OSNews

For me, when I installed Vista, the system does not boot properly (Read, it blue screens) unless I have the CD loaded.

Now, it's not booting off the CD. Basically, it has the familiar "if you want to boot to CD, press any key", I wait that out, and then it just completely skips over the boot menu and boots into Longhorn.
Without the CD in there, it displays the new Longhorn boot menu, and selecting Longhorn just brings up a blue screen. Selecting "Legacy Pre-Longhorn" loads the old XP boot menu, and XP boots just fine.

I am thinking that this is the reason why it won't install on his USB drive. A very very odd problem, but a problem none the less.

The presentation broadcast, while seeming like rdesktop, looks pretty handy.

I've used VNC for similar tasks before.

I could see this being used in computer labs where there is no data projector available, and multiple users can view the presentation.

It is functionality that exists previously, but now it can be used by the people because it's "In their face"

Do not make text easier to read.

I think the translucency might refer to the background text being gaussian-blurred, so that the foreground text stands out more. Standard alpha-blending results in overlapping and difficult to read text, Vista just takes it to the next level up.

Nvidia's XP drivers already have a similar feature that makes windows transparent when you drag them. A friend of mine whose computer I sometimes maintain likes it, but whenever I have to work on his machine for him I find it intensely irritating and I always turn it off for longer sessions.

Note: Remember that the drivers (at least for nVidia) are still in alpha stage. So, don't be surprised if using the drivers will cause problems later on. In fact, after running Aero Glass for a while, I was not able to log into my account after a reboot. The ultimate culprit turned out to be the nVidia driver. To restore the original driver, use Safe Boot (press and hold the F8 key during reboot) and then restore the video driver to the original one.

This is quoted from the O'Reilly's DevCenterarticle.
How exacyly is the NVidia driver a problem to well log on an account?
I think this is somewhat of a newbie review (Newbie to Windows I mean).

This stuff is already possible in XOrg! The translucent windows and window drop shadows.

And KDE has the Glow theme for a window decoration. Plastik theme also lights up like that.

And all this is capable of running on an ANCIENT ATI card back from 1995!

I personally don't like the nice GUI effects. . . they are too distracting and anti-productive. There's nothing wrong with showcasing GUI, but save that stuff for games. Let the real users do their real work.