Office Apps and programs.....

Google today is making big noises about an Office program (QuickOffice) for its mobile applications, so those can work with files from Microsoft Office. They didn't mention 'Microsoft', but anyone familiar with what QuickOffice does will know without being told.

That got me looking into what's been happening with the old original OpenOffice that began as StarOffice, evolved into OpenOffice.org with sponsorship by Sun Microsystems, who got bought by Apache, who then let the whole thing wither on the vine until most of the open-source development community packed up and went elsewhere. The 'elsewhere' turns out to be this latest incarnation of it:

It's a tightened-up version of the original OpenOffice, trimmed from 312 Mb down to around 206, but with all the same great sections doing all the same sorts of things. Just like Microsoft Office, but without the expen$e$. And if you're a fan of the Unix derivative O/S, PC-BSD, it has also been ported for it
and is their native office suite. And PC-BSD is something else you should try....