Group Policy Preferences makes it possible to reap the biggest benefits of an Active Directory environment by simplifying client management. Control Panel Settings help facilitate this.

Tip of the Trade: ssh-agent makes it possible to avoid having to type in a passphrase for each login. Helpfully, since the Leopard release on Mac OS X this functionality is built straight in.

Tip of the Trade: Indentation may seem an insignificant step when coding, but Vim makes it automatic with its indent option, indentexpr. This powerful yet flexible tool indents based on expression.

Tip of the Trade: Sometimes you want to use a "do-not-reply" type of email address and you don't want to have to mass-delete the mailbox at intervals. Here's an easy way to add a Postfix virtual alias to /dev/null.

Tip of the Trade: Want vim to share newlines? You're only two characters away.

Tip of the Trade: When it comes to Linux, Google Chrome may be far from gold, but it sure is shiny -- and fast.

Tip of the Trade: If df and du are getting you down, consider Baobab. This graphical alternative, installed by default in most Gnome-based Linux distros, gives you a clear picture of your disk usage.

Tip of the Trade: Juliet Kemp discovers and explores Topics in the mailing list server, Mailman. With Topics, subscribing to a list becomes more than an all or nothing proposition.

Group Policy Preferences makes it possible to reap the biggest benefit of an Active Directory environment -- simpler client management.

Tip of the Trade: There's much to love about Screen. Besides enabling cutting and pasting, the utility can be used to monitor a window for output, mirror another session, lock the screen and more.

Tip of the Trade: Mouse-clicks may be synonymous with cut-and-paste, but in a non-graphical environment, they won't help you. Enter Screen, which among its many useful tricks, enables non-graphical cut-and-paste.

Tip of the Trade: Mailing reminders to yourself is an easy way to remember something that easily slips your mind. Using Cron with mail is one way to facilitate this.

Sometimes you need Web access but don’t want a graphical browser. Here are three programs, some of which you probably already have, to get you started.

Tip of the Trade: With exuberant-ctags you can take advantage of any IDE's source code navigation features -- without ever leaving the comfort zone of Emacs or Vim.

Tip of the Trade: Meet apt -- the best-kept secret for keeping up with the Debian release cycle.

The new version of Group Policy Management Console, while not a significant departure from its problematic predecessor, offers various notable and useful improvements.

Tip of the Trade: A little color on the command line makes things easier to read.

Sender Policy Framework aims to stop spam in its tracks. How successful has it been?

Whenever an OS adds a killer feature, it's time to sit up and strike a pose. OpenSolaris' Time Slider is a prime example. The graphical tool provides a window into the OS's powerful snapshot feature.

Tip of the Trade: An adapted version of ConnectBot makes it easier to access email on your mobile devices using Mutt and SSH.

Cover Your Assets: The NAS in FreeNAS doesn't stand for Nice and Simple, but it could. Here's one DIY project that's too much of a cost savings -- in time and money -- to pass up.

Tip of the Trade: MultiTail makes it possible to watch two files simultaneously in real-time.

Tip of the Trade: Atop makes it easy to keep on top of system monitoring. This useful tool displays system load information alongside process information in a style similar to top.

Tip of the Trade: Screen brings multiple console screens to the same window, enabling several tasks to be performed simultaneously and simplifying troubleshooting.

Tip of the Trade: Think command line precludes using the X clipboard? Think again. xclip makes it possible to interact with it directly from the command-line -- if you're using Debian or Ubuntu.