Slashdot Mirror


Aethera 1.0

gatch writes "theKompany.com released version 1.0 of their cross-platform PIM suite Aethera. KOrganizer is included as a calendar and todo list component. Check out these screenshots. According to Shawn Gordon, theKompany president, 'Actually we are about 2 weeks away from having Aethera work with Kolab [groupware server] - at least that is our sense of it at the moment.' Interesting discussion at KDE.news."

177 comments

  1. Re:Looks too much like XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    because the Open Source movement has never, EVER been about innovation.

    It has always been about "Hrm, nice, but buggy and expensive. Lets copy it, and make it better..."

    GNU, Linux, KDE, etc. All copies of another system. Hell, even BSD UNIX is a cloned version of ATT UNIX.

  2. alternatives.. by njan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..this is looking like a viable alternative to evolution, which aside from raising the level of development for this sort of software, should be beneficial to the desktop linux market; having a viable alternative to outlook is one thing, but having a community in which more than one are being actively developed to compete or provide more choice for companies migrating to different operating systems is excellent. :)

    The interface certainly doesn't look as pretty as evolution (although it's hard to tell; after 5 posts, the server is treacley already), but I'm not really into KDE interfaces. *shrug*.. it'll be interesting to see how much of a userbase it builds..

    --
    I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
    1. Re:alternatives.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't Evolution just a direct knock off of Outlook? Besides it isn't a KDE application, it is a Qt application, it hardly looks like a KDE interface.

    2. Re:alternatives.. by teslatug · · Score: 1

      I hated the icons (so 1990), I know it's pretty bad to judge software solely on icons, but can't they find some better ones. At the very lest it will get people itchy to try their software because it will *look* more polished.

    3. Re:alternatives.. by fliplap · · Score: 0, Redundant

      You know its open source right? You know if you don't like the icons you can rip the ones right out of your favorite email application and replace them

    4. Re:alternatives.. by njet · · Score: 1

      You probably can, but do you may?
      If the icons have copyrights ?

    5. Re:alternatives.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      -1 Redundant? Do you even know what redundant means? Moderator: -1 Stupid

  3. Move from Outlook... by nother_nix_hacker · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...excellent, I hope it's buggy so I can migrate from Outlook easily.

    1. Re:Move from Outlook... by arcanumas · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am afraid Bug-Compliance (TM) will be available in version 2. Along with a MS-Virus (TM) emulation for allowing you to run Windows based viruses.

      --
      Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
  4. Re:Looks too much like XP by radoni · · Score: 1

    *cough* SCO

    --
    SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
  5. Re:Looks too much like XP by grub · · Score: 1

    Not entirely true: perl, php, etc, aren't copies of anything else that I can think of.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  6. Brought to you by the letter K by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's so Kool dude. Let's Klap our hands in Komplete celebration.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:Brought to you by the letter K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's "kelebration."

    2. Re:Brought to you by the letter K by RPoet · · Score: 1

      Stupid K-jokes -- We Put The K in Karma.

      --
      "Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
    3. Re:Brought to you by the letter K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Stupid K-jokes -- We Put The K in Karma.

      'K

    4. Re:Brought to you by the letter K by bman08 · · Score: 1

      This was so funny I peed my pants. Luckily I'm using Katheter the new QT based UMS (urine management system).

    5. Re:Brought to you by the letter K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      -1 Offtopic

      this isn't even a KDE app, **LaUgHiNg oUt LouD***

      # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)

    6. Re:Brought to you by the letter K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Luckily I'm using Katheter the new QT based UMS (urine management system).

      KUMS?

  7. Re:Looks too much like XP by Seth+Finklestein · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's a very naive assessment of the Open Source community. The goal of Open Source has always been to create high-quality software and distribute it for Free As In Speech. Compare this to closed-source crapware like Micro$oft Outhouse, which is driven by marketing alone. Micro$oft creates new versions of their closed-source crapware every year, expects people to pay $300 to upgrade, and forces the upgrade by breaking backward compatibility.

    Open-source file formats, on the other hand, never change. I can take a LaTeX file from 1989 and create a beautiful PostScript file using Free As In Speech software. Try doing that with Micro$oft "software."

    --
    I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
  8. PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think I'm lost in the world of IT about what PIM, groupware and all that actually do, what applications they got in this world (both in professional and personal use) and how these technologies improve our current situation?

    1. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by jester · · Score: 3, Funny

      Groupware ... thats where they bundle so many things into a single 'app' that it takes up large chunks of your memory even if you don't really want to use half of it.

      I hope they will make the 'components' available as individual apps, or are we just talking KMail, KOrganiser, etc ?

    2. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Try getting a job. You will find out quick. :-))

    3. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by panurge · · Score: 4, Informative
      Well, in theory they allow efficient cooperation between users within the corporate environment by providing access to shared data and resources, by providing group access to diaries, and by providing an effective means to sort and categorise information.
      BEGIN cynicism:
      In practice, often the only feature that really gets used is email (which could just as easily be handled with plain old SMTP) but at least Exchange keeps MCSEs employed.END cynicism

      I guess groupware has a bell function: the people who most need it are too disorganised to use it, the people best qualified to use it are in the jobs where they don't need it, or make their own arrangements.

      --
      Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
    4. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by Timesprout · · Score: 1

      The main purpose of PIM and groupware is to give PHB types something to occupy themselves with so they can 'justify' their employment by playing with things that have 'management aide' in their description. Fortunately Slashdot has thoughtfully provided advise on how to deal with your PHB, thus saving the company from total management induced destruction.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    5. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the people who most need it are too disorganised to use it" I could never understand that about the marketing behind "it helps you organise stuff" type software and gadgets. If you're totaly dis-organised (like me) no amount of gadgetry or amazing technology will change my sheer un-coordination (dyslexia) so I really don't get the point of them ... for those like myself, I do have a solution though ... it's called a secretary! Now that's what I call making use of good technology ;)

    6. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by symbolic · · Score: 1

      In practice, often the only feature that really gets used is email

      Not true...I've been waiting for a PIM that incorporates the ability to journal events. Most of them assume that you *always* want to schedule something in the future, and almost none of them cater to the fact that there are many things that happen on a day-to-day basis that need to be noted *after* the fact - phone calls from clients, for example. I see that Aethera has a notebook, and I'm hoping that it meets this requirement.

    7. Re:PIM? Groupware? Exchange servers? by hattig · · Score: 1

      I'd also like to assign notes to e-mails, especially handy on shared e-mail folders. I haven't looked into this, but I thought how handy it would be just recently.

  9. Re:Looks too much like XP by bogie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    " because the Open Source movement has never, EVER been about innovation"

    Don't be such a stupid Troll. At some point everything is built upon something which came before it. Your examples are like looking at a Porsche and saying "Yep no innovation there", its just a copy of a Model T.

    --
    If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
  10. Re:Looks too much like XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Micro$oft creates new versions of their closed-source crapware every year
    Really? I must have missed windows 96, 97, 99, 2001 and 2002 then.

  11. Re:Looks too much like XP by zog+karndon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So why don't people apply the same insight to Microsoft? There's got to be a thousand people who say that "Microsoft doesn't innovate - every single one of their products was based on .

    I think the parent has a point. Open Source has to be held to exactly the same standard as everybody else.

  12. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by quantum+bit · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    lilo: linux init=/bin/bash - Instant root without password

    Dude: Use grub. Set a password.

  13. Advantages over Kontact? by brunes69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Could someone in the know explain to me the advantages this have over Kontact, the KDE PIM solution? Since it is already using KAddressbook and KOrganizer, that juts leaves ToDo and email.... KMail is already a highly capable email client, I doubt they could improve on that much?

    1. Re:Advantages over Kontact? by Zeut · · Score: 1

      Is Kontact cross platform? I don't think so. So that is one advantage, I would love to know more though.

    2. Re:Advantages over Kontact? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't start with letter K?

  14. Re:Slashdotted by diatonic · · Score: 1

    ... or perhaps the MS corporate proxy just doesn't want you to see it :)

    .:diatonic:.

  15. No Palm support? by chipster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Doesn't look like it integrates with Palm OS devices, as Evolution does (and some other KDE PIM apps).

    1. Re:No Palm support? by generic-man · · Score: 1

      kpilot works (poorly) with KOrganizer and KAddressbook. This program incorporates these two apps as components, so you may be able to synchronize a Palm OS device with Aethera.

      --
      For more information, click here.
  16. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by AntiOrganic · · Score: 1

    It all goes back to the old saying that if someone has physical access to yuor machine, you're already fucked.

  17. Good news for KDE users... by Vexalith · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... shame I'm not one of them. It's nice to hear than we've got another competitor to Outlook and Novell Ximian Evolution that will keep development nice and fresh.

    On a related note, where did this K-ism thing come from? It really bugs me, quite honestly. I presume it's from the original "Cool" = "Kool" thing, but considering that the K in KDE no longer stands for Kool it seems to me that it's getting rather tiresome!

    1. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Vexalith · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Woah, is this a bug in the slashcode? Why is my parent appearing above parents that were submitted before it? Curious...

    2. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a KDE application, it's a Qt application, Aethera doesn't care what what desktop you use, it runs on Linux and Windows the same.

      As to the K, there is no K in Aethera, theKompany has been around for 4 years now.

    3. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Dillon2112 · · Score: 1

      KDE was the open source alternative to CDE, the Common Desktop Environment. In the grand tradition of much Open Source software, they modified the name slightly, to keep with the original's name enough to avoid recognition problems. Incidently, KDE doesn't stand for anything.

      As spinoffs of the switch from C-->K as done with KDE, folks wanted recognition that their software was meant to work with KDE, hence the K in the names. GNOME does the game thing with G (GPhoto, GQView, Eye of the Gnome, to list a few graphics related examples.)

      As far as "Its not a KDE application, it's a Qt application" - KDE was written with Trolltech's Qt library (in large part) and so I don't think the disitinction is really that strong. I think they use a common (Kommon??) set of libraries, and that is the extent to which they are related (excepting that Aethera is using some KDE PIM related stuff under the hood...)

    4. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Vexalith · · Score: 1

      It's not really true for Gnome users (like me) any more. For example, Nautilus, Epiphany, X-Chat, Abiword, Evolution, although admittedly we still have Gaim, Gnumeric, and so forth... That said, I don't care what a product is called so long as it does its job. Hence both desktops have adopted writing "Web Browser" or "E-mail Client" rather than "[Konqueror|Epiphany|Mozilla]" or "[KMail|Evolution]".

    5. Re:Good news for KDE users... by ThyTurkeyIsDone · · Score: 5, Funny

      On a related note, where did this K-ism thing come from? It really bugs me, quite honestly.

      Some names you can use if you don't want the KDE folks to make a KDE port of your app: Rap, Rud, Ringeworthy, Rotch, Ock, Litoris, Unt...

    6. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now that's HUMOR!

    7. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Majix · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually it's against the new GNOME Human Interface Guidelines to name your app gWhatever unless it's an library. In the upcoming 2.4 version a lot of renaming has been done. There really isn't a whole lot of g* apps anymore and IMO all of the really good ones have avoided the stupid naming convention from the start.

    8. Re:Good news for KDE users... by TheSunborn · · Score: 1

      It might be because MySQL got lousy locking

    9. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      is this joke as funny as i think it might be? those are real names of softwar3z out there, right?

    10. Re:Good news for KDE users... by fault0 · · Score: 1

      No.. it's against the GNOME hig I beleive to have menu items that show the program name and not the function. It's also a no-no to have the program name in the window caption as well.

      Similiar things are happening in the KDE world. The k-names will still be there, but at least in the kmenu, the descriptions will be emphasized over the binary names.

      The application names will still remain in the window titles. Most every other system does this except for GNOME.. another inconsistancy between GNOME vs. the world :-) (not to mention inconsistancy between one GNOME app and another, and even a gtk app versus a qt app versus a gnome app versus a KDE app running in GNOME)

    11. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Jerf · · Score: 1
      Yeah, I've seen those.
      • Rap - the aptly-named program that takes a list of words and creates a random rap song out of them (default to /usr/bin/dict); a wide variety of command line options are available, including the ever-popular -P "Profanity" level
      • RUD (you miscapitalized it) - the Really Ugly Desktop, a fork of TWM that includes things like stipple-stacking of windows (faster then alpha blending, and almost one-hundredth as useful!)
      • Ringeworthy - a program to determine which Ringe family members are worthy of Alice Cooper, and which are not, through sophisticated biometric analysis. Not a generally useful program. (Probably somebody's Master's thesis.)
      • Rotch - an innovative ROT26 driver for encrypting loopback partitions. (ROT52 should be available in the next version, along with Unicode support.)
      • Ock - a language interpreter that interprets a language halfway between Ocaml and Awk, whatever that means. (The documentation is in poorly-translated Scottish (personally, I'dve translated it "Acchhhh!" or "Oooch!"), and I've never managed to read all the way through it.)
      • Litoris - a program that uses bayesian analysis on the text from Project Gutenburg, and based on which Project Gutenburg texts you have liked to date suggests which other you might like.
      • Unt - the opposite of the "t" command, takes in two pipes and combines them.
    12. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wot? spell 'bolor' with a 'K'? kolor...?

    13. Re:Good news for KDE users... by 10Ghz · · Score: 1
      On a related note, where did this K-ism thing come from? It really bugs me, quite honestly.


      Propably from the same place where you got all those Gnome-programs that start with G?

      Seriously, the "K-thingy" is just a way to brand the apps as being part of the KDE-environment.
      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
    14. Re:Good news for KDE users... by 10Ghz · · Score: 1

      Is X-Chat really a Gnome-program or a program that just happens to use GTK+?

      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
    15. Re:Good news for KDE users... by Vexalith · · Score: 1

      Yes there are compile options to more closely integrate it with Gnome IIRC.

  18. Re:Looks too much like XP by kfg · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are neglecting the fact that AT&T UNIX was at one time open source. That's how Berkeley got ahold of the code in the first place.It was even free as in beer.

    BSD UNIX is not a clone of AT&T UNIX. Through the efforts of Bill Joy and others BSD evolved directly from it.In an open manner. And they gave it away.

    That's why AT&T sued BSDI for selling it. . . and lost, because the code was already open source.

    KFG

  19. we're talking about GUIs, fool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    1. Re:we're talking about GUIs, fool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read the parent moron. He said all open source, not just GUIs.

  20. KDE isms by Znonymous+Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    kWhat Kis Kthe Kdeal Kwith Kmaking Kall Kyour Kwords Kstart Kwith Kthe Kletter K?

    --

    Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.

    1. Re:KDE isms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's reinforced behavior. The KDE developers named all of their programs with a "K", and then everyone loved their programs--so the developers wrongly thought that users found the "K" to be charming. As it turns out, users like KDE programs IN SPITE of the annoying "K" prefix.

      Hopefully Aethera will prove to be very popular, and drive home the point that we like KDE apps in spite of their initial letter. I would hate for Aethera to fail, then have some KDE developer say "See? I TOLD you we should have called it Katheter!"

    2. Re:KDE isms by blitzoid · · Score: 1

      GI Greally Gdon't Ghave Ga Gclue Gwhat Gthe Ghell Gis Gup Gwith Gall Gyou KDE Gusers. Genough Gwith GK!

      --
      I am a filthy pirate.
    3. Re:KDE isms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, which is why end-users can never remember which KDE system utilities do what, since the developers have bent and twisted the name of their app to meet the K* prefix. The resulting app name says next to nothing about what the app actually does.

    4. Re:KDE isms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      g'Damnit gYeah gIts GaY.. good God gWe'd gRather Gjust gUse GNUmeric, Galeon gAnd gPhoto

    5. Re:KDE isms by fault0 · · Score: 1

      Wow, your wit sure is outstanding. I bet it carves butter like a hot K-nife.

    6. Re:KDE isms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't matter, since the app name is being used less and less anyways. Only geeks who use the terminal will ever need to know the app name. description - appname is most likely going to be the default for KDE 3.2's system menu.

  21. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by Vexalith · · Score: 1

    I have a GRUB password so this trick doesn't work on my machine. But there's nothing to stop someone booting my PC from a floppy and stealing my documents.

    Point is, there's nothing to stop this happening in any other operating system either, including Windows - unless you use encrypted file systems - again available in most major operating systems including Linux!

    So, when people go on and on about this trick as an example of how Linux isn't secure, I just ignore them ;)

  22. Re:Looks too much like XP by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 0, Troll
    1. Microsoft Outlook is the BEST mailer there is in a corporate environment. You might think that Mozilla mail or whatever is the Linux equivalent-of-the-day to Outlook is as good, but it is not. People are not stupid, they use Outlook because it does what it says on the box. You might have a bone to pick with Exchange but, frankly, the last versions are much more stable and integrate PERFECTLY with Active Directory. Outlook has been the main application that is receiving enhancements in the past two versions of Office (2k and XP), and it shows. Having beta-tested the new Outlook 2k3 I am certain Outlook will remain the mailer of choice..

    2. You can open ANY Office document, no matter when it was made, or what version of the software it was made with, now. The only incompatibility is with Access. That's it.

    3. Which brings me to this: what are you talking about "breaking backward compatibility"? I am still using a DOS app (written in COBOL about fifteen years ago) every day at work on my Windows XP desktop. I have never seen Microsoft breaking anything on a large scale. When Windows 95 came out something like 95% of the apps still worked, and the rest 5% that did not were using undocumented API calls. As a matter of fact, I can install a copy of Word 6 on Windows XP and it will work, even though it's a 16-bit app written for Windows 3.11.

    What really bothers me about Open Source "advocates" such as yourself is that by making ignorant comments about things you obviously know very little about you make the Open Source movement seem a bunch of amateurs spreading FUD about their vision of the world. At least, if you want to bad-mouth Microsoft products go to the trouble of testing your wild claims because, frankly, you come out as an ignoramus when you make statements such as the above.

    --
    Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
  23. Re:Looks too much like XP by polin8 · · Score: 1

    perl owes an awful lot to awk

  24. Re:Avoid KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    use gnome ? i had no idea we where still stuck in 1987

  25. Okay, here is the Linux compatible equivalent. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Funny

    Until they can build in compatibility with Microsoft vulnerabilities, you are welcome to use the Linux virus. It works on the honor system:

    Make annoying changes to your files. Then send this Linux honor system virus to everyone you know.
    1. Re:Okay, here is the Linux compatible equivalent. by wfberg · · Score: 1

      Make annoying changes to your files. Then send this Linux honor system virus to everyone you know.

      Not quite unlike the Linux Honor System DDOS, known simply as "slashdot".

      --
      SCO employee? Check out the bounty
  26. Re:Slashdotted by Stonent1 · · Score: 1

    Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

  27. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by damiam · · Score: 1

    Grub is irrelevent. You can set passwords in lilo too, it's just that no one does.

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  28. Re:Looks too much like XP by Seth+Finklestein · · Score: 0, Troll

    Microsoft Outlook is the BEST mailer there is in a corporate environment. You might think that Mozilla mail or whatever is the Linux equivalent-of-the-day to Outlook is as good, but it is not.

    Having worked with Micro$oft Outhouse for 10 years, I can safely say that it is ugly, bloated, stupid, overpriced, and wholly unnecessary. Mozilla with an LDAP server runs rings about Micro$oft's closed-source ass.

    People are not stupid, they use Outlook because it does what it says on the box.

    Oh really? Outlook looks out? Onto what does it look out? A lake?

    Hey Micro$oft! Onto which lake does Outlook?

    You might have a bone to pick with Exchange but, frankly, the last versions are much more stable and integrate PERFECTLY with Active Directory.

    There's a big surprise. A Micro$oft technology works only with other Micro$oft technologies. What happened to open source technologies like LDAP? Oh, sorry, you can use non-Micro$oft clients with those, so they don't count. Nice try, shill.

    Outlook has been the main application that is receiving enhancements in the past two versions of Office (2k and XP), and it shows.

    Bug fixes and patches are not "enhancements." I don't recall ever having to install "CRITICAL SECURITY UPDATES" for Mozilla because of some worm going around.

    Having beta-tested the new Outlook 2k3 I am certain Outlook will remain the mailer of choice.. ...your choice, which is inferior, that is.

    You can open ANY Office document, no matter when it was made, or what version of the software it was made with, now. The only incompatibility is with Access. That's it.

    Access sucks. And no, you can't. One of my idiot co-workers made a document in Micro$oft Word 97. When I tried to load it on a liberated version of Micro$oft Word 2002, Micro$oft Word crashed. Guess you don't get what you pay for.

    Which brings me to this: what are you talking about "breaking backward compatibility"? I am still using a DOS app (written in COBOL about fifteen years ago) every day at work on my Windows XP desktop. I have never seen Microsoft breaking anything on a large scale. When Windows 95 came out something like 95% of the apps still worked, and the rest 5% that did not were using undocumented API calls. As a matter of fact, I can install a copy of Word 6 on Windows XP and it will work, even though it's a 16-bit app written for Windows 3.11.

    Blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. On my Linux boxen I can take ANY application written for ANY POSIX-compliant operating system and recompile it. I'm not even restricted to one architecture, like Micro$oft Word is. Honestly, LaTeX has been superior to that piece of closed-source crapware for 15 years.

    DOS and COBOL? Please.

    --
    I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
  29. Re:Looks too much like XP by moeman · · Score: 0, Troll

    So what your saying is, this interface bears too much resemblance with an interface designed by User Interface Professionals with near limitless funds to spend on research. Why don't they just make up something new based on the potentially faulty domain knowladge of the programers instead?

    I just want to be clear on what you are asking...

    --
    Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
  30. So Apple rips off Xerox and MS rips off Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    No one has ever had an original thought

    its called inspiration

    1. Re:So Apple rips off Xerox and MS rips off Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open Source: The Freedom to Inspirate

  31. In related OpenSource desktop gnews... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  32. Torrent for the screenshots by McDutchie · · Score: 3, Informative

    The server is slow and may be totally slashdotted soon, so here is a torrent I made which contains all the 11 screenshots in .png format. Please use this instead of the main webserver. (Read about BitTorrent if you're not familiar with it.)

    1. Re:Torrent for the screenshots by chundo · · Score: 0, Troll

      TheKompany.com is slashdotted 24 hours a day. I swear it's running on a 386. How about a torrent for the whole site?

      -j

    2. Re:Torrent for the screenshots by McDutchie · · Score: 1
      TheKompany.com is slashdotted 24 hours a day. I swear it's running on a 386. How about a torrent for the whole site?
      The site seems to be heavily dynamic. I tried wgetting a part of it but it doesn't seem to work at all for local browsing.
  33. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by quantum+bit · · Score: 1

    It all goes back to the old saying that if someone has physical access to yuor machine, you're already fucked.

    I don't disagree. But that's no reason to make it easy for them...

    If the only way they can get in is by disconnecting the hard drive and plugging it into another machine, then by all means make them do that. It's a much bigger barrier to entry than just typing a command at the prompt and will keep out casual snoops. It's also harder to disassemble the case and yank out the drive without anyone noticing.

  34. Re:Looks too much like XP by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Mozilla with an LDAP server runs rings about Micro$oft's closed-source ass. You obviously have no idea what the hell Exchange is and what it is designed to do. Also, I find it ridiculous you make fun of the NAME of "Outlook" while juxtaposing it to "Mozilla". Please... I mean, I have never heard of anyone resorting to namecalling a piece of software in order to win an argument... It takes all kinds, I guess...

    "I don't recall ever having to install "CRITICAL SECURITY UPDATES" for Mozilla because of some worm going around." Please give me your IP addy. Check this out: one, two, three. I can go on if you want...

    Access sucks. So spake the wise Seth. Why? Please grace us with your obviously paramount knowledge of everything software related. And what, pray tell, is the Open Source alternative? Text files indexed through a bunch of perl scripts outputting LaTEX? Sure.

    But you go on, saying Honestly, LaTeX has been superior to that piece of closed-source crapware for 15 years. It appears to me that, frankly, you have no clue what Word is since you insist on comparing it to Latex.

    Finally, please grow up and stop writing "Micro$oft". It is idiotic. Trust me on that.

    --
    Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
  35. Adds to the confusion by JarekC · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It seems that recently we witness a constant stream of KDE-based solutions for Outlook/Exchange replacements. Yes, I know it's all about having a choice and each of them makes me happy we have another alternative, but at the same time it makes me even more confused.

    We have the set of standard KDE apps: KMail, Korganizer, KAddressBook and so on, we have Kroupware project that produced Kolab Server and Kolab Client, we have Kontact (which according to its FAQ is supposed to replace Kolab Client) and now we have Aethera.

    At my company I'm lobbying for approving a Linux/KDE-based workstation an an alternative for MS Windows-based setup. However, the requires picking up and recommending a single, unified PIM solution that would be used by employees with Linux/KDE setups. With all those competing solutions appearing one by one it's starting to be quite a difficult task.

    1. Re:Adds to the confusion by bluGill · · Score: 1

      First, most competeing linux solutions make an attempt to be compateable undernieth. So you can pick one that you like best (if you try them all and can't decide, throw a dart), and leave the rest as something for the advanced user to use, without harm. Remember there are always people who want to feel like they have something better even if it doesn't change anything. (Withness all the spoilers on cars that aerodynamicly do nothing) Choice lets them choose something different. Just let them know they support themselves.

    2. Re:Adds to the confusion by fault0 · · Score: 1

      Remember this solution isn't tied to KDE. It's cross platform. Evolution is tied to GNOME*, Kontact is tied to KDE*. Aetheria is tied to nothing.

      * - these can of course be run in other X11-related paltforms as well, but rely on KDE-libs and GNOME-libs. Aetheria runs on Windows as well as it does on Linux, and perhaps MacOSX too.

    3. Re:Adds to the confusion by blayd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They aern't really competing.

      Kmail and friends are the current stable PIM apps for KDE. Kolab client is a hacked Kmail that was created parallel with Kmail for Kolab server users. Kontact is the future of KDE PIM apps. The PIM team is turning Kmail, KOrganizer, and KAddressBook into KParts. (The KDE component model) These parts will be united under the Kontact UI.

      In other words, choose whichever one will meet your needs today, and be prepared to upgrade if necessary to Kontact in the future.

      --

      :wq
    4. Re:Adds to the confusion by Rhone · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, to be fair to Aethera, it has been in development for a long time--it didn't just pop up out of nowhere. If I recall correctly, it began as a KDE-based Outlook-clone called Magellan. I think development of Magellan started back around the time development of Evolution started, if not earlier. Aethera was theKompany's fork of Magellan (I don't know for sure, but I think they forked it because they had an interest in Magellan and were sick of it being developed at a snail's pace). Of course, work on Aethera didn't seem to happen much faster... do a search for "Aethera" on Slashdot and you'll see "Aethera Beta 1 Released" back in January... 2001. Maybe changing from KDE to just QT slowed them down a bit.

    5. Re:Adds to the confusion by twaltari · · Score: 1

      I think the key to migration from Microsoft solutions to open source are the applications. That is, introduce open source applications running on win32 as alternatives to the applications you are already using. Once the users are already comfortable with such cross platform applications as OpenOffice, Mozilla, Gimp, Dia, Pan, Gaim, Eclipse etc. swithing the underlaying operating system won't be such a shocking experience. Also, this way you can do it appliction by application instead of swithing over all at once. Now all we need is more truly portable desktop applications...

  36. Terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aethera: transporting piss from one place to another since 2003.

  37. Re:Looks too much like XP by antiMStroll · · Score: 1

    Fun fact o' the day: KDE originated this pastel shiny look, XP followed.

  38. Re:Looks too much like XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So why don't people apply the same insight to Microsoft? There's got to be a thousand people who say that "Microsoft doesn't innovate - every single one of their products was based on.

    Because Microsoft claims to be innovative.

  39. I don't mean to be a troll.. by FryGuy1013 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ..but the menus on their web page don't render properly on Mozilla Firebird, which is standards compliant. It looks fine in IE, and I'm sure in Konqueror. I wonder if the developers fell into the "Our web page looks good in the 95% of the world that use IE (and Konqueror), so that's good enough."

    I would validate the page and look for the error, but it's been slashdotted since I viewed the page for the first time.

    --
    bananas like monkeys.
    1. Re:I don't mean to be a troll.. by Phil+John · · Score: 3, Informative

      Worked fine for me, I'm running a nightly though!

      Is it that they are transparent with no background texture and therefore hard to read? The problem is you didn't wait for the menu background image to load, it took >1 minute for me, probably because they're being slashdotted.

      --
      I am NaN
    2. Re:I don't mean to be a troll.. by Mnemia · · Score: 1

      They appear to render fine for me in Mozilla 1.4 under Windows and Linux.

    3. Re:I don't mean to be a troll.. by mab · · Score: 1

      Works fine for me in mozilla, Doesn't work in IE becuase it uses CSS2 which IE doesn't support, The menu drop-downs are supposed to be transparent.

    4. Re:I don't mean to be a troll.. by Vann_v2 · · Score: 1

      It works fine with Firebird 0.6.1, the latest stable release.

    5. Re:I don't mean to be a troll.. by FryGuy1013 · · Score: 1

      you're right. I guess I just jumped to conclusions.

      --
      bananas like monkeys.
  40. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

    The point isn't that Linux isn't secure, it's that it's as insecure as all the others.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  41. Re:Looks too much like XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah, I know this is a troll, but I'll bite.

    Retard!

  42. Re:Looks too much like XP by FryGuy1013 · · Score: 1

    "I don't recall ever having to install "CRITICAL SECURITY UPDATES" for Mozilla because of some worm going around." Please give me your IP addy. Check this out: one, two, three. I can go on if you want...

    I wouldn't declare upgrading to post-1.0 Mozilla a "CRITICAL SECURITY UPDATE". I would call it a "CRITICAL USABILITY UPDATE."

    --
    bananas like monkeys.
  43. Re:Looks too much like XP by Seth+Finklestein · · Score: 1

    You obviously have no idea what the hell Exchange is and what it is designed to do.

    I know enough about Exchange to know why it sucks, and why open source solutions are better.

    Also, I find it ridiculous you make fun of the NAME of "Outlook" while juxtaposing it to "Mozilla". Please... I mean, I have never heard of anyone resorting to namecalling a piece of software in order to win an argument... It takes all kinds, I guess...

    I prefer to use names of my own design when referring to inferior products.

    Please give me your IP addy. Check this out: one, two, three. I can go on if you want...

    Tell me the last time Mozilla was responsible for massive worm propagation.

    So spake the wise Seth. Why? Please grace us with your obviously paramount knowledge of everything software related.

    Access is a "relational database" in the barest sense of the word. It supports absolutely nothing beyond the basic SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT statements. Everything else is done using inferior GUI tools.

    And what, pray tell, is the Open Source alternative? Text files indexed through a bunch of perl scripts outputting LaTEX? Sure.

    Have you ever heard of mySQL?

    It appears to me that, frankly, you have no clue what Word is since you insist on comparing it to Latex.

    Micro$oft Word is a tool for creating documents. LaTeX (not "Latex," you pervert) is a superior open source tool for creating documents.

    Finally, please grow up and stop writing "Micro$oft". It is idiotic. Trust me on that.

    I reserve the right to misspell any name I want to misspell.

    --
    I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
  44. Sourceforge URL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  45. Re:Looks too much like XP by mackstann · · Score: 1
  46. BSD (Re:Looks too much like XP) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hell, even BSD UNIX is a cloned version of ATT UNIX.

    Of course TCP/IP, sendmail, BIND, sockets, vi, the r* commands (rsh), etc. were first released in BSD Unix.

  47. Competition by Synn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is normal in the open source community and actually fairly healthy. What happens is that the community in general sees a need and then you'll have several solid solutions developed in response.

    For example, 4 years ago Linux wasn't "Enterprise" enough because it didn't have a journaling filesystem. Today we have several: ext3, reiserfs, jfs, xfs and probably others.

    Before that we needed a decent GUI toolset to replace Motif(which was commercial-only). Several sprung up and today we have 2 really solid and widely used ones, GTK and QT.

    So while it's confusing today to have so many choices, typically a couple will dominate the "market" once everything settles down.

  48. Aethera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did anyone read that quickly and pronounce it similar to urethra?

  49. Re:Looks too much like XP by heironymouscoward · · Score: 1

    Actually I agree with the parent comment in theory, but not in practice. In theory, the vast amounts of money spent on UI research at Microsoft should give its products a quality that is unatainable by any other means except copying.
    In practice it's quite different, however.
    The vast amounts of money just get turned into expensive fluff that no-one actually wants. Microsoft are the Hollywood of software.
    OSS developers should not imitate this style. Learn from the independent film directors that style comes from an inate coherent and intelligent taste, not from user panels and marketing research.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
  50. Re:Looks too much like XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are two reasons why FS/OS GUIs resemble Apple's GUI (I won't credit Microsoft with their start bar, because it's the apple menu flipped around.)

    1.) Freedom first, innovation second.
    2.) It is easier for people to transition away from proprietary systems if they resemble what is currently used.

    New designs will come when new designs make the most sense. Currently, they do not.

    And actually, there are many innovative open projects available. However, people like yourself who judge an operating system by the shell that runs on top of it will never know about them.

  51. Re:Looks too much like XP by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 1

    IHBT. IHL. HAND.

    --
    Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
  52. Re:Avoid KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GNOME 2003 = WINDOWS 95 = KDE 96 = MACINTOSH 89

  53. Re:In related OpenSource desktop gnews... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    gSorry gBut gThat gNews gIs gBoring*

    (This message is (c)(r)1997-2003 GNOME foundation)

  54. Frankly this is butt ugly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Compare this to the 'proposal' screenshots for the next rev of Evolution.

    1. Re:Frankly this is butt ugly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most OSS software is butt fucking ugly, including Evolution. Compare Evolution to Mail.app from OSX or even to Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Entourage.

      I've never used Aetheria so I can't comment, but yes, from screenshots, it looks as fugly as Evolution does.

      Please, OSS developers, please develop a sense of style. We need the fab5 to do a style makeover to the evolution developers! :!

    2. Re:Frankly this is butt ugly by Lispy · · Score: 1
      1. You stole my post. I wanted to be the first one to state that it is "butt ugly" since it really is. Sorry, this looks like one of those Win3.11 apps.
      2. The mockups we saw for Evolution (in my first accepted slashdot story btw ;-) indeed looked much nicer. But maybe that just because I'm a Dropline-GNOME zealot and KDE-apps always look substandard to me.

    3. Re:Frankly this is butt ugly by Rhone · · Score: 1

      You FUDding troll! Linux E-mail programs are not all ugly--I use mutt and it looks beautiful!

    4. Re:Frankly this is butt ugly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes mutt is probably the only Linux email client that doesn't look b.u.t.t f.u.c.k.i.n.g u.g.l.y
      like Evolution/whatever other POS OSS Linux Email shit is out there

    5. Re:Frankly this is butt ugly by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1

      KDE-apps always look substandard to me

      Strange, but that's what I always think about GNOME! Still, it takes all sorts...

      --

      --
      This sig is inoffensive.

  55. PIM on Linux by LauraW · · Score: 2, Informative
    I'm not sure what the official definition of PIM and groupware are, but here's what they mean to me: PIM is a Personal Information Manager (e.g. a PalmPilot), and groupware is software that helps people collaborate at work. There are a lot of overblown "solutions" to these problems that end up causing more work than they eliminate. Lotus Notes is a good (bad) example. When I was at IBM they had all sorts of "workflow" applications written in Notes. To do annual reviews of people in my group I had to get them to fill out a bunch of forms in a horrendous Notes UI, and then their colleagues would fill out some forms, and then I'd have to go in and fill out my own forms, and then the employee could fill out a response form. All of this in the awful Notes UI, and all on a glacially slow server because everyone in the company had to do it at the same time. Paper would have been easier.

    On the other hand, PIMs can be really useful. I'm back to being a plain old engineer, but I still like to keep my address book and calendar in my Palm Vx and sync it up with the corresponding software on the desktop. That way if I'm at a meeting I can look at the Palm to see what's next on the schedule, and if I'm somewhere else (e.g. a doctor's appointment) I can check to see what days are free for my 6-month checkup visit. :-) Some people also sync their email onto Palms or Blackberries or whatever, but I've never seen the point. I'm happy to get away from it for a while.

    Getting all of this to work on Windows is pretty easy. You can install Palm Desktop and sync the thing to that, or you can just install HotSync and then use "conduits" that sync up the Mozilla address book, Notes, and lots of other tools.

    On Linux, you can use KPilot and KOrganizer. I got them set up on the Linux box at my new job a few days ago, and they seem to work ok. The (big) catch is that I don't really want to store my info in KOrganizer. I want the addresses to go into Mozilla and the calendar entries to go into the weird "Corporate Time" system our group uses at work. Unfortunately there's no CorporateTime conduit for Linux (only Linux and Mac), and I haven't been able to make the Mozilla one work on Linux yet either.

    Summary: Linux is getting pretty good in the PIM/groupware department, but it has a little ways to go to catch up to Windows.

    1. Re:PIM on Linux by Tsujigiri · · Score: 1

      When I am in a meeting I can look at my Palm to see what's next on my schedule too. Of course if I need to present at the meeting, I tend to get rather nervous and my palms get sweaty and the ink runs, then my schedule is all blurry and I miss my next appointment.

      --

      "I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
      - Monty Python meets the Matrix

  56. World Dominiation through groupware.... muhahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Groupware is a perversion of an invention in which MS aim separate big business from 10's of 1000's of dollars each year, for a client & server collaboration solution that most companies will never use. It involves combining various technologies into one, yet doesn't really do anything that the company could do already with email, file servers, and other GPL solutions. The whole system is designed to cost your company so much money to implement, that you cannot justify moving to other solutions later without bearing the wrath of your accountants. You mightt as well hand MS the keys to your coffers, as they now have your company by the balls.

  57. Hmmm... not too sure about this by hattig · · Score: 1

    Too many graphical things and too much wasted space in the GUI.

    Things like the graphical "MailCenter" image will never get fixed for UK English spelling.

    The View Mail window DOESN'T EVEN HAVE the From: field ... it has no fields. What kind of backwards retarded interface is this?

    I'll stick with the sensible KMail for my e-mail, kaddressbook for my contacts, etc.

    1. Re:Hmmm... not too sure about this by eyeye · · Score: 1

      I agree about the clunkiness. Sometimes the graphical bars seem to quadruple in size for no reason (though you can switch them off).

      I've just tried it (windows build) and can't get it to send any email, they just sit in the outbox :-(

      Its a bit buggy..

      --
      Bush and Blair ate my sig!
  58. Re:Looks too much like XP by miguel · · Score: 2, Informative

    AT&T Unix was never open source.

    It was distributed to universities under a research license.

    The lawsuit issue is more complex, because it was never discussed in court, instead USL and Berkeley settled the case.

    Berkeley agreed to remove all the files that still contained ATT code. That used to be called "4.4 BSD Lite" which could not boot, as opposed to "4.4BSD Encumbered" which was a complete implementation.

    The free BSD distros of today derive from BSD Lite 4.4

  59. Re:Avoid KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GNOME 2003 = WINDOWS 95 = KDE 96 = MACINTOSH 89

    =SCO Forever

  60. Re:Looks too much like XP by margal · · Score: 1

    Well, that has never been the goal of Open Source software. Open Source never implies any freedom, that is the Free Software movement. They're two very seperate camps of a smiliar movements fighting against a common enemy - proprietary software.

  61. Using Evolution by smartfart · · Score: 1
    ... shame I'm not one of them. It's nice to hear than we've got another competitor to Outlook and Novell Ximian Evolution that will keep development nice and fresh.

    The problem with Evolution (yes, I've used it, as my main client at my last job) is that it won't interact with the Kolab server --- unless some third party writes a free connector for it (there exists one already, I think, but it's a non-free per-seat license).

    My main gig right now is Linux integration, and Kolab seems to be the best way to replace Exchange. If I (or my clients) want to pay for software, that's fine, and I'll even use SuSE's OpenExchange Server, but as I see it, one of OSS's main sellling points is that companies can keep their thousands of dollars that they would have spent on Exchange or Notes/Domino, and only pay me the labor to set everything up, and I'll maintain it later if they desire.

  62. Re:Have they fixed the File dialog yet? by justsomebody · · Score: 1

    It seems like you don't know what you're talking.

    Aethera is KDE software, file dialog problems are in Gnome. But as a Gnome user I don't find them to be so bad. They will be better, but as I'm happy to predict, they'llrock just as any HIG solution in Gnome.

    --
    Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
  63. GPL or $$? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Is this one of The Kompany's few GPL projects or is it one if their commercial ones...

    I didn't see that mentioned on the pages.. I was thinking this was to be a commercial product, much like their other large projects. Admittedly I stopped following this project long ago when it was pretty much non functional, and wasn't progressing any... So i could be mistaken.

    This was *not* meant as a slam, as they have helped out the KDE project on several levels.. I was mostly just curious...( and since Kontact will be free, it would have to prove itsself to be cost effective before i suggest it to clients... )

    And really, all kidding aside, the name DOES suck, and one will look silly suggesting it to a CFO in a large company...

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  64. Download Win32 .EXE will not install by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For a file that has been released on Aug 8, I find it hard to believe that Windows users never download the file. The Win32 *.exe file is corrupt for version 1.0 of Aethera. The file integrity is fine, but it is packed incorrectly with the Windows Installer and produces an error message. I tried to extract the compressed archive but some files are overwritten and if I try to run aethera from that directory, all the icons are messed up since it was not installed properly. Is there a fixed install of Aethera 1.0 available out there that does work with Win32? I know.. I know, but I must evaluate this for the Windows platform.

  65. Katastrophic by i_really_dont_care · · Score: 2, Funny

    The screenshots look ugly! WinXP'ish icons, no anti-aliasing, and the colors........now, at least people migrating from Win3.1 will feel right at home.

    Thanks, you may mod me down now.

    1. Re:Katastrophic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > WinXP'ish icons

      good.

      > no anti-aliasing

      Only linux users want to see this. Primarily because they didn't have Antialiasing for a long ass time. I bet most of you linux user even anti-alias on font sizes from 8-14. These are font sizes the rest of the world (Microsoft) doesn't anti-alias by default.. at least on CRT's. Why? They are NOT supposed to. AA was made for font sizes above 14 or less than 8. On LCD's, AA fonts are good at all ranges, otherwise they just worsen readability.

  66. Dont Knock it.. by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    At least when you have a 'Kapp'.. you can pretty much guess its KDE compliant..

    Not 100% accurate, of course, but with the millions of OSS projects, it does help sort thru things..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Dont Knock it.. by Feztaa · · Score: 1

      the problem with the 'k' is that it overlaps with 'kernel'... like klogd, keventd, etc :)

    2. Re:Dont Knock it.. by Zork+the+Almighty · · Score: 1

      KDE programs almost always have a kapital k, kernel programs use lowercase.

      --

      In Soviet America the banks rob you!
  67. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by RdsArts · · Score: 1

    But there's nothing to stop someone booting my PC from a floppy and stealing my documents.

    Unless you remove the floppy drive....

    But this is all silly talk. We all know the only way to keep a system secure is to run OpenBSD.

    Then turn it off. Destroy the power supply connections on the HDD and motherboard. At this point, I like to fill the case with cement, it gives it a nice heft, and it looks really cool at the lan parties.

    Next, we chop this into 20 seperate parts, which are then in turn chopped into 20 parts. Finally, we soak these in acid, and bury them 200 feet below sea level in concrete. Shoot all those who know of the location.

    Your information has never been so secure!

  68. IMAP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    KMail is very capable but it still blows at IMAP support.

  69. Re:Looks too much like XP by benwb · · Score: 1

    Actually, perl's syntax caused such a large rift in space time that various pieces of it were sucked through a wormhole and appeared in shell, c, awk, sed and uncountable other programming languages.

  70. Re:Brought to you by the letter K (OT) by pantherace · · Score: 1
    I have gotten into (among them: deleting a windows computer from a domain and forgetting to reenable the local admin, or forgetting a root password) many computers (legitimately), and frankly I have never ever had to remove the hard drive (aside from one time, but that was because the rest of the machine was down) to either redo the settings or get the data.

    1) easiest: floppy or CD boot (you can get floppies to change windows admins passwords/enabled(disabled) settings many places, same with linux, or most unixes, though risc based unixes are generally safer, and don't have physical access)
    2) if that is locked out: messing with lilo/grub, or windows startup
    3) bios passwd (enable floppy or CD see step 1)
    4) assuming they have all that, clear the cmos, then go to step 3
    5)encrypted: WOW! either they care about security, or have too much time on their hands, which means to get in you will have to brute force it.
    6)check for the encryption key in different places

    Essentially, you can't keep someone out, and almost all of those steps can be completed (up till 5 or 6) in about 10 minutes (maybe slightly more or less) and none of that requires disconnecting the hard drive.

    Either you have constant survelence, the threat of survelence, or you trust the people working with the computers if they have physical access.

  71. Chandler? by darnok · · Score: 1

    Anyone have any news on Chandler? For those of you that don't know about it, it's a broadly similar cross-platform PIM that was announced in a blaze of glory several months ago, and has been stuck on version 0.1 ever since. According to the Web site (www.osafoundation.org), it appears as though things are going on in the background with Chandler, but no new code's being released.

    Frankly, I'd settle for just about anything to get away from the Exchange/Outlook combination

    1. Re:Chandler? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he married Monica and got a job in Tulsa.

  72. Aethra Chronicles by Anonymous+Custard · · Score: 1

    Anyone else think of the RPG game The Aethra Chronicles when they read the title of this article?

  73. It's GPL by Rhone · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, I found it kind of strange that theKompany's web site doesn't make Aethera's license entirely clear. On the other hand, when you click on a download link and get sent to Sourceforge without having to buy it, it becomes pretty obvious that it's at least free-as-in-beer.

    And if you download and untar the source code (as I did, because I was curious about this as well), you'll see from the COPYING and COPYING.GPL files that it's apparently licensed under the GPL.

    Yay.

  74. Appropriate quote... by pen · · Score: 1
    #29201
    <kegObeer> Klez is a virus? I thought it was the lesbian that came bundled with KDE

  75. The 'K' company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So many K's. It is associated with "some other" cult, perhaps?

  76. Mac version? by sco08y · · Score: 1

    I looked at their "FAQ" but that didn't have anything.

    So, the standard question: it's QT based. So is a Mac version in the works?

    1. Re:Mac version? by Groo+Wanderer · · Score: 1

      >Please don't abbreviate "you" and "your" as "u" and "ur."

      K.

      -Charlie

  77. But will it import Outlook? by FreekyGeek · · Score: 1

    Aethera looks very nice, but I think any open-soure PIM - at least any that plan to be cross-platform and compete with Outlook - will require a simple, one-step, "important Outlook mail, notes, contacts, and calendar" feature. If it can do that, people might be persuaded to give it a try. But if they have to retype all their contacts and appointments and lose their email archives, forget it.

  78. to-do list? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    ...todo list component...

    Isn't it called Notepad?

  79. Specialisation too by lpret · · Score: 1

    Also, one man's junk is another's treasure. I may not like how Evolution looks/feels while you may love how it works. To each his own. This allows personalization within an application type (and also the ability to further manipulate it for your corporate use) and also freedom of dependence.

    --
    This is my digital signature. 10011011001
  80. lack of filters by GnomeSkull · · Score: 2, Informative

    One thing I like about evolution is that when you are setting up your filters you can filter on pretty much anything you want, including specific headers. This helps for using things like popfile or spambayes filters which use their own specific headers. Aethera only lets you filter on the plain old stuff (subject, body, to, from, etc - no specific headers). Modifying subject lines is so ugly. But other than that, I like how it operates. And importing from other mailboxes, calendar files, etc. seems to work quite well!

  81. Re:Looks too much like XP by kfg · · Score: 1

    The case was only settled after the judge refused to hear the main complaint about the body of code because it was already being freely distributed with source.

    This left only six files in dispute.

    KFG

  82. Re:Looks too much like XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    "Microsoft doesn't innovate - every single one of their products was based on .

    Apple, Xerox PARC, IP gobbled from the zillions of companies they bought...

  83. Nothing here, move along... by pchown · · Score: 1

    This software is nowhere near polished enough to succeed in a corporate environment. I don't know why it's been called 1.0, but I'd say it was more at the stage of an early beta. You realise this as soon as it loads up. There are graphical elements that don't fit their boxes, so get cut off, that sort of thing.

    The other thing I don't understand is that the menus look more like Tk than Qt. This means that it doesn't fit with other KDE applications, at the same time as looking rather worse.

    Use Evolution if you want an Outlookalike, otherwise use Mozilla for mail and Tutos for tracking contacts and arranging meetings.

  84. 1.0? Broken in so many ways by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1

    At least the Windows version is. 1. By default the user settings are stored in the c:\documents and settings\usernameAethera directory. There should be a slash between the username and Aethera, if this is not present then nothing works. 2. Switching between screens makes the icons and graphics jump all over the place. 3. Unless you enter the mail account passwords in the settings dialogue and check the 'save password' box, then no passwords are sent to the mail server, hence no mail is received. 4. When accessing an imap server all messages are empty with the subject, date as null and message size as 1k. In short, entirely unusable.

    --

    --
    This sig is inoffensive.

  85. OpenPGP/GPG Integration? by Jerk+City+Troll · · Score: 1

    For me it's crutial that my mailer support this. I am presently looking for a solid alternative to KMail. Does the mailer here support PGP?

  86. The Desktop is the PIM! by Wiwi+Jumbo · · Score: 1

    I've always thought that the next evolution of the desktop would incorporate all these features.

    You click on the clock to get your calendar, your address book and instant messenger are one and the same, etc...

    I'm not a coder so I've never really bothered to work out these ideas (what would be the point?) but it seems strange to me that I haven't seen anyone trying something similar.... perhaps I'm not looking in the right places?

    --
    Wiwi
    "I trust in my abilities,
    but I want more then they offer"
    1. Re:The Desktop is the PIM! by mark_lybarger · · Score: 1

      i don't think the big challenge is in getting different physical applications in different physical desktop places to work together is the big challenge.

      to me, the big challenge is in getting a standard format (schema driven xml) for holding the data. once this is done, any app that knows the schema can work with the data.

      i wanna be able to right click on a date time that's selected on a web page and select an option for "check calendar" to see if i'm free. i'd then like to just add the item to my calendar, and mark it for follow up to have me enter more details later.

  87. Re:Looks too much like XP by replicant108 · · Score: 1

    The difference is that MS regularly claims to be an source of innovation (for PR and politcal purposes).

    As far as I'm aware, open source advocates do not rely nearly so heavily on such tenuous statements.

  88. Looks pretty good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I downloaded the Windows version and it works nicely.