If you haven't noticed, when you hover on the X'mas doodle on Google India's English homepage, you get to see a "Happy Hodiays from Google" written in Hindi. (It's 10.50pm by Indian standard time.) Is it intentional? Maybe Google is trying to be like we Indians—using a mix of English and Hindi in our daily conversations.

Happy Holidays! :)

Portable apps come handy when you are no where near your own Mac but still need to use some of your favourite applications. How can you use an application on someone else's Mac even if it's not installed on it? Portable apps.

Here's a list of some essential portable applications for Mac OS X that you can carry on any portable device such as USB thumb drive, iPod, portable hard drive, memory card, etc. All of these apps can also be saved in your local hard drive so that you can use the application without the need for installation.

Has your Ubuntu system stopped booting after initiating a hard disk error checking? It isn't uncommon to see a disk error message after a forced shut down or crash or power loss.

When you try to boot Ubuntu, it will begin a disk check which will then give you an error message saying "mount of filesystem failed". The message will also say that a maintenance shell will be started. It will also inform you that Control+D will restart the maintenance shell. The system will then stop giving any message, leaving you with a blinking cursor. What to do next?

Installing Wordpress μ—the multi-user version of Wordpress—is quite different from the single-user version. Most people have trouble preparing their localhost server to meet the requirements of having mod_rewrite enabled for the Apache or other Web server. Even if they manage to enable rewrite module for the server, they still get an error message saying:

Warning!

Installing to http://localhost/ is not supported. Please use http://localhost.localdomain/ instead.

Here's simple step-by-step instruction to successfully install Wordpress Mu on your localhost server. For my convenience, I am assuming that you have Apache and know how to install Wordpress locally. 

(Click here to enlarge)
GreyDove is a simple and elegant Wordpress theme with lots of features. It has been designed to provide Wordpress users with a theme that's free but as good as a custom-made theme.The theme is being released under GNU General Public License. (Download GreyDove 1.1.3)

Do you have an extra USB flash drive that is lying idle? Why not convert into a multi-purpose rescue tool?

I have loaded my 2GB pen drive with a stand-alone Slax Linux operating system and several portable Windows applications. Installing Slax on USB is as easy as copying a folder, that's what you actually do. The Linux OS provides me the comfort and safety of my own desktop without having to lug around a heavy laptop. Portable Windows applications allow me to use my applications on PCs that lack the application.

Killer portable applications
Portable versions of most popular Windows applications are available on PortableApps and PenDriveApps. Most of these applications are also available for Mac on FreeSmug. Here is a list of some basic portable applications for your USB drive (list for Mac portable apps in a separate post).

Ubuntu Karmic Koala has been released on Thursday. The latest version of the open source operating system developed by Canonical—Ubuntu 9.10—comes soon after Microsoft launched Windows 7.

The latest version of Ubuntu focuses a lot on cloud computing or Internet-based computing. It also provides users free 2GB online storage. It should also attract those who play a lot of games on computers. Ubuntu has made installing free games easier. It also promises to make sharing of files between two computers easy.

Canonical has also launched a netbook version of Ubuntu 9.10.

Apart from these, it comes with OpenOffice 3.0, Firefox Web browser 3.5, Evolution email client, Empathy for chatting, etc.

How to get/upgrade/install Ubuntu 9.10?
One can get Ubuntu Karmic Koala free of cost by downloading an .iso image (CD image) of the open source operating system and then burning it on a CD.
One can also buy Ubuntu DVDs from Amazon.If you are willing to wait for 6-10 weeks, you can also request free CDs of Ubuntu 9.10 from its ShipIt website.
All existing Ubuntu users can upgrade to the new version by running Update Manager (System-> Administration-> Update Manager). Before upgrading to the latest version, make sure to update your current Ubuntu version.

Learn about Ubuntu installation, applications and other things in these previous posts aggregated on one page to help you switch to Ubuntu.

Do you find yourself checking Facebook very often, may be every hour or even frequently? Yes. You are suffering from Facebook Compulsive Syndrome. Just kidding, but, yes, you are surely addicted to Facebook.

Are you addicted to Facebook?
Here's a list of some basic symptoms of Facebook addiction. If your answer is in affirmative for most of the questions, it's a clear case of addiction.

If your Airtel cellphone's message tone beeped, it could be a tweet.

A few minutes ago my cellphone beeped once, alerting me that I had a message. Who could it be, after 12 at night? I didn't expect it to be a tweet from one of the persons I was following on Twitter.

According to Downforeveryoneorjustme BlogSpot's image servers are down. BlogSpot blogs are, however, down only for me. That means I was correct when I earlier said Blogger's image servers were facing problems. That's the reason why several images are not available on this site. (Updated at 14.00 GMT)

Update (10.13 GMT): Downforeveryoneorjustme says BlogSpot blogs are down only for me. That means I need to check with my Internet service provider. Deleting the content of this post. Sorry for the trouble.