Thank you for these responses!

JMJanses: Thanks for the great link (http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=17142) . As you guessed, I am looking to PIM-erize my N800. I used to have an HP iPaq 110, and I would love to wifi sync with my online info (I used to be on Yahoo, and am now trying to migrate to Google, tyring to find solution for syncing an address book, notepad, and a ToDo list, besides the obvious multiple-Calendars, and less-obvious Docs... but this will be my next read-up/posts). So many many thanks for the lead!

MobileDivide: very succinct yet very very pertinent response! Thanks for clarifying that. I am a total Linux newbie, and this tidbit helps a lot.

and three cheers for Benson! Thanks so much for taking the time to give me so much to read up on... I've seen all the words before, I understand more or less what they mean, and your post will be my "map" on how they all fit together. I clearly have a lot of reading to do, but that's part of why I bought this machine. I am happy to have so many clues to follow. Daunting indeed! I'm actually scared to the core that I this was a 'bad purchase' considering all the things I have to do these days, but I am actually praying that whatever work I put into learning about linux now will blossom for me later... I guess I need to find a (few) good post/book/method of learning 'the basics' to 'compiling', 'libraries', 'binaries'. I am sure I can google/wikipedia these terms and get some good on-line tutorials... no?

and btw- for newbies that are greener than I, to help you start decoding Benson's email, you should know that ARM = CPU (processor) and Linux = OS (operating system) on the N8x0 series ITablets.

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So, for something like (Google) Gears, which is open source software: if it says Linux, but not specifically Maemo, I should assume that it won't work 'off the bat'... it would have to be 'compiled for the tablet' (I don't quite know what that means yet, but I hope I used it correctly!).

Thanks again!