With respect to PIM I am currently in the process of developing a full featured pim suite. Will be posting more about it shortly as I would like suggestions related to design.

You know, I'm glad you brought this up, because there is something Dataviz can do that could help both them and the Maemo community--port the Palm Foleo version of Docs to Go to Maemo. Here Dataviz, at the behest of Palm, ported (or more likely created from scratch) an entire office suite for a Linux-based device, and Palm went and cancelled it. I doubt it would take a lot of effort to port it to Maemo, though it's hard to say for sure since much of the Foleo APIs are still shrouded in secrecy. They also most likely would have to charge for it, but I'd actually be willing to buy a copy to thank them for the support if the fee wasn't too excessive. Hey, if ACCESS could bother porting their Garnet VM to Maemo, who's to say Dataviz wouldn't at least look at porting their office suite? Especially since Maemo will be sharing the Hildon APIs with Intel's MID/Ubuntu Mobile, the market for such a suite could be larger very soon.

Traecer,
That's very interesting info. I didn't know dataviz actually did prepare a version for the Foleo. Most of the work is done already then. The PalmOS API is sufficiently different from any Linux UI API that if they got it working on the Foleo in any form then the step to Maemo/GTK+ should be smaller.

I assume you've done your home work on other similar projects already. Is there a reason you won't be working on improving Pimlico or GPE? Developing a full featured PIM suite is a huge undertaking.

I have no experience with GPE, but I've taken a look at some of the Pimlico apps and the code looks clean and 'smart', even if current feature set is still lacking. Adding a few things (like alarms) would make it quite nice...

(disclaimer: I work for Openedhand, Pimlico main developer)

Re (a), on my N800, Gnumeric does ok with most excel spreadsheets

I have installed Gnumeric ok, but unable to open excel attachments.

Here's my two cents' worth on the software aspect of things: As a new user of an N800 I am finding software VERY fragmented and frustrating. OK, I have downloaded programs with installers from maemo.org with no problem. But if there's no installer, I'm lost.

I found a a program on maemo people called Mediaserv that sounded real good. I downloaded it only to find it's a "tar.gz" file and I have no program to open it. Looking on the internet for same got me nowhere. I know it's a sort of zip file but I'm sure winzip won't open it, even it there's a winzip for this OS. And if I did open it, is it guaranteed to install? Obviously, I am familiar with Windows but my Linux knowledge wouldn't fill a thimble. This frustrates me when I read posts with various commands that might as well be written in Martian. I tried looking for help with Linux on the net but, hey, do all distributions use the same commands? Or do I have to learn same for Hildon or whatever it is? Where do I find those? And then where do I enter the commands? Is it in xterm?

My point is that if there is some central area explaining this stuff I haven't found it. I have read some comments on this forum wondering if the IT's are ready for prime time. I say not until there is a more cohesive way to learn and install.

That is in part my frustration too...will be nice if somebody could write some tutorials like internettabletschool done regarding basic procedures with x-term, how become a root, most common commands, etc...let´s say some Maemo for dummies

Hmmm...on another post I found a link to some help...Go to maemo,org, click on Community, then click on Wiki. It has various sections.

Mostly because I want decent synchronisation support with Kontact and a way of synchronising suitable fields between the built in address book. Also as a major learning exercise.

It works for me but needs to be saved first on the mem card and then open gnumeric and select it from the file menu..

I know it sound a little bit traumatic but after a couple of times you learn to do it automatically!!

Hope it works for you too.
Chris