Windows Phone Apps....
you can uninstall her if she's not for you 
Thanks.... how do I do that... I have tried to delete all games, by direct connection to my laptop, and "viewing" files and folders... any advice on "uninstalling" ANYTHING on the phone would be useful...
this might be the best place for you to start http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8
pretty sure you can actually change the way the phone works through settings but I like the default settings and generally hold the phone by the case so I tend not to have the problems your experiencing with inadvertently pressing one of the buttons
but if you still stuck with Cortana and really don't want it you can hit the search button on the bottom of the screen to open Cortana, hit the 3 horizontal bars icon on the top right of the screen, tap settings at the bottom of the list, move the first slider to off,
for those that want to change cortana's voice, hi speech settings and then you can change the nationality (data downloads apply) and swap between female and male, that will give you a choice of 3 English speakers
pretty sure you can actually change the way the phone works through settings but I like the default settings and generally hold the phone by the case so I tend not to have the problems your experiencing with inadvertently pressing one of the buttons
but if you still stuck with Cortana and really don't want it you can hit the search button on the bottom of the screen to open Cortana, hit the 3 horizontal bars icon on the top right of the screen, tap settings at the bottom of the list, move the first slider to off,
for those that want to change cortana's voice, hi speech settings and then you can change the nationality (data downloads apply) and swap between female and male, that will give you a choice of 3 English speakers
Thanks for the linky.... and the tips... much appreciated.... really getting into this "21st century kinda guy" lifestyle ! ! ! 
Quote from: nanotm for those that want to change cortana's voice, hi speech settings and then you can change the nationality (data downloads apply) and swap between female and male, that will give you a choice of 3 English speakers
Thanks - rather limited choice - British, American or Indian...
well for some reason I have it set to UK English female and yet I have the same voice as the halo series, not sure if the other settings choices have anything to do with it but she started off sounding like some stuck up toffy nosed bint and after a few training joke questions she switched to the halo voice, probably because I asked her half a dozen questions about halo stuff
