Ubuntu System Clock setting for UTC

Ubuntu live CD installs assuming the system clock is UTC. If you dual boot to windows (which assumes local timezone) you will get a shifted time in windows. To change this after Ubuntu installs go to /etc/default/rcS and modify the line that says: UTC=yes setting it to no. Now when you reboot it will treat the bios clock as local time and all can live in happy time.

Gnome Menu Files

while trying to setup a new system I wanted to copy some menu settings I had. Alacarte is a great tool, but as with most gui tools get tedious when you have multiple similar actions. So after digging around I found the two directories of interest: ~/.config/menus and ~/.local/share/applications.

The menus directory has an XML file called applications.menu which contains the structure and points to *.desktop launchers in the ~/.local/share/applications directory.

copying the desired files from these directories should re-create your menus on the new system.

Read your EXT2/3 partitions from Windows

I Found this driver for the linux ext2 filesystem. It makes transfering files to and from your dual boot machine very easy.