Just browsing random searches and thought i'd make a couple comments on this one.

Overall my preference would be Linux. For the office suite I think Star Office would suit just fine. And just recently I have found a great alternative to M$ Outlook. Redhat 7.3 comes with Evolution. Looks and feels like Outlook, has more features, integrates with M$ Exchange server and i'm pretty sure it can import all sorts of thins including contacts/calander.

I noticed also you said you were using EAC to encode/rip mp3's. I used to use that and had problems here and there similar to yours. I switched to dbpoweramp and am loving it. I use the LAME codec and have had no problems at all. Anyone else have any input to the comparison to these 2 encoders/rippers?