Wolfala, in re: that comment about, "...Anyone can get a copy of Office 2007 Home & Student (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote) for under $100..."
You might want to try out a copy of the open source software
Open Office. It includes word processing (Word), spreadsheet (Excel), presentation (Power Point), graphics drawing (Paint), database (Access), and math (no MS equivalent). It can store and access files either in the various Microsoft formats or Open Doc formats. I've been using it for about a year, with absolutely no issues.
