For those who think that Windows is easier to “install” than Linux read about what it tkaes to get a new laptop where you want it here: http://www.nedbatchelder.com/blog/20051231T204200.html
For those who think windows handles wireless better than linux:

Get the wireless to work. Windows won’t find my wireless network, but the Intel software does. Whatever

While this isn’t a complete virgin install of Windows, it points out how much work actually goes into setting up a new computer, even with Windows pre-installed. 😀

Wow! I knew that there were Open Source Fanatics^tm, (see just about any thread at Slashdot, but Closed Source Fanatics? That’s a link to an Opera discussion forums’ thread about open sourcing Opera.
Interesting how many people think that all OSS is bloated, and that anyone can just add code willy-nilly, which isn’t really true. I mean you can do that, if you want, for your own puposes, but most projects have a pretty formalized patching system (esp. the Linux Kernel ), so that isn’t a big problem.
Bloat isn’t either a OSS, or CSS, featue, it’s comes from bad sofware engineering, and it can happen in either closed or open source developing.
Opera is a fine browser, and I use it myself, but not as my default, right now, although I did until I found Firefox, back when I still used Windows. I must say that with Firefox being so slow on Ubuntu that I’m thinking about changing that. I’m hoping that the 1.5 release of Firefox will change that, and that it’ll get into Ubuntu sooner, rather than later, because I do love it for more reasons than it being OSS.
Well there are advantages to both OS and propriorty developing–I think that there are more advantages on the OS side, –and I use both types of software, because I use the best software that I can find on the system that I use, and , because that’s what freedom is all about.

So Google is the Monster of all search engines, and it bugs me. Not just that it has become so big and influential (although that’s part of it), but for other reasons, like their collusion with the Chinese government, and privacy issues. I’m trying to find an alternative that is just as good–for me–but am having difficulties.
I won’t use Yahoo!, for basically the same reasons. I think that they are even more active in their collusion with the Chinese government, having actively turned in dissidents.
I’ve been using AskJeeves, but, am not completely satisfied with it. One reason is the relevance of the searches. I compared a search with Google from my search bar in Firefox and Google came up with the actual document I was looking for as the second link, where Ask got it as the tenth link. Not a major difference, I know, (and they both should have got it as the first link, in a perfect world), but still a pretty good one.
As it stands now, I’m gonna stick with AskJeeves as my default search engine, if anyone can think of a better one that I haven’t tried let me know in comments.