I installed a Vista like sidebar in XP a while ago, but quickly got bored of it and concluded that it didn't really give me anything I needed and instead just used up some of the screen.

If I want a calendar there is one built into Outlook. If I want a clock there is one in the corner of the taskbar. If I want a calculator i can hit the calculator key on my keyboard and use the standard Windows one. Notes? Outlook again. The sidebar is pointless in my view.

And don't get me started on the transparent windows in Vista. Pretty much everything added into Vista is polish and effects, and nothing much is actually a new feature. About the only thing I do like is the new directory navigation and searching which works in a similar way to directory opus.
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The things which you just mentioned harrison, are one of the reasons I'm not even that bothered about trying Vista.

I have a Calendar on my wall, and on my PowerBook (I quite like Claris Organiser). I have a calculator on my desk. I have the notpad application which is easily launched from typing notepad and the calculator from typing calc.

And I'm guessing this sidebar wouldn;t even be visible when you are using a programme full screen?
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The sidebar is part of the desktop, so you are correct. Open an application full screen and it is hidden.

I suppose a business user might find it useful, especially on a laptop when they are on the move, but then limited screen size starts to come into play (unless you spent a couple of £K on one with a big screen resolution such as the Rock with its 1920x1600).

But the sidebar is really just Microsoft's answer to Apple's widgets, and those are just as annoying. And neither are anything new really. Who remembers all the little gadget utilities you could use on the Amiga!!! I used to have a few sitting on my Workbench desktop many years ago. So it just goes to show that the big two OS's are still playing catchup.

I also don't think Vista is the ideal OS for a laptop. It's resource hungry so you need a system with at least 2GB of ram to get the most from it, and it is designed for large screen resolutions, so as mentioned, unless you shell out for one with a widescreen high resolution, you will be fighting for screen space.

The prefect OS for a laptop? Linux! It's lightweight and even the latest releases of the popular ones such as Fedora or Ubuntu will run nicely with 512MB of ram. It also doesn't require a huge HD to use. Ubuntu needs about 3GB to install, which might sound a lot, but remember that this does include a lot of applications preinstalled, including the complete Open Office suite.
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HELP !!!!

how can a set up my linksys WRT54GC wireless in Ubuntu... ??? in XP it workd perfectly... but in linux.... doesnt seem to have a program to look up for possible networks...
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I have finally ordered an extra HD and some Debian install CDs for the latest version (4-Etch).

Disks came today but still waiting for the HD so I can install it on my PC.
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What make/size of HD did you order?

HD prices are good at the moment, but haven't really dropped much since last summer which is a bit of a surprise. 500GB HDs are still around the £50-60 price range, which is what i paid for my Seagate 500GB drives last year.

What made you pick Debian over one of the Linux distros such as Fedora or Ubuntu?

And how come you ordered a set of discs instead of just downloading the ISOs? Are the discs proper pressed ones or just CD-R/DVD-R? That is something I've always wanted to know.
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BTW, have you all seen Ubuntu running with a couple of the cool additions, XGL and Kiba-Dock, installed? Kind of shows up Vista by quite some margin.

Take a look at it here to see a comparison of Vista verses Ubuntu, and here showing some more of Ubuntu.
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I got a 20GB Maxtor HD second hand for about £8. Any bigger than that and there'd be too much space than I'd know what to do with. Linux install shouldn't take any more than a few GB.

The CDs which I ordered were just CDRs. I don't know if pressed ones are avaliable from anywhere. I would normally download the ISOs, but I really couldn't be bothered. At least any small amounts of profit that are made from this will go to people who help develop debian. It's not like I'm buying Windows Vista.

I chose Debian because I have used it before a little bit (PowerPC version) and it seemed quite nice. Didn't really use it enough to compare it to anything though. Is there a perticular reason I should have chosed Fedora or Ubuntu? I know everyone seems to get obsessed with Ubuntu but it is based on Debian and Debian is easier to spell.
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Well... Fedora is probably the most developed Linux distro of most, especially as it is the underlying test bed for the commercial Red Hat distro. It is quite heavyweight through and is best for power users. Ubuntu in contrast takes a completely different focus, creating a distro that is one of the most polished and slick versions of Linux to date. It is also the only one I've used that can install from itself and doesn't need any intervention to get all of your system's hardware recognised and installed. It is completely plug and play! Debian in contrast is quite hardcore, with little to no friendliness, keeping it for the user to do all the hard work themselves to get everything to work and live in harmony.

The thing is though. Why restrict yourself to just Debian? Linux is free after all. Download and give the Live CD versions of Fedora and Ubuntu a try. Play around with them. It costs nothing more than the time to download a CD ISO, and the price of a single blank CD. And after all. What else have you to do?

Definitely keeping things retro with the 20GB HD. It would be madness for most people to even consider such a small HD. A new 40GB HD is under £17 these days and a 160GB one is only £25. Why would you need that space? Well most people create and use files on their computers, and these take up HD space.
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Fedora is a test-bed of sorts for Red Hat. That's not to say the release versions of Fedora are Beta versions, just that Fedora will be supported for 6 months or so and then moved on a version while a version of Red Hat would get support for 5-7 years. It's very pro-open source and 'freedom'.

Ubuntu is based upon Debian but is made as user friendly as possible. It's also pro-open source, but should there only be a binary-only driver available for a bit of hardware for example, it'll accept that and make it as easy as possible to install it.

Debian provides a more hands on approach which can be quite daunting at first, and again is uber-pro open-source (down to the point of removing the copyrighted branding out of the Mozilla Firefox browser).

Visually of course, all Linux distros look pretty similar, because they all use either the GNOME or KDE desktop environments.
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