It has my playlists but no songs or instant mixes... so no music at work for me right now.

Here is a link to the non existent full feed... http://afterhours.lifehacker.com/rss/vip

Probably not, TeamViewer and the like have some nice features that Windows built in tools don't have (although I do use windows built in remote desktop personally)

What common apps will NOT run when they detect root?

That link you had did not go to the full feed for me, but this one does: http://afterhours.lifehacker.com/rss/vip

I know you said there was nothing like Pixelmator on Windows, but what about Paint.NET? It's free and open source and supports a number of plugins which add features. It works great for basic image editing and photo touch up.

Could you do something like this with Tasker? (I know it won't probably take a little more work.)

Floppy Disks

To me Google+ strongest feature is Hangouts.

I use Tasker to automatically disable wifi when I leave home and then re-enable it when I get back.

They can use the new Nexus 5

Try this link (https://ting.com/coffee)

I love Ting, I moved my wife to them from Sprint, but I'm still on Verizon, I wonder if I can get a $5 gift card still...

For Windows I would suggest AutoHideDesktopIcons. (link) It won't give you a custom logo/image, but it will quickly and temporarily hide your desktop icons and it can hide the taskbar as well.

I would recommend upgrading it yourself to 4.3.

#corrections

My understanding is best buy will only match a store if it is within 25miles which doesn't help me as the nearest microcenter is more than 100miles away.

Any laptop can break, but some manufacturers have a better track record than others. A 2012 study by SquareTrade, that looked at failure rates over the course of three years, found that Asus' electronics broke the least often (followed very closely by Toshiba) and HP's broke the most often. In fact, with HP, you had…

I have posted this tip before on lifehacker, but it's been awhile, it's a little similar to a_blackpanther's method.

Firefox!