HTNet - A Notepad of Tech, Business, Science and Self Improvement

Dell is to announce the sale of computers preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux. Prior to the announcement, Direct2Dell published an overview of what customers can expect from this offering.

I think that Ubuntu is an excellent distro to be shipped as standard OEM OS. I’ve been using Ubuntu exclusively at home for more than two weeks, and needless to say, I’m totally smitten! It is by far the easiest Linux distribution to get up and running.

At first, I’m a bit annoyed by the weird sudo setup Ubuntu uses. However, it’s just a matter of getting myself adjusted with how to work with the distro. I’ll be very honest here, I don’t really miss Slackware that much.

I believe that Dell’s move to ship preinstalled Ubuntu systems will be a success. It’s a win-win situation for both the Linux community and Dell in the making.

Anthony of Antbag.com has written a wonderful piece on how to organise your desktop for productivity.

The idea is simple:

1. Segment your desktop into a few visually distinguishable areas
2. Label the areas accordingly
3. Only place files that are relevant to the category of a particular area

A damn ingenius idea if you ask me!

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 21 May 2007: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today simultaneously launched the fastest microprocessor ever built and an ultra-powerful new computer server that leverages the chip’s many breakthroughs in energy conservation and virtualization technology. The new server is the first ever to hold all four major benchmark speed records for business and technical performance.

Read the rest of IBM Unveils World’s Fastest Processor »

I received a packet of Phuc Long (that is the brand name, I kid you not!) Royal Special coffee from a friend of my father who visited Vietnam recently. Now, the instantly distinguishable packaging comes with a filter set… something I’ve never seen before.

Read the rest of Review: Phuc Long Royal Special Coffee »

Do not fear the shell! If you have SSH enabled web hosting, you should use it to upgrade your WordPress installation. Believe it or not, it only consists of a few steps (note that the instructions below assume that WP is installed in ~/public_html/):

1. Login via SSH to your host
2. Go to a temporary directory: cd /tmp
3. Grab the latest WP archive: wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
4. Extract the archive contents: tar xzf latest.tar.gz
5. You should now see a wordpress directory extracted in the currect location, go in it: cd wordpress/
6. Copy the default themes to your WP install’s wp-content/themes directory: cp -R wp-content/themes/* ~/public_html/wp-content/themes/
7. Copy the bundled plugins (Hello Dolly and Akismet) to your WP install’s wp-content/plugins directory: cp -R wp-content/plugins/* ~/public_html/wp-content/plugins/
8. Delete the wp-content directory: rm -rf wp-content/
9. Copy all other files and directories of the new version onto the WP installation path (overwriting the older ones): cp -R * ~/public_html/

To complete the process, run the WP upgrade script at http://yoursite/wp-admin/upgrade.php.

That’s it! Enjoy your upgraded WP!