The Open Source Machine

You know if I could assured my sh*t would work, I'd have done this years ago.

But my life is so tied into my PC now it's hard to let go and make such a leap of faith. I've been running on a combination of freeware and software from less-than-reputable sources for so long it's amazing I'm still guilt-free for it all. But let's say I made the leap to Linux and Open-Office.

Could I be really free of Windows XP and Office 2003? Well, the new model is out and XP's days are numbered. Maybe it's really time.

As for Office, well, I've already installed Open Office and I'm liking it so far. Haven't looked at the spreadsheet package yet... haven't played with it a lot - still getting a grip on Writer (the interface is simple enough but also different enough from Word that it's slightly jarring for a user who has some 12 years of MS Office experience and baggage behind him). One of these days I'll go ahead and uninstall Word.

On Firefox... well, browsers have always been virtually interchangeable forever. There was a time when I wasn't altogether sure what differences there were between MSIE and Netscape (this was back in the day when the WWW was young). But there came a time when I was sick of all the security vulnerabilities present in a monopolistic world of MSIE and made the leap to Firefox as soon as it came out of beta. I haven't gone back. And tonight I installed Firefox 2.0 (not sure why I waited).

It got me thinking, I started to consider switching to Thunderbird as well - maybe I could do without Outlook2003 as well. But the big hooked in my life still remain.

I'm one of those folks who won't switch out of something unless it's really broken. I probably have one of the last remaining functional Sony Clie T615C left on the face of the planet (even my penpal in Singapore recently reported the destruction of hers). Well, this particular model runs PalmOS 4 and still works. It's like a mobile platform for everything in Outlook (albeit Outlook2003 required a patch to Palm Intellisync to make its conduit work). But still, I'm able to sync Outlook's contact list, the Calendar, the Notes, the To Do list into my Palm. Will I be able to do this in Thunderbird?

Does anybody know for sure? I mean, I suppose I could spend hours browsing Google hits but really, I'd rather not.

Yeah... Micro$oft's iron grip isn't quite solid... But the fear is as strong as ever. :-/