Brilliant Brainstorms is a (usually) weekly summary of some of the best/most interesting brainstorms from the Ubuntu Brainstorm site. This week: configuring mouse buttons and wheels; organizing the desktop with icon types; in dual boot systems choosing OS before rebooting rather than on booting; and integrating Disk Usage Analyzer into Nautilus.

A word of caution... from Microsoft .

As demonstrated by the current price for a Dell Inspiron Mini 9, netbook prices are falling very quickly and they started out cheap from the beginning. These price drops are largely driven by improvements in hardware that make the hardware components cheaper, rather than the software getting less expensive, though. This trend poses a problem for Microsoft...

Most modern operating systems are capable of using a file or partition known as a swap or paging file. Most Linux distributions will also install one for you by default. This file is used to extend the amount of available RAM by writing some of it to your hard drive.
There's just one problem: hard drives are slow. We can't fix that problem yet, but we can avoid it...

Want to be faster at the Linux command line interface? Since most Linux distributions provide Bash as the default CLI, here are some Bash tricks that will help cut down the amount of typing needed to execute commands. Feel free to comment and share your own speed tricks.

With Microsoft readying itself for the release of a fast, streamlined operating system in Windows 7, the Linux community needs to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat if the free and open-source operating system is to stay relevant on desktop computers.

An overview of patent law and new developments around the world .