If you just installed Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 (any version actually, but these are the 2 I've tested this on), you may notice that opening gedit, the default text editor in Ubuntu, takes a long time. When I say a long time, I mean anywhere from 3 to 10 seconds. To make gedit open a lot faster, do the following:

In gedit, go to Edit > Preferences > Plugins

Disable "File Browser Panel" plugin (this is the one causing the delayed start)

While you're at it, disable any other plugins that you don't need

For more info on the File Browser Panel plugin and what it does, see this link:

https://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins/FileBrowser