Since I use Ubuntu every day, this wasn't much of a challenge for me. Here you can see that there is no software updates icon (it went away when I clicked it and did the updates), the syllabus I prepared for the course (my homework), and my printers. The printer configuration, like most other system-wide stuff, is on the "system" menu.

On the right side of the image you can also see my Google calendar, Twitux (twitter client) and music playing in Amarok.