drupal core upgrade - how to

When I started using drupal, I wasn't sure the best way to upgrade drupal core.  I tried untarring files directly over the present directory, or untarring locally and then using an sftp client to transfer directory by directory, but wasn't sure the best way.

The chapter three method described in this blog post seems easiest:

1. down load new drupal core file, untar the file outside the web directory (in your home directory for example), and cd into that directory.

2. use find and cp to find all files and then copy them.  Two commands, the first just echos what would happen, so that you can confirm everything is going in the right place, then the second actually copies the files:

find * -type f -exec echo cp {} /path/to/www/{} \;   # this just echos the commands
find * -type f -exec cp {} /path/to/www/{} \;   # this just echos the  commands