Starting a (generally GUI) application in the background and detaching it as much as possible from the current terminal, so it doesn't quit on a SIGHUP. I have this as a bash script (~/bin/bgrun), but it could pretty easily become an alias or function:
I have the same script, calling it nnohup in my ~/bin folder.
Common GUI programs I often launch from the command line I put an alias in my .bashrc for. e.g.
alias thg="~/bin/nnohup /usr/bin/thg"
alias rabbitvcs="~/bin/nnohup /usr/bin/rabbitvcs"
alias meld="~/bin/nnohup /usr/bin/meld"
alias xnview="~/bin/nnohup /usr/bin/xnview"
alias dolphin="~/bin/nnohup /usr/bin/dolphin"
alias vlc="~/bin/nnohup /usr/bin/vlc"
