Resizing windows in Ubuntu

A major usability paint point in Ubuntu's default theme is that it is very difficult to grab the window border to resize it. The reason is that the borders are very thin, I think just one pixel.
So I have been using Alt-F8 shortcut (see System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts) to resize windows. But this is not very convenient either since you can resize in only one direction. To resize in another direction you have to press Alt-F8 again. Also the direction is chosen from the initial mouse movement after Alt-F8. Well, just try it.
Now I got irritated by this obvious malfunction and did a quick search and found this thread. It turns out you can also resize windows with Alt-(middle mouse button). Well, this is much easier. There is also a link to a bug report where they say this will be addressed in the coming 11.04 release. It seems like there will be 3 pixel wide invisible area around the window edges where you can grab and resize.

Some other useful shortcuts:

• Alt-F7 - move active window (very convenient to get back a window from a second display/TV which is currently turned off)
• Alt-(left mouse button) - move window