You can install either KDE or XFCE environments easily from an existing ubuntu installation or from their liveCDs. I will assume you already have a working ubuntu install and want to switch desktops without reinstalling.

For a full KDE environment plus KDE applications, install the kubuntu-desktop meta-package from the main repositories. Kubuntu is focused on being "friendly", which might match up better with your usability needs. Their website is http://kubuntu.org.

For a full XCFE environment plus lightweight applications, install the xubuntu-desktop meta-package from the 'universe' repository. Xubuntu is focused on being fast - their website is http://xubuntu.org .

These are official ubuntu packages and use most of the same underlying systems and applications as the standard Ubuntu desktop. You can install these alternative desktops easily using your package manager/software center by looking for the appropriate package listed above. Note that kubuntu-desktop in particular will bring in many applications/libraries as dependencies, since it uses the KDE equivalents of a lot of Gnome software (Koffice rather than Evolution, Amarok rather than Banshee, etc).

After reading Todd Hoff’s list of scaling lessons learned, I decided to put together my own list of scaling tricks. These were all learned the hard way as well, and will scale you up to thousands of concurrent users.  It’s worth noting that many of these don’t cost anything beyond programmer-time, and take less time [...]

The current version of my website runs on a lightweight perl framework called Dancer. It’s easy to learn and avoids the massive weight of Catalyst, making it ideal for use in shared hosting (paying to get a VM just so you can install thousands of perl modules is not cool). Dancer runs under fastCGI, mod [...]