Colin Walters says that running your own server isn't worth it, unless you have really specialized needs.
I was just thinking about getting a domain of my own, dusting off my old desktop and setting it up as a server for my email and website. Plus assorted revision control repositories for my toy projects, backups, etc.
I think I'll do it. Perhaps a year later I'll be able to tell if it was worth it.
Bitlbee is the best thing ever! apt-get install bitlbee, open a new server tab in X-Chat, connect to localhost and there's a friendly bot that walks you through the configuration of this incredible IRC to instant messaging gateway. I can now use Jabber painlessly!
There's a nice litte program called xsel. It lets you access the X Window System selection and clipboard from the command line. It is incredibly useful for a Unix geek like me.
$ xsel|grep -i error
The above shows me all the lines that mention 'error' from my selection. Useful when a command produces oodles of output after several minutes of intense computation, and you realize that you should've redirected the output to a file.
