I normally use terminals to navigate through directories in my computer. I often have to remember the executable filename of different applications to open files. Like to open a pdf file I have to remember evince, for an audio or video file – vlc. But its really difficult to remember executable filenames for all types of files. For example I don’t remember how to open a .xls file from command line.

There’s a command which open files using GNOME file handlers – “gnome-open”. Now, when I have to open any file I just type in “gnome-open <filename>”. Simple !

To make things more simple I have made an alias ‘go’ for ‘gnome-open’. Now opening a file from terminal is as easy as typing “go <filename>” in terminal.