Panel indicators for Unity

If you just want the system load indicator panel applet back just use this.

A whole lot more applets are listed in this answer.

Pretty JSON and Dark Ubuntu

Do get Eclipse using a dark theme to match dark background syntax highlighting plugin you need to set the gtk theme using myunity (from this answer on SO).

Pretty printing JSON with bash using just Python:

echo '{"foo": "lorem", "bar": "ipsum"}' | python -mjson.tool

Pretty JSON using an add-on in Firefox.

Using NodeJS and the pretty-data module to make a simple shell script.

Mp3s

So out of box install of Ubuntu 12.04 now includes mp3 encoding (as well as decoding using fluendo decoder).

But theres this issue with VBR encoding (which is set in default gstreamer pipeline for mp3 encoding). And yes its been open just over 6 years!

Still I learnt about a handy tool called "mp3check" (and id3v2), exactly the kind of toold I'd been looking after for ages.

Of course the correct solution is to use a decent cdripper like the cli-based abcde.

Getting Android Emulator accelerated

On Ubuntu 10.04 or later install KVM as follows:

1. sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin ubuntu-vm-builder bridge-utils
2. install 2.3.3 Intel Atom Image via Android SDK Manager
3. run:   emulator-x86 -avd <avd_name> -nosound -qemu -m 1024 -enable-kvm

NOTE:  the -nosound is necessary due to current bug with android emulator on Ubuntu