Well, and that is true. However, all my external drives are USB.

Thanks for that information. I realized after I hit Submit that I should have inquired what others' experiences were like (I did preview, but that still wasn't enough to save me from myself). I'm going to guess its my Windows config because this experience is uniform across all my external hard drives and, with the one exception, they are all USB2. I'll have a look at that.

I'm interested to see Windows 7's USB performance with an upgrade to USB v3. While I am still on XP myself, I am definitely underwhelmed by Windows' ability to transfer large amounts of data via USB. I just had to back up a bunch of stuff (25G) this past Friday and, since I was already logged into Windows and was feeling lazy, I decided to just do that from Windows. It took 5 hours to transfer the files and this was a USB2 drive plugged into a USB2 port. When I later copied the same data back, I did it while logged into Linux (Fedora 11, specifically) and it only took 20 minutes. I've had the same experience transferring files to a USB1 drive plugged into a USB2 port: 15G transferred to that drive in 17 minutes in Linux, but Windows was telling me it was going to take something on the order of 23 hours! I concede that I have not attempted this experiment with Windows 7 at all, yet (No one I know has it).

The idea is to keep the birds away, not give them convenient perches. :)

LOL. An excellent point and thanks :)

Ok. Fine. The article says nothing about traditional renewable resources. Happy?

I see nothing in the article that says they feel this is better than wind or solar power. Instead, it is simply stated that they feel this will reduce their carbon footprint relative to using heating oil or natural gas only. Renewable energy sources aren't mentioned in the article, at all.

Good point. I've never used MSN Messenger and didn't realize it pulls that crap. MS should be forced to make their programs follow user preferences and then alternative browsers should be bundled. Some of the other comments, I see, are saying this should be put onto the OEMs instead of Microsoft. My attitude is "whatever". Either option is fine by me as long as the ruling expands the user's choices by actually appearing to expand user choices rather than by appearing to limit them.

So, just bundle multiple browsers instead of removing the only browser currently bundled. Once the user is aware they have choices, they might start to seek out lesser known alternatives. Even if users don't initially start looking for other alternatives, some will eventually and it will make it easier to develop a competing browser.

Well, I think the national distribution would be based on Fedora, but would quickly take on its own development cycle, feel, application set, etc. I think if they don't do this, that is a mistake because why would you want to stick with a dev cycle not of your own choosing? Regardless whether you start with Debian, Gentoo, Fedora, or whatever distribution as your base, I wouldn't want to be stuck only with their dev cycle, default application set, and etc. I think it would be good for the national distro to use national icons - the Russian flag, the bear (I'm not actually certain if the bear is a Russian icon or a Soviet icon), and whatever else. Also, they could contribute improved support for Cyrillic alphabet back to the rest of the world. Personally, that would be a distro worth making my home machine triple-boot for. I'd very much like to see what it looks like.

I believe that is what they're going for - at least, that's what I'm getting out of it. I think the better solution is to force Microsoft to include Firefox, Opera, Safari (at the least) and perhaps one or two more. I would think it more important to forcibly inform the user that they have choices by confronting them with choices on first boot than to forcibly inform them by removing their only obvious choice. Personally, I think that would make most users angry and cause them to stick even more doggedly with IE and refuse to try other options.

They did. I was just puzzling over how competition is being harmed (per this article) if bundling doesn't lead to market share and, therefore, causes no harm to competition (per the previous article). Their PR and Legal departments need to get their execs on the same page.

I understand what you're trying to tell me now and you make good points. I only upgrade to Fedora(version x-1) to avoid problems with Fedora(version x) and give time for bugs in Fedora(version x) to be worked out. I don't use KDE because I like the look of Gnome better and like the way my workspace is laid out in Gnome better than in KDE. For the average user, staying one version behind will tend to keep them in the clear when it comes to fatal problems. I had to learn most of what I've learned just so that I could use Xandros (where I started) and I found that once I knew enough to administer Xandros, then learning how to accomplish the same things in Fedora was trivial. The problem for the average user is that they don't want to learn these kinds of things. They want to use the computer and then walk away from it because doing anything with a computer is not their idea of a good time.

I only know what iptables are because I've done a lot of reading in the two years since I started using Linux (of any variety). I know what iptables is, but can't do anything with that because it hasn't been a high enough priority to actually learn about. Same with SELinux, except that kept annoying me with messages so I just turned off the messages since the system was still functioning normally and because I have more pressing things to deal with when not working. I was not clear enough in my last post when I mentioned iptables and that is my fault. So, I apologize for giving you the impression that I could actually edit iptables. I'm "security-minded", but currently my security on my home box is "good enough" and, as stated, I haven't bothered to invest more time in improving it from "good enough" to "actually good".
As for Fedora not being good for the "average" user, the "average" user can't set it up. At the same time, once it is set up, it's virtually maintenance free. However, both of those points are equally true about most of the more popular distributions, as well (including Ubuntu). I know several people who tried Ubuntu on my suggestion because it is easier to set up than Fedora. They still couldn't figure it out. So, I have given up recommending Ubuntu to anyone and have instead gone back to recommending having me set up Fedora for them and trying it out. After all, it's fairly easy to make their computer like Linux was never there. I'd rather set up Linux correctly for them, help them learn a new way of doing things, and get them to like Linux (and F/OSS, in general) rather than have them get pissed off at Linux and at me, associate all F/OSS with their poor Linux experience, and declare Microsoft "The One True Software Company".
Personally, I stay one version of Fedora behind all the time to ensure things continue to go smoothly for me. If I had a second PC on which to run Fedora, I would put the latest version on that and play around with that while teaching myself new and interesting things. As it is, I don't have that luxury right now and choose to let issues get sussed out before I upgrade. This policy kind of frustrates me sometimes, especailly when Fedora 11 comes out because I'd like to use that right away, but it keeps things working smoothly, keeps my wife from complaining about problems with the computer, and minimizes the amount of time required from me to make sure things work as they should.

I see. So, three people is a consensus. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for reminding me why I usually lurk instead of posting. I'll go back to lurking now.