If you use “gedit”, go to Edit → Preferences → Editor and select “Insert spaces instead of tabs”. Also change the tab width to 4.

To type ~ on Italian layout: Right-Alt + Ì (located 2nd the right of 0)

If networking doesn't work in the Virtual Box: 1) Make sure networking works on the laptop itself. 2) In the Virtual Box, right click on the network icon, disable networking and re-enable it.

IPython (a very good substitute for the Python shell) is set up by default for a black background. To fix the colours, type `%colors LightBG`, or change your terminal background to black.

Make the Virtual Machine full screen. Click “Enter fullscreen mode” in the Machine menu of the Virtual Box.

To use runsnakerun: python /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/runsnakerun/runsnake.py

To run coverage analysis with the installed (old) version of coverage.py:

Nosetests is an easy way to run tests. Install it using apt-get install python-nose. Then, simply do nosetests myfile.py to run tests, or nosetests –with-doctest myfile.py to also run doctests.