>The >real conundrum to me is that it's the apps that make an OS truly >"useful" to people It all comes down to the basic needs of the human animal. Food, water, shelter from the elements, A sense of community. Most computer use falls into the 'community' category of human content. Most human communication needs can be categorized: a.) communication listed by hardware connection i.) Text 1.) writing -keyboard 2.) reading -video card -monitor 3.) fax -modem 4.) paging ii.)Speech 1.) telecom -modem -network card -phone -intercom -music iii.) Visual 1.) Art -video -mouse -tablet -pen (stylus) b.) communication by group relationship interaction i.) internal interaction (family) 1.) Human physical needs gathering services -Food infrastructure -Water infrastructure -Shelter infrastructure -Health infrastructure 2.) Human psychological needs services -Education infrastructure -Communication infrastructure -Health infrastructure ii.) external interaction (everyone else) 1.) currency sources -business -job 2.)currency sinks -bills and costs 3.) information resources and storage 4.) communication resources The most useful applications fall into places where some or many of these categories cross over each other. Some of the categories are so general that they have, as yet, not been matched with a computer program. Peter