I'm using the command line extensively, with plenty of black terminals side by side in my tiling window manager I was looking for something that helps distinguish remote shells (via ssh) from my local shells.

Introducing one of my favorite tricks: Changing the background color of the terminal while running an ssh session.

function ssh() {
  dbus-send --session /net/sf/roxterm/Options net.sf.roxterm.Options.SetColourScheme string:$ROXTERM_ID string:Tango
  /usr/bin/ssh $@
  dbus-send --session /net/sf/roxterm/Options net.sf.roxterm.Options.SetColourScheme string:$ROXTERM_ID string:Default
}

In my setup I'm using zsh and roxterm, but I'm sure it'll work for other tools as well if you adjust it to yours.