Today's Linux Thoughts
# How do people get any work done without multiple desktops? I use multiple desktops at home and work now. I cannot imagine doing things that require multitasking or looking at things from multiple angles without multiple desktops. If I do go back MS-crap any time soon, I'm going to track down one of the multiple desktop programs. I wonder if Vista supports anything as useful.
# Unix has a philosophy of stopping you from doing things until you have privileges. MS seems to be the other way round, at least on home machines. As much as I hate it when security stops me from doing something stupid, I love it when security stops other people from doing something stupid. The Unix way produces far fewer support calls.
# Unix requires mounting of drives. This is true most of the time. That is, the GUI does this for you sometimes now. I can understand why programmers resisted auto-mounting for so long. They wanted consistency. I want my frigging flash drive and CD-ROM to show up on the desktop when I insert them. MS to this day uses drive letters as mount points. This concept is thirty years out of date. Macs have never had drive letters because they came into being in 1984. I have run into problems on support calls where people have used every available drive.
# I have had people who use Linux every day ask me if you can hook a DVD burner to one of the Linux machines. I answer that I have burned hundreds of data DVDs at the house. The only throw aways I've had have been my fault. I can't wait until the next generation of DVD/whatever comes out. I want some real space to put stuff.
# The only feature I miss from MS Windows is a simple function of the start menu. If you hold down the shift key, or was it the control key, you can click on more than one program at a time and they will start without closing the menu. That is pretty much it.
The thing is, if I were a good enough programmer, and had the gumption and drive, I could join the Gnome project and make that feature happen. Try that with MS. I doubt you get far. I may find out who to send that wish too, because I really do miss that one  single feature.