Terminals in the Cave


I’m a big fan of having a very clean desktop, as a part of The Cave, which is an idea I picked up from Rands.

Author in Cave

Author Safely Ensconced in Cave

A part of having a good workspace, for me, is having a very clean desktop. I run everything as lightly as I can get it because the goal — the thing that brings about  good work, is to establish a place where everything drifts away but the project that you’re on. For me that means putting away IRC, instant messaging, Twitter and email for most of the day and just allowing for one or two really basic windows that I can use. Otherwise, an 8-hour workday can easily produce less than fifteen minutes of actual progress while still feeling exhausting.

Not everybody runs Linux on the desktop, of course, but those of us who do often enjoy a good tight terminal setup. For me, aterm fits the bill quite nicely. Running on a dark, single-color background with the following options produces very nice results:

/usr/bin/aterm -bg black -fg white +tr +trsb -fade 60 -bl +sb -font font1

What do other people do to enhance their productivity on the desktop? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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March 6th, 2009
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Grant Sperry
Posted on:
March 10, 2009 at 9:29 am

I absolutely agree with the need to focus and having techniques to effectively do that. A recent blog post I read addresses some additional strategies for how to attend to your “real” work instead of only reacting to the stuff that seems pressing at the immediate moment: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/02/how_to_mitigate_the_urgent_to.html?cm_mmc=npv--WEEKLY_HOTLIST--MAR_2009-_-HOTLIST0305

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Vadim P
Posted on:
April 26, 2009 at 5:37 pm

Compiz here :)

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Randy Cosby
Posted on:
May 15, 2009 at 1:23 pm

I like Compiz ADD mode. It all just fades into the background if you shouldn’t be looking at it right now.