A while ago I was perusing the Google help files and found a cool little tidbit. It didn’t really hit me right away how useful it could be. Once I started to use it, I wondered how I got by not having it before. What I am babbling on about is Gmail’s ability to handle aliases. These are variations of your email address, not totally different email addresses, going to a common inbox.

The main idea behind using aliases in Gmail is to help you automate organizing incoming emails. Most people I know have separate folders for different people or projects. When an email is received, it eventually gets manually moved to the folder in which it belongs. Some who use desktop programs like Mail or Outlook may have rules set up. Few people however, take the time for this with their web based email accounts. This is one of the reasons people spend so much time dealing with email everyday.

One thing that gets debated over and over in Linux is the need for the command line. Many say that you should never need to access a command prompt to get things done, others are of the opinion that the power of the Linux shell is one of the things that makes Linux so great. While I would fall into the latter category, I can certainly understand why people can get frustrated with having to learn complex and seemingly obscure commands to get their computer to work right. Even if you hate the command line, you often have no choice but to open it once in a while to get the job done. Today, we’ll be covering various ways to make it a little easier to navigate.