diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 9c81777..3d125c5 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
 tags
 *.pyc
 *~
+*.tar.gz
+*.patch
diff --git a/autojump b/autojump
index 7a2702d..8fe7618 100755
--- a/autojump
+++ b/autojump
@@ -141,6 +141,13 @@ def open_dic(dic_file, error_recovery=False):
             return open_dic(dic_file, True)
         else: return {} #if everything fails, return an empty file
 
+def get_dic_file():
+    if CONFIG_DIR == os.path.expanduser("~"):
+        dic_file = CONFIG_DIR+"/.autojump_py"
+    else:
+        dic_file = CONFIG_DIR+"/autojump_py"
+    return dic_file
+
 def shell_utility():
     """Run this when autojump is called as a shell utility"""
     try:
@@ -150,10 +157,7 @@ def shell_utility():
         print("Unknown command line argument: %s" % ex)
         exit(1)
 
-    if CONFIG_DIR == os.path.expanduser("~"):
-        dic_file = CONFIG_DIR+"/.autojump_py"
-    else:
-        dic_file = CONFIG_DIR+"/autojump_py"
+    dic_file = get_dic_file()
     path_dict = open_dic(dic_file)
     if ('-a', '') in optlist:
         # The home dir can be reached quickly by "cd"
diff --git a/autojump.py b/autojump.py
new file mode 120000
index 0000000..ee78df4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/autojump.py
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+autojump
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/jumpapplet b/jumpapplet
index 4b44826..a4dfc2e 100755
--- a/jumpapplet
+++ b/jumpapplet
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import sys
 import pygtk
 pygtk.require('2.0')
 import gtk
+from autojump import open_dic,get_dic_file
 
 defaults={}
 actions={}
@@ -57,19 +58,11 @@ def has_child_file(filename):
     return wrapper
 
 #do the work
-def load_paths(filename="~/.autojump_py",maxpath=10):
-    dic_file=os.path.expanduser(filename)
-
-    try:
-        aj_file=open(dic_file)
-        path_dict=cPickle.load(aj_file)
-        aj_file.close()
-        path_dict=path_dict.items()
-        path_dict.sort(key=lambda x: x[1],reverse=True)
-
-        return [path for path,score in path_dict[:maxpath]]
-    except IOError:
-        return []
+def load_paths(maxpath=10):
+    path_dict=open_dic(get_dic_file())
+    path_dict=path_dict.items()
+    path_dict.sort(key=lambda x: x[1],reverse=True)
+    return [path for path,score in path_dict[:maxpath]]
 
 def load_settings_file(filename="~/.jumpapplet_py"):
     print "loading settings"