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Well written comment! I agree with your sentiments on the Linux desktop, although XP does boot about 5-10 seconds faster for me. I certainly have no problems playing music or video, even while multitasking with other software. No jitters or stutters here. No tearing while dragging windows around either.

I converted my work laptop (IBM R51e) to Linux about a year and a half ago. I converted it, because I thought the desktop experience in Linux had matured to the point where it could be used full time. I did go through a period where things weren't exactly the way I liked them, but I managed to find ways to tweak existing software, or found other software which did what I wanted. Today, the only thing I'm not happy about is Evolution and Microsoft Exchange, but I work around that in my office environment, by using rdesktop to a teminal server, and running Outlook. I'm hopeful that something called Brutus will help in that regard. I've yet to test it out though.

Basically, I've just about hit my desktop sweetspot, using Linux. It's responsive, has almost all the software I need, and I can tweak it exactly how I like (virtual desktops, zero wait desktop mouse flip, no raise on focus). I always feel constrained when I have to use a Windows machine these days.

I agree with the article author about the evolution exchange connector. It still isn't fully featured, and I occasionally had glitches indicating that it wasn't very stable. Plus, the exchange web connector has to be enabled for it to work properly, which is not always the case for many workplaces.

Has anyone tried out the OMC exchange connector, also called Brutus? The website for this is at http://www.omesc.com/ . It's supposed to talk to the Exchange server directly using MAPI. That has to be much faster and more reliable than the exchange connector. Can anyone attest to its reliability?

That other Exchange connector for Evolution is comming along - evolution-brutus. There is a screenshot here: http://www.omesc.com/content/downloads/evolution-b rutus.png. It is, in effect, based on MAPI so it could become an equal to MS Outlook feature-wise.

Brutus offers a cross-platform MAPI implementation that can connect to Exchange 5.5, 2000 & 2003. They have a screenshot of Evolution using Brutus to connect to an Exchange server via. MAPI, but I have no idea if any support is available for Thunderbird.

Microsoft can be blamed for a lot, but not this one. Palm is dying because it's not innovating - Microsoft is just there picking up the pieces. It's the evil of two lessers.

Not trying to give you a hard time, but what you're asking for would be very, very, difficult. You would essentially have to reverse engineer Microsoft's MAPI over RPC protocol. Many have tried, none have succeeded.

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would use Outlook unless their company runs Exchange, it's a completely useless atrocity in my opinion.

I absolutely agree with you. What the world needs is an open source solution to talking with Exchange for those of us forced to use it. One possiblity may be brutus though it does not appear to be usable yet.

Hmm... I didn't realize that MAPI was not actually reversed by Ximian. Points off them for taking the easy way out. :-/

Question: Is Brutus a full MAPI implementation? OMESC claims it is, but I'm not certain if they're referring to the API or Protocol. (My feeling is that they mean the API.)

Chapter 1: Indentation

Tabs are 8 characters, and thus indentations are also 8 characters.
There are heretic movements that try to make indentations 4 (or even 2!)
characters deep, and that is akin to trying to define the value of PI to
be 3.

Rationale: The whole idea behind indentation is to clearly define where
a block of control starts and ends. Especially when you've been looking
at your screen for 20 straight hours, you'll find it a lot easier to see
how the indentation works if you have large indentations.

Now, some people will claim that having 8-character indentations makes
the code move too far to the right, and makes it hard to read on a
80-character terminal screen. The answer to that is that if you need
more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix
your program.

In short, 8-char indents make things easier to read, and have the added
benefit of warning you when you're nesting your functions too deep.
Heed that warning.

Don't put multiple statements on a single line unless you have
something to hide:

if (condition) do_this;
do_something_everytime;

Outside of comments, documentation and except in Kconfig, spaces are never
used for indentation, and the above example is deliberately broken.

Get a decent editor and don't leave whitespace at the end of lines.

• I've run into a few environments where either OWA is turned off and IMAP/POP are not turned on. Which leaves everyone stuck with a MAPI client.

• Granted the MAPI object is a *fairly* well documented API however it does limit the client to a Windows platform with MAPI installed. There is some value in it but with MS pulling away from MAPI as well in favor of more flexible HTTP based protocols it's getting long in the tooth.