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Mozilla Lightning to Challenge Outlook
MS IE Bug Finder writes "Although Microsoft is dismissing Mozilla Lightning, the article indicates the combination of Thunderbird (mail) with Sunbird (calendaring) should be a worthy opponent against Outlook by the middle of the new year." Reader EvilStein adds a link to the Lightning Q&A.
I'd love to see an integration between some kind of OneNote (or WebNote [bright color warning - shield your eyes]) replacement instead of a calendar.
.xpi) of an app like that?
Free-form notes, easily sortable and searchable would be a killer app, not another dumb calendar. Maybe a calendar tied in with THAT would make it the ultimate?
Is there any thought (or already some kind of
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
Illustrator 8 and Illustrator 10. Do a search and replace for text which is on a locked layer. Locks the machine up every. Single. Time.
The only reason I am not using sunbird, or another OSS Personal organization tool is that yahoo doesn't support iCal ( I have written to them suggesting it:c k).
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/my/cgi_feedba
Even though I like downloading my email I use yahoo because the convenience of getting to my information anywhere is compelling.
I even pay ( gladly ) for pop access
I would love to use the sunbird client and the other OSS PIM tools in combination with yahoo so that I could download ( and update ) my PIM stuff anywhere.
Even more, I would love to pay GNU or some other OSS org for this rather then paying yahoo.
If GNU or another OSS org implemented this kind of yahoo-like service ( using all OS software ) it would kill 4 birds with one Free(dom) software stone.
1. I get the services I want
2. GNU gets money, which it always needs
3. GNU employs programmers to build an maintain
GNUYahoo ( GNUwho ? ) -- a worthy thing these
days in itself
4. Free(dom) & OS software gets showcased and put
into use.
Almost Geeks have some sort of webmail account and would love to support GNU or another OSS org rather then ________, especially if they implement featurs geeks want like better spam filtering.
If these sites were made user friendly GNU would get a bonus____ giving something to ordinary people that they would like____ which would make GNU, as well as Free(dom) software relevant to their lives.
GNU and OSS especially needs this if they want to fight and win political battles.
Just a thought
That an important part of the licensing cost for Exchange is the Client Access License (CAL) - this means regardless of what you pay for the code that runs on your desktop, you still need to pay Microsoft a non-trivial amount of cash for the privilege.
The fix is to provide a seamless migration to a non-exchange server with a calendar-sharing mechanism.
Now that I think of it, when MS was looking to de-throne NetWare, they created a utility that allowed Windows users to see NetWare shares through a single login account on the NetWare box.
This meant that customers could 'upgrade' to Windows and not need to but any more client licenses for Novell.
I wonder if we should find a way to enable calendar browsing via some sort of mechanism that exploits only a single CAL so that uses of the free server side could see Outlook/Exhange calendars without paying CALs for all of the free server users.
Just like the Microsoft mechanism, this needs to be seamless and transparent - to make migration to free software easy and painless.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I don't mean to insult but how many people are in your business? How many offices? For a small office where everyone is within shouting distance, there isn't much need for email/calendaring clients that talk. My consulting biz runs exchange but only because it was free(action pack). Depending on the type of business, an organization with more (~15 or so) people and with more than one office, it (can) rapidly becomes crucial. I do a lot of work with Title companies (place where you sign papers to settle on house) and many times they have several offices but share guys that roam around and do the actual closings. Our largest has 35 offices in various states. Integrated calendars are crucial.
I suppose we could switch them to a web-based calendar deal but Exchange provides that already with OWA so why go to the bother? Inter-office email rides the VPN so sensitive stuff can be sent without having to teach all the ding-dongs about encryption. In addition, there are some great add-ons for exchange that do some really cool stuff with exchange calendars (team calendar by MS is one).
The other thing about exchange is the centralized storage of email/calendar/contact data. I don't have to worry about backing up 10-20 seperate pst/mbx/dbx/whatever email files. There are automated ways of backing up these files but you might (or might not) be surprised at how often users can fuck that up.
I will grant you this though: for many businesses the genesis of a new exchange installation is due to a new employee who used to work someplace else and simply can't do without it. Even when the $$thousands spent on purchase and implementation would pay for a web solution for years to come. In this much it is psychological.
I hate Microsoft Windows as much as the next guy, but Outlook has them beat. If only it worked on Linux.
This is the problem with Linux programmers. Many want to reinvent the wheel, instead of trying formulas that are already known to work (see the GIMP vs Photoshop debate on yesterday's story).
See the example of Openoffice.org vs. MS Word. Openoffice was made to replace Microsoft Office. If there were as many Linux clones of windows software, sharing the user interface but not the internals, Linux wouldn't feel as alien as it does for common windows users.
And don't say that copying the user interface would be violating intelectual property. See the precedent in the Apple vs. Microsoft case regarding the GUI named "Windows".
So, why don't people do it? Why won't Linux programmers make "a better Photoshop than Photoshop", or in this case "A better Outlook than Outlook"?
Quoting a sitepoint.com article: "Good designers copy. Great designers steal."