There are a lot of things that are often overlooked when designing a new operating system whether it be Windows, the Mac operating system, or any of the various distributions of Linux. For example, have you noticed that the Internet Explorer image placeholder icon has remained the same for a LONG time or that the icon for an Internet Connection in Vista is designed for Windows XP? When using Mac OS X, have you noticed that there is no cut option in the Finder or that moving files in Finder displays a copy dialog? The examples we listed may seem frivolous, but they are the little things that get overlooked.

What is a user supposed to do when they notice some of these things? Thanks to Long Zheng of istartedsomething.com, users can go to either the Aqua Taskforce to "find, publish and rate user experience quirks in Mac OS X" or the Aero Taskforce to do the same for user experience quirks in Windows Vista. Istartesomething.com has been a popular place to go for news about Microsoft and Windows, and the author, Long Zheng found that it might be helpful to have a place where people can go to point out some of the quirks in Vista. Once that became a hit, people requested something similar for Mac OS X.

It's a great idea he had, and now there are two Taskforce sites available:

• Aero Taskforce
• Aqua Taskforce

Mashable points out how these Taskforce sites could mean accidental success for Long Zheng. He reengineered his code once he added the Aqua Taskforce so that log-ins would work for both sites, and any other Taskforce sites in the future. Mashable says, "With this re-engineering he has created a backend to a system that will allow him to deploy any new taskforce site in literally minutes. So any company that would find something like this useful could be up and running wiht their own task-force site minutes after contacting Long". It's a simple idea, yet one that could turn out to be a huge success.

Now speaking of quirks, what are some other quirks that you have found in Windows, Mac OS X, or even Linux?

If you shop Amazon.com frequently for books for whatever reason, maybe because they are more affordable than your local bookstore, but you miss the experience of actually looking at books on the shelf, checkout Zoomii.

Zoomii is a site I recently stumbled upon that tries to give users a "real" bookstore experience by placing books on shelves to browse through. You use your mouse to "drag" yourself all over the bookstore, and you can zoom in and out of the shelves and search for a topic you're looking for. Clicking on a book will pull up a page with all of the details on it. From there you can add the book to your cart, read reviews, or continue shopping. Zoomii uses Amazon's API so when you go to buy a book, you are still buying from Amazon which is key.

Below is a video that will give you a better idea of how the site works:

It's actually kinda fun to browse through the books on a shelf, although the site seemed a bit resource intensive and slowed my browser down. With how many book covers that are displayed at one time, it's understandable that it would need a lot of resources to function. One area of improvement that we see is when you are searching for books, it would look incredible if books got pulled off the shelf as you narrow down your search so that in the end, all that would be left on the shelves would be the books that pertained to your search.

Checkout Zoomii.

The olympics have officially started which means coverage around the Internet is abundant. We mentioned a couple of ways that you could keep up with the Olympics using Google, but there are PLENTY of other sites out there. Here's a quick list of places you can go on the Internet to get the coverage of your favorite sports.

Yahoo

If you go to Yahoo.com you'll find a Medal Count listed under the "News" tab along with an "Olympics Preview." They also have a Yahoo! Sports section with coverage of the games that is more comprehensive. You can view info about the athletes, get the schedule of what sports are going on, and when, medals count, and more.

Google

We already mentioned Google's coverage earlier this week, but at the time we were unaware of an additional site they put together for the Games. It's found here, and they use Google Maps to display the medal count for the countries that are participating in the games. For those of you using your mobile device, you can go to m.google.com and get the 2008 Summer Games Olympics Gadget.

NBC

NBC is the official broadcaster in the United States for the Olympics so it's no surprise that they've got a site dedicated to it. Like the other sites, they've got a medal count, athlete profiles, and images of the games. Visit www.nbcolympics.com. There's also a mobile.nbcolympics.com site for mobile users.

Microsoft/Silverlight

We can't forget Microsoft whose Silverlight technology is being used by NBCOlympics.com to provide video content. You can download Silverlight here and then you'll be able to watch four different events at the same time. The Silverlight Player is customizable and gives you yet another way to keep up with the games.

TVTonic

TVTonic makes it possible for owners of Vista Media Center PCs (Home Premium and Ultimate) to download "up to HD" quality coverage on a sport-by-sport basis. You will be able to grab the coverage about twelve hours after a particular even ends, and you'll be watch to watch the videos all the way up until the Olympics end.

Get TVTonic Here.

On multiple occasions we have mentioned the fact that we use Flickr for our online storage and sharing solution. It's a great service that allows us to easily share our photos with family and friends, and we couldn't be happier with it. Sharing photos is one of those things that everybody tends to do more of lately simply because it is easy to do. Today we thought we'd throw this question out there for you guys to answer -- what's the best way you know of to share your photos? We're not talking about simply mentioning the service you use, rather we're asking for some of the services you use that allow you to get creative with photo sharing.

The reason we ask this is because recently we came across a site called Picsviewer that provides Flickr users with the opportunity to create some really neat slideshows that they can then share with others. All it takes is a few clicks and you're good to go. You don't even have to create an account with them to take advantage of what they offer, which is nice as well.

Today we'll be taking a look at Picsviewr, but we'd love to hear what kinds of services you've found out there that taking photo sharing to a whole new level, so be sure to hit us up in the comments.