When you’ve been with Ubuntu a while, the little reminders of Windows can be a source of mild irritation. I mean, what is one to do with the Windows Key in Ubuntu? Well, as it happens, here’s what, thanks to How-to-geek:

Ubuntu has a dropdown menu at the top of the screen to launch applications, which is very similar to the way Windows has the start menu at the bottom of the screen. If you are a windows user new to Ubuntu, you may prefer to have the windows key launch the applications menu. Thankfully this is an easy thing to do in Ubuntu.

Go to the details at How-To-Geek here

I’ve just installed the latest Wordpress for a friend, and it’s a beauty but there are a few things to trip up the unwary, especially if you haven’t upgraded to the latest Flash in Ubuntu. There are postings around the net about the best way to do this, but the Flash site itself is the simplest, I think. Just click on Installation instructions and you should have installed in a few minutes.

That’s step one. The extra code that should go into the .htaccess files is at B Space.

And finally, there is a curious and annoying quirk that distorts thumbnail images.

If you don’t want your thumbnails to get distorted, you need to change WordPress 2.5’s default setting before you upload your photos into the media manager. Go to Settings > Miscellaneous and UNcheck the “Crop thumbnail to exact dimensions (normally thumbnails are proportional)” box.

Thanks to Sillybean.net for that one.

Yes, I’ll upgrade my own Wordpress sites asap, as while every radical new design entails a learning curve, this one will be worth it, I think. But do see to the above caveats first.

The Irish Linux User Group will be having a PoTD (Pint of the Day) to celebrate the birth of Hardy Heron, on 1st May 2008 in the Long Stone Pub, Townsend Street, central Dublin. (map to the venue) 18:30 or so onwards

IrishTeam/HardyReleaseParty (see ILUG post about PoTD)
The Long Stone Pub

This bug has been plagueing me and a lot of others for some time. As I mentioned in Hardy Heron Countdown, below,
the desktop fails to load properly every nine boots or so. It’s usually though not always accompanied by this bug notice:

click on image to enlarge

I got fed-up putting up with it (especially as while it’s usually ok after a restart, sometimes I’m forced to take out power, including battery, before it restarts properly), so I went hunting the bug.
It’s described at http://bugzilla.gnome.org

gnome-session does not wait long enough for dbus-daemon to start

Apparently, this is what happens

dbus-daemon starts, then dies on SIGPIPE. This results in all dbus-dependent
desktop components to either die (SIGABRT) or misbehave.

Expected results:
dbus-daemon should continue to run for the life of the GNOME session.

Does this happen every time?
No, but in GNOME 2.17, it is much more likely to happen.

As the version of Gnome which comes with Ubuntu Hardy Heron is 2.22, let’s hope that this particular nuisance is gone for good.

I’m not yet sure whether to do a clean install or simply upgrade to the new Ubuntu.
If you have the same dilemma, check this out at HowtoForge

What to do after you install is covered by Tombuntu