss\/comments.xml\" rel=\"self\" type=\"application\/rss+xml\" \/>/' ${COMMENTSFILE}2 >${COMMENTSFILE}
# Delete temp file
rm ${COMMENTSFILE}2

In your webspace, create a directory called ’scripts’ and a directory called ‘rss’. Once you’ve created ‘rssfeed.sh’, upload it to the ’scripts’ directory. Make the file executable – you can do this with your FTP client by setting the permissions to 755, or you can do this in the file manager that GoDaddy provides.

3. Set up a cron job to update RSS twice an hour
Log into your GoDaddy hosting control panel:
http://www.godaddy.com
Click Hosting > My Hosting Accounts > Manage Accounts

Click Content > Cron Manager > Create Cron Job

Cron Job Title: Update Feed
Command: Browse to the /scripts/rssfeed.sh file that you created
Frequency: Hourly
Minute: x:00
Click Custom.
Checkmark “Run twice an hour”
Click Save.

Note – my cron job didn’t start working as scheduled right away, it took some time for the job to go into effect and start processing for me.

Once you complete all these steps you should have working RSS that updates every 30 minutes. Your main RSS feed address (RSS 2.0) will be http://www.domain.com/feed/feed.xml. You can test it by clicking the RSS icon that shows up in your Firefox address bar when you visit your blog.

Note – These instructions assume that the address for your blog is the root of your domain (http://www.domain.com/). Replace all instances of ‘domain.com’ with your actual web address. If you blog resides in a different directory, such as http://www.domain.com/blog/, you should adjust all paths accordingly (http://www.domain.com/blog/feed/feed.xml for example).