"Productivity Software"

God help me, I'm using a spreadsheet.

Like most folks in the world, I have a spreadsheet set up as a poor man's database. I don't plan to do any real analysis of the data or the numbers generated, nor do I want to produce any charts (pie, bar, nor line) of my figures. Instead, I want to take some real-world ideas and organize them. A spreadsheet has a low barrier to entry, much lower than a real database. Perhaps, as I take this game design further, I will switch to a real database. But for now, a spreadsheet.

For the record, I do not use Microsoft Office. As I hear it, Office for the Mac kicks the bits out of Office for Windows. I've installed NeoOffice, the Mac implementation of OpenOffice, the free office productivity package. Yes, they have a Windows version. Yes, it's free- free as in beer (gratis) and free as in speech (libre). I know a good deal of you have either paid for or pirated Microsoft Office. Why?