I'm using Gnome v 2.8.2. Among the Gnome applets available to be added to my top or bottom panel is one called "Stock Ticker". I'd like to use that applet, but I'd only like to have it open while the stock exchange is open. At other times I'd like to have it closed. I added the applet to one of my panels and then configured it as I liked. I then removed it and re-added it (without having shut my computer down in the interim). On re-adding the applet, I discovered that all of the preferences I'd earlier set for it had disappeared. If, on the other hand, I shut down my computer without having removed the applet and then restarted it, the applet re-appeared with all of my preferences intact. I read a lot of material about Gconf, its GUI editor and gconftool-2. By playing around with those things, I discovered the following: the Stock Ticker applet gets assigned a number when added to the panel, say, applet_3. If I remove the applet and then re-add it, it comes back as applet_4. That's the reason, no doubt, why my preferences disappear when I close the applet--they were attached to applet_3 only. Applet_4's preferences are the default ones for whenever the Stock Ticker's first opened. I need a way to change the default preferences for the Stock Ticker so that, whenever it's opened, it opens with my preferences, not the built-in ones, but finding it's beyond me. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can change the Stock Ticker's default preferences permanently, so that, each time it's opened, it opens with my preferences?