Normally I wouldn't create a tip to tout a bit of software, but this one is too good to pass up. It's a tiny clipboard history manager named ClipX. Instead of alt-tabbing back and forth between windows copying bits and pasting them you can copy everything you need and then alt-tab over and ctrl+shift+v and hit the number of the entry you want to paste.

Link: http://www.bluemars.org/clipx/

Add the following to your ~/.inputrc:

"\e[5~": history-search-backward
"\e[6~": history-search-forward

And of course, in order to use your ~/.inputrc you need to set your INPUTRC environment variable in ~/.bash_profile:

export INPUTRC=$HOME/.inputrc

The next time you login you will be able to run "gvim <pageup>" and the last entry that started with "gvim " will appear, <pageup> again will bring the next one up, and so on.

Note that escape codes for PageUp and PageDown vary depending on your terminal type; check out this tip for a technique on how to find out what your terminal expects.