diff -uprN freespeech-vr.orig/freespeech.py freespeech-vr/freespeech.py
--- freespeech-vr.orig/freespeech.py	2013-11-06 01:58:51.342161535 +0100
+++ freespeech-vr/freespeech.py	2013-11-06 02:17:00.516072433 +0100
@@ -34,16 +34,15 @@ from send_key import *
 
 """ global variables """
 appname = 'FreeSpeech'
-refdir = 'lm'
+refdir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), 'lm')
 
 # hmmm, where to put files? How about XDG_CONFIG_HOME?
 # This will work on most Linux
-if os.environ.has_key('XDG_CONFIG_HOME'):
+if os.environ.get('XDG_CONFIG_HOME'):
     confhome = os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME']
-    confdir  = os.path.join(confhome, appname)
 else:
-    # todo: determine suitable writable location for other os
-    confdir = refdir
+    confhome = os.path.join(os.environ['HOME'], '.config')
+confdir  = os.path.join(confhome, appname)
 
 # reference files written by this application
 lang_ref= os.path.join(confdir, 'freespeech.ref.txt')
@@ -294,7 +293,7 @@ If new commands don't work click the lea
             self.err('Trouble writing ' + vocab)
         # update the idngram\
         # http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/SLM/toolkit_documentation.html#text2idngram
-        if subprocess.call('text2idngram -vocab ' + vocab + \
+        if subprocess.call('text2idngram -temp /tmp -vocab ' + vocab + \
             ' -n 3 < ' + lang_ref + ' > ' + idngram, shell=True):
             self.err('Trouble writing ' + idngram)