Each time I take my laptop from place to place I find myself opening the same pdf files, kontact, half-dozen web pages in Konqueror, openoffice documents, Crossover Windows apps, and one or two other programs or files.

But each time I shutdown the laptop, it takes a few minutes to close everything down, only to have to open the same files back up on their respectives desktops when I start up again.

What might be the general procedure in Ubuntu I'd want to look into to have all my apps and files open up in their respective desktops as they were when I shut down, if this is even possible.

Thanks.

There is an option that may do what you are looking for. Select System -> Preferences -> Sessions, then select 'Automatically save changes to existing session'.

You should find when you log and log back in the existing programs will be re-opened.

Note: I have not tried this yet myself.