Vertical Resolution problems on netbook

[gf_gollum]

I've spent the holiday weekend installing Ubuntu on my MSI Wind netbook. It was pretty easy, and with help of google all my devices are up and running. HOWEVER..
Several of the apps I have tried to install are just too big for the 600 vertical resolution of my netbook. The "widgets" used to build the UI seem to be very generous with space around the text and icons. Despite reducing my screen font dpi to a mere 80 dpi - several config dialogues are too "spaced out" to be useable (e.g. bluefish editor preferences panel)

Question: Is there a way to either "compress up" the border spaces in Gnome UI's, or perhaps switch into a virtual 1024x768 (or higher) resolution and scroll around a virtual window (like you can on Windows XP)

Thx
Graham
kernal 2.6.30-02063003-generic (#02063003 SMP Sat Jul 25 10:57:13 UTC 2009)
GCC 4.3.3 (i486-linux-gnu)
gnome2.26.1 (Ubuntu 2009-05-06)
ext4 filesystem

[earthpigg]

hi,

not a solution, but a workaround:

if you hold alt down, you can click and drag anywhere on a non-maximised window to move it around. this will allow you to see options and whatnot that are off the top/bottom of the screen.

[gf_gollum]

Great workaround tip - i didn't know that.. 1 up to Ubuntu over XP!
If anyone has answers to the screen res version of the question - I'm still interested too.
Thx
Graham