Re: LibreOffice for Android

Agreed. We are now (almost) where I thought we would soon be 10-15 years ago.

- Free operating system that you can tinker with the code to and which works on everything.

- Free office suite that you can tinker with the code to and which works on everything (though Lotus/Wordperfect compatibility has shifted to Office compatibility now).

- Cheap, powerful devices that range from desktops to laptops to tablets to smartphones able to run the above.

- Worldwide, ubiquitous network and services.

- Virtually everyone from grannies to children having appropriate access to the devices and networks.

All we really need is a bit more government adoption but government IT really is one of those things we should stop throwing money and salesmen at and start throwing geeks at. The "open data" initiatives are a step in the right direction but we still throw billions away on making schools provide themselves with Microsoft software individually. Meanwhile, the kids are all sitting in class with smartphones, have iPads and laptops at home, and could use whatever the hell software you wanted.

To me, if I were a sub-teenager now, I'd be in utopia. Cheap devices that you can change the whole OS on, program on for free, even program for other devices on, and smartphones that you can aim your apps at and that ALL YOUR FRIENDS can then play (who, also, you can talk to at any time of the day or night no matter where they are, and can find new groups of friends in minutes with shared interests), and internet resources to help you do all the above, push it to people and even make money from it.

If I'd had that when I was that age, I *seriously* would never have left the bedroom. I think people underestimate just how much the world has changed recently. Sure, there are still lots of unsolved problems (securing a corporate network against such devices, preventing inappropriate usage, etc.) but for your average person, and your dedicated geek, the world is slowly creeping towards science fiction.

Imagine in your early PC days if someone had said "Oh yeah, and this entire office suite is free and runs exactly the same on this touchscreen device the size of a credit card that anyone can have at a reasonable price, that also happens to be a general purpose computer with an open OS on it and powerful enough to take just about anything you throw at it because we got stuck at about 2-3GHz and haven't really progressed past that yet." You'd have not touched it for being quite obvious vapourware back then.

re. Mail/Calendar

Have a look at Thunderbird (e-mail) with the Lightening (calendar) plugin. I use Lightening to display and modify my different Google calendars, since you can have calendar files stored on any network location (including the internet). You can convert a calendar event to an email invitation and I think you can have emailed invitations go to your calendar. It's all free so you might as well play with it.