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Disconnect your landline and set up a whitelist on your cell phone:

http://www.howtogeek.com/94523/semisilent-is-a-ringer-white-list-for-android-phones/

There's an equivalent for jailbroken iphones too.

You mean like this? Its been there for over 5 years, its just Windows doesn't need it as much as junctions because its a more directory based than file based OS. Again no big whoop, easy to use, its just that most simply have no need to link to only a file when the OS is more based on directories than file location.

How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast!

http://www.howtogeek.com/98241/how-to-make-the-kindle-fire-silk-browser-actually-fast/

Just send it through the dishwasher: http://www.howtogeek.com/65915/how-to-clean-your-filthy-keyboard-in-the-dishwasher-without-ruining-it/

I don't know about his reg tweaks since according to everything I've read that functionality was removed but don't you worry none friend, old hairyfeet knows how to get around that little PITA and actually give you MORE functionality than it had under XP!

What you need to do is go here and download this little handy dandy freeware tool. this baby will not only remember from 300-10,000 folders (user configurable) but you can even save multiple folders as workspaces and then call them all back up to the original position and view you had set up with a single click! Quite handy when you need multiple folders set certain ways for certain tasks, i found it just wonderful for when i'm editing my multitrack recordings. Just pin it to your tasklists and keep her running, it only uses a few hundred Kb of RAM.

So don't worry friend, there is always more than one way to skin that kitty in Windows!

last i knew greasemonkey scripts could be loaded like addons on chrome[1], there is adblock[2] for chrome as well. I'll give you stumbleupon, I can't seem to find an addon for it, not that I'm really sure what is up with stumbleupon, but there you go.

[1] http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/24790/beginner-guide-for-greasemonkey-scripts-in-google-chrome/
[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb

Or, you know, you could use a toolbar.

Nobody has seen fit to re-introduce the Classic MacOS tab folders. I am disappoint.

You mean like the Quick Launch?

It's a toolbar. You can add more of them. Right click, Toolbars, New Toolbar. You can still do it in Windows 7. Here's instructions on how to put the Quick Launch toolbar back onto the Win7 task bar.

> This is stupid, and I'm not switching to e-books until a reasonably wide selection of books is
> available in an open format from diverse vendors

So, Kindle and PDFs, then?
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32987/how-to-read-pdf-files-on-your-amazon-kindle-version-3/

There, that wasn't too difficult, was it?

Not just them, if you want a nice warm guitar sound for recording tubes in at the very least the pre-amp stage are the way to go. Like I always say "Tubes for the guitarists, solid state for the bass" as it is hard to get the lows we 5 string players hit on a tube without fuzz. Each tech has its uses.

As for TFA, could be it be they no longer have a pony in the race? IBM still sells mainframe and that tech is a hell of a lot older than the PC. Personally I see PCs growing it simply takes a little education of the public. One of the biggest niches I got going right now is HTPCs simply because most folks didn't realize how damned easy it is to hook a modern PC to a TV. and with nice triple and even quad kits starting at $200 it really doesn't take much of an investment to set up what I call a "family center PC" where you have everything from the kids DVD ripped into .avis to the wife's FB games to hubby's shooters in one location.

With Win 7 and Netflix/Hulu loaded up , I recommend the excellent tunerfree MCE all plugged into their new 1080p TV over HDMI with a wireless keyboard/mouse or this excellent Lenovo Keymote you can easily have a damned nice system that will be rock solid and last for MANY years for less than $500.

So there is plenty of market left for PCs, it is simply the PC OEMs haven't been marketing the product well. They have been pushing craptastic laptops because they know they don't last any time at all and thus can get repeat business, but folks are getting tired of spending several hundred every couple of years because those little plastic craptastics burn up or die. As for desktops for the jobs most folks have anything dual or better is "good enough" even for MMOs and the OEMs haven't been advertising how butt simple it is to turn a PC into a media center for in most cases ZERO added cost. I personally advise my customers to let me add a cheap HD48xx just for the superior gaming and HD video trascoding, but nearly every board today can do 1080P over HDMI.

But I don't see PCs going anywhere, if anything I see them growing. Now where once there was one PC you now have several, and thanks to those media tanks like WDTV and Nbox my customers are learning how easy it is to rip their media and have it all in one location which makes them want the more powerful and versatile machines. Hell I watched a customer's 8 year old walk in from school, plop down with the keymote and had her show loaded WMC in seconds. Like her mom said "Having a single machine that is so easy to work that the kids can put on a show while I'm cooking supper? Worth every penny". When she saw how her new Nbox let her hubby have all the kids DVDs loaded into a single box in the kids room to where they wouldn't have to deal with no more crying because the little one scratched Dora again? i thought she was gonna do a happy dance. Having a good HTPC really transforms a house and makes everything "click and go" simple.

So if anything I'd say PCs are gonna grow especially as all those P4s finally die out with XP and folks look to see what kinds of extra features they can get.

The Google Docs Spreadsheet Editor can do the same thing... http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15799/how-to-use-autofill-on-a-google-docs-spreadsheet-quick-tips/

Unfortunately, I don't know how to wrap up a Greasemonkey script for distribution.

If you are running Greasemonkey however, and you have enabled the editor in about:config, you can cut and paste the snippets above to install the script.

Choose "Greasemonkey" from the "Tools" menu in FF and then select "New User Script"

Give it a "Name" and use "http://*.google.com/*" as the Namespace, ignore the "Includes" and "Excludes" and you should get an editor window you can paste the snippet into.

Hope this helps...

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/21478/how-to-bypass-firefox-4.0-betas-incompatible-add-on-error-and-install-extensions-anyway/

You might also edit the plugin itself.

XBMC with Netflix isn't free. Because Silverlight DRM isn't ported to Linux, Netflix playback requires a copy of Windows ($200) or a Macintosh computer ($600). Or has the situation changed since February 2011 when this article was posted?

For you and greand-grand parent's wife, having going through a similar experience myself, allow me to point to a couple of W7 tweaks that are real sanity-savers:

Classic Shell: offers a number of tweaks to Explorer, Start Menu and Internet Explorer (for anyone who cares) that make them work more like XP, list too long to include, check feature list and reflect for a moment on how the supposedly capable UI people at Microsoft could screw up so badly. Opensource, free.

HTGBack: makes backspace move up in explorer rather than "back in history". You know, like if you were browsing an hierarchical structure rather than the web. Opensource, free.

Best thing is that you don't need to fiddle with the registry if you use these.

I wonder if this process would eliminate the screensaver ads that amazon wants to load?

A few quick googles found the answers to the problems you can't seem to figure out. Took all of 10 seconds.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/disable-the-mouse-drag-window-arranging-feature-in-windows-7/

IIS is a very good web server. It's secure, has has almost zero vulnerabilities (and what few there have been have not been critical), and performs well. What is so "shit" about it? No, Search does not use > 1GB of memory. In fact, you can disable search and see that's actually pretty minimal. Your search results are probably from not knowing how to use search functions. But, I'll admit that it's not as powerful as it could be (but that would us a lot more memory. Funny how you complain about mutually exclusive things).

Most of WIndows 7's memory goes to system cache and the DWM (Display Window Manager), but DWM has become a lot more efficient in windows 7 if you are using a a decent driver that supports WDDM 1.1 (a lot of people still use older drivers for some reason, and that's really stupid). WDDM also supports driver crash recovery without killing your GUI apps, something X11 can't do.

No, UAC is not Sudo, but it's 90% of it. There are some philosophical differences between the way UAC and Sudo works, largely because Microsoft has to deal with morons that will click "yes" to anything.

Windows already has built-in secure remote access, both with Remote Desktop and Remote Management (remote command shell). PowerShell already has this built-in. But you wouldn't know that because you don't even know what powershell can do.

The problem with running Windows and OSX on the same hardware is that what you mean is, Windows running on a Mac uses more power. And the reason for that is that Windows doesn't have optimized drivers for the Mac's hardware. This is something Apple guards very closely. They WANT windows to be worse on Mac hardware. And there is absolutely no way that a Hackintosh runs more efficently, because of the emulation required, not to mention the fact that MacOS doesn't support most power management hardware natively in standard PC's.

Event viewer is slow, i agree with you. But it's also a much more powerful tool with advanced searching, categorizing, and management features. I don't like how they did it either, but it's very powerful. Sometimes that level of flexibility reduces performance.

It is much faster if you disable hybrid sleep. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-hybrid-sleep-mode/

Uhhh...you DO know you can go back to Win95 look and appearance if that is your cup o' tea Yes? Here is a handy list that gives you step by step on turning anything off you want and putting classic back if you really want Win98. Why you would want to go back I'll never know, but the nice thing about Windows is it can always be done!

But if you use the above list with Ultimate Windows Tweaker you can customize Win 7 to YOUR way of doing things in just a couple of clicks. like some things but not others? Keep what you like, toss what you don't. This isn't like Apple you know, where you don't get a choice. Hell turn everything off and go back to the Win98 GUI if that makes you happy!

Is this a setting, now? Because when I tried it, you had to hack up a bunch of images as well as change some files somewhere. Wasn't really fun.

No you don't. Click here for instructions with pretty pictures.

Or, just followed the instructions I so thoughtfully copied and pasted

Press Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog box, enter “gconf-editor” in the text field, and click on Run.

The Configuration Editor should pop up.

The key that we want to edit is in apps/metacity/general.

Click on the + button next to the “apps” folder, then beside “metacity” in the list of folders expanded for apps, and then click on the “general” folder.

The button layout can be changed by changing the “button_layout” key. Double-click button_layout to edit it.

Change the text in the Value text field to:

        menu:maximize,minimize,close

Click OK and the change will occur immediately, changing the location of the window buttons in the Configuration Editor.

Note that this ordering of the window buttons is slightly different than the typical order; in previous versions of Ubuntu and in Windows, the minimize button is to the left of the maximize button.

You can change the button_layout string to reflect that ordering, but using the default Ubuntu 10.04 theme, it looks a bit strange.

If you plan to change the theme, or even just the graphics used for the window buttons, then this ordering may be more natural to you.

Here are a couple of alternatives to iTunes. A 2 second search on google would have netted you that much.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29716/heres-five-alternatives-to-itunes-10-for-easily-managing-your-ipod/

http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/27/featured/8-free-alternatives-to-itunes-for-windows.html

Amen, brother. I want the same keypresses to do the same thing every time. Especially for something as simple as the things we're talking about here.

There is a registry setting to have Win7 switch to the MRU window instead of an arbitrary one (
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16334/make-the-taskbar-buttons-switch-to-the-last-active-window-in-windows-7/ ) which means that the geniuses at Microsoft actually considered doing it the right way and rejected it for their bling and flash or whatever justification they had.

Microsoft, I don't want transparent glass aero crap. I want an OS shell that lets me get my work done with the minimal amount of interference from the UI. After you got that down, *then* you can go ahead and add the worthless eye candy in.

My mistake, when I say "Tablet PC", I always have in mind my own "Tablet PC", which is a "laptop" with a swivel touch-screen that folds flat to transform into a "tablet"... Best of both worlds (a bit thick for a tablet, but has a full keyboard when I need it).

::sigh:: My point isn't about what device Google's newest OS is or isn't installed on. My point is that Chrome OS isn't needed at all, and, as you've pointed out, further lends unnecessary fragmentation to the market.

You can install android on your netbook, laptop, tablet, destkop, etc.

You can even purchase Android tablets & netbooks right now.

Sure, Google might not release a chrome OS tablet right now, but that doesn't mean that they won't, or won't let other companies do it. PS. I won't buy a notebook that can't transform into a tablet or vise versa; Other devices just seems like they're missing features for no good reason.

I mentioned "every now and then" - so not talking about the bugs, or specifically this particular alpha release. I'm talking about the direction/design/"dream". They keep moving widgets around for not good enough reasons.

And some time ago, when I looked at 9.10 apparently there was no built-in GUI unified sound mixer: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10964/how-to-fix-sound-issues-in-ubuntu-9.10/

That's very far from "Steve Jobs insanely great" right? In fact that situation is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for a desktop OS. How many years of Ubuntu till 9.10 came out?

Yes the CLI alsamixer is bundled by default in the desktop 9.10 distro, but we're talking _desktop_ OS right? So you can end up with a situation where the mixer is somehow set to zero, you try the default sound volume control via the GUI and it doesn't help - the volume levels are way too low. Turns out you need to run alsamixer and push up the main mixer volume etc. IIRC 10.04 wasn't that great with sound either. Anyone have good news to report for 10.10? Sound "finally works"?

Fact is, stuff like "sound working" should be pretty basic for a "Desktop OS". I don't even recall people having the degree of stupid problems with sound on the Amiga or classic Mac or IIGS or ST. And XP certainly works better than Ubuntu in this area.

Then there's the clipboard: http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1571237

When you copy stuff to a clipboard, it should not vanish just because the original does. Otherwise it is NOT a clipboard. If the current batch of Desktop Linux designers do not think a working clipboard is a core feature for a Desktop GUI then they're sabotaging Desktop Linux as I said.

Lastly, how many of you use their GUIs to run a browser, and "screen" for window management for other stuff. How good really is your GUI if it can't do much better than screen in task management of many tasks? How old is screen.

I do use Ubuntu Linux, but as CLI machines/servers. Works well for that.

But anyone impressed by Ubuntu as a "Desktop Linux", has pretty low standards.

I'm doubtful. When I tried using Ubuntu 9.10 to watch a movie, sound was too soft, so I tried all the GUI sound controls and sound was still either too soft, or clipped (and still soft).

In the end I had to go to the command-line, and run alsamixer and then push the "main-mix" volume up. The default volume somehow was _minimum_. Uh, WTF?

On a "mythical Desktop-Ready Ubuntu" you would just have to click on "the icon" at some system tray, or at worst click on System, Preferences, Sound, and work from there.

In contrast look at the bullshit you have to put up with here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10964/how-to-fix-sound-issues-in-ubuntu-9.10/
Look at the comments there to see more evidence of how crap the situation is.

Perhaps Ubuntu 10.10 is different. But it's a bad sign if a Linux distro that positions itself as a Desktop OS couldn't even get something _core_ like that right after so many years (9.10 is far from their first release). I'm not saying it's easy to get right, I'm saying Sound is a core feature in a Desktop OS.

FWIW, I use Linux distros almost daily, but they're all servers. Coz every time I check, the KDE/GNOME bunch haven't got their act together yet (and seem more interested in inane "features" like "wobbling windows"), and frankly most other Linux GUIs seem to be what Linux fanatics use as wrappers around "screen". It's a pretty crappy GUI you have if screen does a better job of window management - think about that.

So far what works for me is one machine running windows for "Desktop" stuff, and the rest Linux/BSD.

My facts are my personal experiences over the years, so take that as a testimonial of some random Internet user. But for a better and more complete explanation the quicktime alternative was written for a reason and the facts stated here may go a long way to let you know why. I mean seriously a picture viewer? Also, why on earth would a I want a _Video Codec_ to install a system service for updating and another one for making quicktime load faster for that 1 time every six months I'll use it. Applications that behave in this manner are a personal pet hat of mine (I repackage applications for a living) and Apple are big culprits for doing this (they are not alone here, I'm looking at you Adobe).

Real "hackers" would probably just disable WER entirely.

On the other hand, if anyone wants to point me to how to move the minimize/maximize/close buttons to the top right hand side of windows I'd appreciate it

This is quite simple to do, but it does require some text editing. Here is a simple step-by-step guide -Quartinae

The basic technique used is as follows: Windows uses the Autorun.inf file on these drives or devices to know which action to take whenever they are connected to a computer. This file, which is on the root directory of the device, offers the option to automatically run part of the content on the device when it connects to a computer.

By modifying Autorun.inf with specific commands, cyber-crooks can enable malware stored on the USB drive to run automatically when the device connects to a computer, thus immediately infecting the computer in question.

I just did a little googling, and it appears you can easily shut it off.

From CNET:

Unlike with CDs, Autoplay on a USB flash drive will run a program immediately, no questions asked. Quoting Leo "USB Thumbdrives or flash drives are a non-obvious but easy way to spread malware." The only thing most malicious software needs is for you to run the program. The Windows Autoplay feature, for flash drives, hands this service to the bad guys on a silver platter.

Why does MS insist on lax security? Autorun should be off by default, not on. This is just plain stupid. It's not a bug, it's a design error. CNET adds that if you're running XP, TweakUI will work.

And, it looks to me like TFA is a slashvertisement. Its bottom line:

To prevent this, Panda Security has developed Panda USB Vaccine, a free product which offers a double layer of preventive protection, disabling the AutoRun feature on computers as well as on USB drives and other devices.

At least it's free.

.... to the right side of the window title bar where they belong? If it's not possible, I will not budge from 9.10 thank you very much.

http://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu+move+buttons+back

More than a few...
This one is the original. http://lifehacker.com/5500577/move-ubuntus-window-buttons-back-to-the-right

And this one looks quite easy. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/13535/move-window-buttons-back-to-the-right-in-ubuntu-10.04/

Now you can upgrade.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/13535/move-window-buttons-back-to-the-right-in-ubuntu-10.04/ Yada, Yada, Blah, Blah, Blah! Get over it! this is Ubuntu we are talking about, if you don't like something you can change it!

when windows had mouse-over focus

Like this? Or this for XP?

The [Windows 7] translucent thing is more a distraction than anything else

There's several ways to disable that

1. Press Start, type Window Color and Appearance, press Enter, Uncheck Enable Transparency details
2. Press Start, type Change the theme, press Enter, click on Windows Classic details
3. Press Start, type services.msc, press Enter, scroll down and right click on Desktop Window Manager Session Manager, choose Properties, change Startup Type to Disabled, click Stop, then click OK details

I use #3, as I don't see a need for any of the special effects, but don't mind the general appearance of the Windows 7 theme. Disabling dwm also seems to free up some memory.

I haven't tested #1 or #2, but assume they work.

All of the desktops in use at my local Chamber of Commerce (WinXP) can't show/mount a thumbdrive, apparently related to this issue:

www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/find-your-missing-usb-drive-on-windows-xp

I pointed them to a Microsoft knowledgebase entry which supposedly fixes it, but they reported that it didn't work for them. I don't use Windows much so the issue is puzzling to me; the Chamber has a system builder on retainer but apparently nobody there has seen fit to rectify the problem (or just can't).

* * * * *

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
—Mark Twain

I prefer the dated design to any of the colorful, bloated crap Microsoft is producing at the moment that takes up half of my workspace, thank you very much.

If you're referring to the Ribbon, why don't you try collapsing it?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/microsoft-office/maximize-space-by-auto-hiding-the-ribbon-in-office-2007/

heh, maybe.

Shutting down the computer at random intervals is just evil.

Yes I downloaded the RC client - no, I didn't read the fine print, Yes I have the full version - No, I don't have time to reinstall everything.

Going on vacation in a week - Need my desktop computer running so I can remote into it without any foreseeable problems.

Thought I had until June to do a clean install.

Although someone posted this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3075/how-to-upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-rtm/
which sounds promising but of course they should have an official way to do this.

No official way to upgrade + random restarts + surprising fineprint = evil.

If you could update from the RC to the final I would.

It was explicitly stated during the RC process that it may not be upgradeable to the final version. Anyway, I have updated it and it works fine for me and most. Here's how http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3075/how-to-upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-rtm/

Backup everything and try it before a fresh install.

I've installed FF on a LOT of machines over the years, and not once have I ever seen it suck up anywhere close to a GB of ram. In fact, I don't even understand why people leave their browser up for 3 days anymore...it's not like you're downloading DVDs through your browser on a slow ISDN connection...I hope. In fact, with several tabs open, I'm hitting about 90 megs right now on Win7.

If you're searching for other people having the same problem, have you noticed there is a fix for it?

Since "Linux" is not one operating system as Windows is, I'll stick to a Linux-based OS that is easy to install, very popular and that I know best: Ubuntu.

With respect to your tasks, Google instantly found me: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/allow-remote-control-to-your-desktop-on-ubuntu/ , http://www.ubuntugeek.com/unison-file-synchronization-tool.html , and
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html

I'm no kernel hacker (hax0r implies cracker) but I do know how to type search terms into Google. I'm genuinely curious about how one would quickly figure out how to do those things on Windows without using a web search engine.

Or if you want the old school Quicklaunch the directions are right here and it is all of two steps, just new toolbar and then a copypasta of the code, although why would anyone want to go back to the old quicklaunch after trying the new taskbar is beyond me. But it isn't like you can't go back if you want to.

For the naysayers regarding it keeping the current default search around... voila, screenshot..
http://blogs.howtogeek.com/mysticgeek/files/2008/03/18.png

Cue the: "fake! photoshopped! faaaaaake!" /nokarma/anon

Having recently bought a neat $3000 Wintendo box (must've been drunk or something, but I can't say I wouldn't like it), one of the very first things I did was get Win-X-Move and enable focus follows mouse ("X mouse") by fiddling around in HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop UserPreferencesMask.

I prefer the former to your AutoHotkey solution because it also enables Alt-RightClick to resize windows (the corner nearest to the cursor will be moved), but the script ought to work just as well.
About the latter: It's such a lovely feature that MSFT actually put a switch for it in the Control Panel, so no need to fiddle around, just do like here.

Windows 7 is, if you aren't too dependent on your console fix (sorry, but cmd is just nasty), a great, snappy, stable and very usable OS that can very well compete with current Ubuntu. Both have their advantages and drawbacks, but after several months of growing dislike for Windows, I must admit to not favouring Linux over Win or vice-versa anymore.

[No mention of OS X because I'm heterosexual, z/OS because I don't quite have that kind of processing power around here or Gentoo because ... I already said I didn't have that kind of machine -- how would I ever finish compiling? ;)]

-nod- I suspect most people who've been using Linux for a while are spoiled by alt-window-dragging, which renders that problem moot. I know I was shocked when I had to start using Windows for some tasks at work after years of only using Linux.

Incidentally, you can get a mostly-working alt-window-drag add-on for Windows here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/get-the-linux-altwindow-drag-functionality-in-windows/

"Can i ask the distribution and FireFox version?"

Firefox 3.0.8, Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope ..

I also tweaked FF using about:config .. I tweaked it using a config for laptops .. which I can't find now. Google on tweaking FF/Ubuntu for laptops.

"I have tried in 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04, same problems on different computers"

Is it on the same network. You may get better results tweaking the network. Extremely slow internet in Ubuntu 8.04

This can already be done.

Also, I hope they will keep the tabs on the bottom, and not clutter the titlebar with it. It's the window manager's job to draw the window border and decoration, definitely not the application's.

A quick Google for "Oblivion crash vista" gives things like this

http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/trying-to-get-oblivion-to-work-on-vista#post-53749

As any sane person would expect, and thirty seconds on Google would confirm, the browser asks permission before sending the location data. Screenshot. No privacy is being taken away.

Lesson of the day: don't make nutty assumptions, and don't post knee-jerk reactions based on them.

Oh really? Even if your browser won't just show them to me I can still get them easily if I have physical access to your browser and I am able to successfully guess which sites you frequent:

javascript:for(var a=document.getElementsByTagName("input"),i=0;i<a.length;i++)if(a[i].type=="password")void(a[i].type="text");

I'm not flaming Firefox for showing the passwords. What I am saying is simple... if your browser does save passwords, secure either the browser (Firefox has a master password) or the computer (via an account password, and don't leave the desktop logged in). The asterisks are a secure enough method of obscuring your password from someone looking over your shoulder, but they are not a secure method of obscuring your password from someone who's actually sitting at the computer keyboard.

Except it is happening. Try installing a modern Linux distribution, especially a user-friendly one. It will default to runlevel 4 and Gnome, which means you never see a command line unless you go looking for it. Gnome's menu system makes Windows look very complicated by comparison. I'm not a Gnome fan because it's *too* simple for me, but many people (particularly the audience you're targeting) love it.

I'm not so sure of that. I've been running Ubuntu, and I've found many problems and limitations with the GUI. They still haven't figured out what's required to be user friendly towards people used to other operating systems.

But luckily I have a list.

1) Switch to Admin button.

The first time I had to edit xorg.conf, I was very annoyed by having to use the terminal to open it so that it can actually save.

Tip: If the user requested it, the user wanted to edit it. Hide it from view in Nautilus if you want, but after searching it out, opening it, and editing it, at least *prompt* me for my password to save it, if you're not going to give me a button to do it manually.

Oh well. For now, sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

2) Switch to Admin button.

There's nothing that peeves me more than a failed file copy. And when I can't copy from my desktop(where I unzipped something) to another folder on my computer, that really annoys me!

I didn't realize the desktop has such strict security. So strict, in fact, that it can't prompt for a password when you try to copy something off it. Instead, it just fails with an error message. Keep in mind the desktop is the default download location. I can't even copy the tar.gz file elsewhere, so it's simpler to re-download it.

Or... I can open the terminal and type sudo cp /home/bikehelmet/Desktop/filename OtherLongDestGoesHere.

3) Switch to Admin button.

It appears your desktop isn't the only high security folder! The first time I installed something in /usr/share, it was quite the challenge! Don't even bother with Nautilus, as short of the "Open Terminal here" optional extension, there's not much it can do. Just go straight to the terminal and type sudo tar -xvvf /home/bikehelmet/Desktop/blahlongtarname_version0.5.1.5.3.6_something.tar /usr/share to unpack the folder into the proper dir.

Now, don't forget to chmod it then make a link and stick it in /usr/bin!

4) Poorly thought out/non-descriptive GUI programs.

I found this thing in the Ubuntu repository called "startupmanager", which is supposed to help get rid of the six extra kernels in my grub boot list.

But... there's no way to manually edit anything. No listbox with +/- add/remove buttons.

All it has is a "Limit the number of kernels" checkbox, and you can enter a number.

Is it going to remove my WinXP or Solaris references from grub!? I can't find any info on how this thing works! So far I've been disappointed by how shortsighted third-party programs are, so I'd bet it'll wipe out the entire boot menu. Gah... looks like gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst is the answer.

My point? Ubuntu, apparently the most friendly desktop linux, still has a long way to go before it has that GUI polish that Microsoft has had since Windows 95.

Don't delude yourself. Linux is wonderful, but if you refuse to acknowledge all the UI shortfalls, they'll never be fixed! I actually believe this is part of the reason GUI progress is so slow in Linux...

If Ubuntu could just be like OSX and prompt for a password (rather than failing with a non-descriptive error message), then I'd be happy.

You can make Firefox look like Internet Explorer.

IE8 is actually not that bad. It passes ACID2. It doesn't pass ACID3, but neither does Firefox. They've finally added desperately-needed developer tools, and they finally have a proper View Source window with syntax highlighting and line numbers instead of just launching Notepad.

As for security, IE7 and IE8 run in "protected mode" on Windows Vista (not on XP), which should help to prevent sites from exploiting security holes to install malware without user participation.

The biggest problem with IE7 and IE8 for a lot of people is the new UI - they've hidden the menubar by default, and when you turn it on, it's in the wrong place (below the address bar). It's fixable, but this is out of reach for most people and not helpful to IT folks who have to work with other people's computers.

The next problem is that while most Firefox users are very aware of the available extensions, most IE users are not. This isn't due to differences in the browsers themselves - both IE7/IE8 and Firefox provide links to where add-ons can be downloaded. I suspect Firefox users are more likely to look for solutions to problems they encounter while IE users are more likely to just deal with them, and Firefox has had extensions available for a lot longer than IE.