I'm finally free from Vista. I decided to try it out, and as the system began to deterioriate, and before it became completely unusable, I decided to back up my data, and go back to trusty ol' Ubuntu.

For my business applications:
My work provides Terminal Server loaded with Microshat Office 2007 apps, along with other remote tools that are necessary to support my clients. I can access it anywhere from anything.

For my development environment: I was using cygwin to talk to a remote secure server. Now I'm native.

For my "must have XP for" option: I'll load up VMWare and use the CD-Key on the bottom of my laptop. Cool. This will help me with my Dreamweaver and Visio needs. They're must-haves but are not reliable enough in Wine. While I'm in XP I'll probably load up the rest of the MS Office 2007 apps.

For the windows effects: Compiz Fusion is the way to go. It took some finesse to get working completely, but the basics, for my HP laptop, is to enable the Main and Restricted repositories, install the ati fglrx drivers via restricted-manager, install xserver-xorg, and reboot. Then go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance. In the Visual Effects tab you will see your options. It's pretty sweet.

Although I can't completely rid my professional life of Microsoft, at least, at the end of the day, I can shut them all off and enjoy the freedom and fun-ness of Ubuntu.