Dream big, and you may experience a somewhat Levi-Straussian proleptic paradigm of the quest.

I've stopped using Ubuntu linux for two reasons, and two reasons only. Only two reasons? I hear you asking, why, I've stopped using various flavours of Linux for less than one reason, or because it looks terrible, or because it doesn't offer hardware support, or because you can't play games without hours of messing around with WINE, or because... well, because nobody else who matters in the real world cares about alternative operating systems at all.

Firstly, when I'm typing there is a barely perceptible delay between keystrokes and the appearance of letters on the screen This is annoying as all hell, and even windows vista doesn't do that. Secondly, there is no way to disable input from laptop touchpad while typing, which means that whenever the palm of my hand brushes over the touchpad when pressing the spacebar. This is probably indicative of bad typing posture, but I don't care, I can't seem to alter the position of my hands enough to not make it happen and even windows vista has an option to ignore trackpad input for say, 300 milliseconds after you're done pressing keys. Almost like someone has put in a little thought about what people might want to use their keyboards for. I would continue to use Ubuntu for more than just driving my iPod classic with Amarok if both of these problems could be solved. All suggestions gratefully received.

The other problem I've had with Ubuntu is that on my Lenovo X300, the sound doesn't work without compiling ALSA. This means that every time there's a kernel update that I'm bugged to install, it breaks my sound. Since I use the laptop to play DVD's on a projector this is unacceptable, and often causes me to use windows in sheer protest! Linux shouldn't have to be so damnably hard to configure, and annoying use. Lets try to get it right people! *clap clap* C'mon! The aim of these GNU/Linux projects is to provide an acceptable alternative to windows, not to make people who are unashamedly nerdy want to use Microsoft products because the alternatives suck so much they make you want to commit hardwarecide.

Google gives me heart palpitations again with their 'sites' malarkey

I hate Google sites. I hate it so much if my hate manifested in the physical universe it would most likely obliterate everyone who had a hand in creating the sites management system by turning their intestines and neocortexes into frozen mercury. My hate is so cold, yet hell is not hot enough for this type of idiocy.

To begin with the hate, why is it not easy to make a page visible to the world? Why can't the management be simpler and more related to what pages actually exist on the server so that you can see what Google want to be serving up to the world who visits your webpage? Why, when I click on "share with the world", does my www.blah.com give me a login prompt and only allow me to view the site I made by logging in? Does it not get the point? I wouldn't have spent 30 minutes trying to make a webpage if I didn't want anyone to look at it. I'm sure that the focus of this project was to make the web easier to use by allowing everyone to publish to it, but honestly it is HARDER and more FRUSTRATING than I have ever, EVER found publishing webpages to be.

Google, I entreat thee, does it REALLY have to be this hard? I actually turned off the 'Sites' functionality and pasted the raw HTML into your old 'Pages' system because I was despairing of ever understanding why the new system wasn't letting my home page be publicly viewable, and once again was at the point of committing hardwarecide. Its crossed my mind that it might be easier in the long run to run my own webserver from a computer under my desk at home, from a modem, than use the 'Sites' service. Make it easier, or more people might start agreeing with me.