Installed Xandros last saturday and I can almost kiss M$ goodbye. Almost?
Yeah, well, it has been a while since I've used Linux and I have to get used to it again.

So far, I'm very pleased;-)

Things I really do want to get working:

* Thunderbird as default emailer from Korganizer
* Sending & receiving faxes
* Ipod Shuffle (actually it's my daughter's, but she doesn't need it, so I will confiscate eventually ^_^)
* HP Scanjet 2200c
* Software like Scansoft's PaperPort

Well, let's get outside for a while and catch some sunshine;-)

Welcome, and here are some quik answers to some of your questions.
You can change defaults in KDE Control Center ->KDE Components->File assoiciations. For other apps, like firefox and openoffice.org, there should be an option in their preferences as well.
To get HP scanners to work, install HPLIP for USB and HPOJ for parallel.