Hi Nick thanks - shift + middle mouse drag is what I needed. Although I really dislike having to push a modifier key for something so basic as view manipulation.

The view cube does not seem to work for me very well for me at least, I get a kind of herky-jerky feel while trying to rotate with it, it seems to kind of stick at some places or something like that.

I'd have to say the right drag snake marking menu thing seems awfully non-intuitive to me, I mean basically the definition of intuitive is that someone can figure it out right away... If you go grab someone off the street and say - what do you think this right drag thing that makes a blue snake does, how many people would you think would figure it out?

I kind of thought at first that it might be a way to select things, like encircle a face or edge that you wanted to manipulate...

- Michael