Due a combination of our poor organisation and D*ll's (lack of) customer service we left home nine months ago without a lot of the software we thought we needed for our laptop.

Since then we have - legally - aquired almost all the tools we need without paying a penny. I have been amazed at the quality and quantity of programmes freely available on t'internet: OpenOffice for word processing and spreadsheets, Irfan photo software, Pegasus for email, Antivir virus protection, OnlineBible and Motzilla's web browser, not to mention google and skype. We are already using a few of these tools in the office and there is talk of trying to go completely MS free in the near future - for an organisation that has to account for every penny it receives, that would be big benefit.

One thing we are missing though is a calendar or scheduling tool that reminds you about deadlines and tasks that have to be completed. We used to find that the ability to link emails to tasks and set reminders was the main benefit of MS Outlook, and you can't do that with the tool we use.

If anyone knows of something that would do the job and is freely available, please get in touch.