Ubuntu Panels

For ages I've meant to install Ubuntu and give Linux a good go as my main OS. I've tried in the past, but always end up reverting to Windows for one reason or another. So when I started using Ubuntu at work in a VM, I started to become familiar with it.
I've found that I keep removing all Panels from the top 'status bar' in Ubuntu when all I wanted to do was remove one part. This would leave me with noting at the top but the Application, Places & System menus. To recover from this situation I run the following commands from a Terminal window:

gconftool-2 --shutdown && rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel && pkill gnome-panel

or for speed, as a single command like so:

gconftool-2 --shutdown && rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel && pkill gnome-panel

I hope this helps others too!

(I got this from a Google search, but can't remember which site it was from).