So I wrote a little script (or a template for scripts) that runs the sudo job in the background (but preserves stdout/stderr) and relies on bash to clean up the job when you ^C the script. Only gotcha with this is that you may have to retype your sudo password when you ^C if your authentication has timed out by the time you get around to killing it.

#!/bin/bash

function cleanup()
{
    sudo kill $job_pid
    wait $job_pid
    exit 0
}

trap cleanup SIGTERM
trap cleanup SIGINT

sudo long_running_foreground_process &
job_pid=$!
wait

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http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Elm+St,+ Manchester,+NH+03101&daddr=%s&output=html

[Formatted here for readability. Put it all on one line with no spaces.]

Edit the properties so that the “saddr=” part is your start address. Change the keyword to “gm”. This is set to only output simple HTML (no map). If you want the full map, remove the &output=html on the end.

Now, when you need to get a quick idea of how long it is going to take you to get somewhere, open a new tab and type “gm city, state”.

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