Notes:

We tried to get a Dell laptop to boot properly from a USB key and install Windows. This is a normal thing. It has worked in the past. This time, it didn't work worth a flip. One of the other IT folk spent hours messing with it. The laptop boots Linux and Windows PE just fine. Just not the install image from Microsoft. It is a driver issue. The USB image will boot, but once booted, the install running will not see the drive it just booted from.

I'm thinking I will encrypt my home directory on my home machines the next time I install Ubuntu on my machines at the house. Anyone had experience out there? It just seems like the thing to do these days. I need to look at my choice of passwords and make sure they are conducive to a good algorithm. Unfortunately, you have to do this at install time. It is for all users apparently. In order to get full drive encryption, you have to use a different install in order to make full drive encryption work in Ubuntu. That is annoying. Perhaps Ubuntu 12 will fix things up. I'm sure I'll complain if things do not go well.