Missives from the 6th Floor

A friend of mine sent me a windows media video via email, a double clicked launched Totem, and brought up a dialog explaining that I needed additional software to play the video, and asking me if I wanted to search for the appropriate Codec. A couple clicks and a prompt for my password later it had downloaded and installed the necessary bits, and the movie was playing.

It's far from rocket science, but it makes all the difference in the world to a "normal user."