Today, I helped my customer who I installed Ubuntu for almost four months ago. “It has been working great so far”, he informed me. We mainly worked on fine tuning some aspects of the desktop and panels (Ubuntu toolbars). He also wanted to use a calendar, but didn’t know how to approach the included Evolution program which is similar to Microsoft Outlook. However, as I pointed out last summer during my “14 days with Ubuntu”, I like the direction Evolution is heading, but it is far from polished.
Although Evolution comes with Ubuntu automatically, I still recommend using Thunderbird for an Ubuntu email program (also superb for Windows’ users too). And for a calendaring program on any operating system, Mozilla’s Sunbird works extremely well or if you already use Thunderbird for email, their Lightning program adds calendaring to Thunderbird.
However, for my customer today, we went the Web 2.0 route and chose to use the fast and flexible Google Calendar. It is easy to learn, loaded with just the right features that are easy to use and because it is web based can be accessed from any computer, any where in the world. You can use any of these programs for absolutely no cost, and in many ways they are more flexible and functional then anything you can buy.
I am ecstatic that my retired customer is enjoying using Ubuntu on his machine and doesn’t miss Windows at all. I think the fact that he was willing to give an alternative, open source operating system a try was extremely admirable and in many ways brave. The fact that he continues to use Ubuntu and function well with it is a testament to the fine work that Ubuntu and other open source companies have done developing solid, competitive products that will shape the future of computing for all of us.
