I'm missing desktop sharing and conferencing software like Livemeeting. I'm also missing some ease-of-use dealing with very simple things like cutting and pasting a link to a windows share and using it to look at a remote directory without having to edit all the slashes.

Regarding desktop sharing, are you aware of the newer features in Empathy? It can do video/voice and desktop sharing (for xmmp at least).I believe (like Livemeeting), both end would need to have Empathy installed.

Regarding the link clicking, I'm guessing you mean UNC paths like \\smbserver\share\somefile.doc now you've mentioned it, I'm missing it too. A bug was filed in 2007 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=446136, nothing has happened unfortunately.

Alex

My first thought, without RTFA, was:

Cisco: Look our routers can run Linux and look at these x86 modules, we're getting into the server market.
HP: Well screw you, we'll go and buy some networking market share.

No idea how accurate that is, but it felt right.

They're just being friendly. Installing extra software is Apple's way of saying hello!

The cult classic that actually glorified being a geek was "Hackers."

You misspelled Sneakers.

Can anyone explain why my initial gut sense is an over-reaction?

Switching from Windows or OS X does have trade offs. The most noticable ones for me are poor flash performance, patchy 2D/3D acceleration support, less reliable hibernation, and the topic at hand - shorter battery life. Similarly staying with Windows or OS X has trade offs. Principally for me is their complexity, their black box nature, the culture of control and cost/hassle of per seat licensing.

Should my replacement computer (another laptop) be Linux (other than Apple)?

Only you can answer that question. Some things to consider though:
- Are you happy/content with your current OS, or are you finding yourself to be frustrated by it's limits?
- Do you value having things that just work, or having greater control of your system?
- Is a computer a means to an end, or do you enjoy the challenge of making it do your bidding?

For me Linux is the best balance of control and functionality. I would like it to be more rounded on the desktop, similarly I'd like Windows to not be so overly complex. Both a serviceable, neither is ideal.

Their operating system is losing market fast

A genuine query. What's your source for this? I would like to see some numbers for client OS Market share trends.

Thanks for the pagedefrag tip. There is a third: virus scanners, and their bloody policy agents.

According to Machiavelli, the problem [...] was that the mercenaries themselves were unreliable and disloyal.

This is totally of topic, but do you read When IT meets politics, It just quoted Machiavelli too. Or is it just a big coincidence?

Really. This humour is so formulaic.

Sorry to pick on you, but this is a bugbear of mine.

Applications written in AIR/Silverlight/whatever are not web applications. They're thick client applications that happen to use a bit of http and javascript.

Web applications run in web browsers. Not in one particular browser, and not in a third party runtime.

I'm glad AIR was a good fit for your problem.