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Microsoft looking at mail client for UNIX
Eater writes "Here's an article from Federal Computer Week. Seems they're afraid of losing Army dollars. " The Army is using Lotus Notes, because of "security concerns" with Exchange. Looks like military intelligence may not be such a misnomer.
Wow... a M$ UNIX email client...
More bloated the EMACS with half the functionality... hmmm....
My understanding is that the Office suite's much more of a cash cow for M$ than the OS's.
They certainly cost more, and when everyone's passing around office 2002 docs and you've got '95 or whetever it's certainly an incentive to cough up another $300 or whatever it costs.
Granted -- their OS control **Enables** them to have a cash cow like Office.
You all remember the article that was just shown showing poor performance for linux. Well this is another one by zdnet showing NT beating not only beating linux but solaris by 400% in keeping up with requests. This article unlike the one that was posted here earlier is pure fud. . The editor reaffirmed the people reading this that NT is stable and wont crash and if stability is important then you should use NT. (Dell uses iis,microsoft uses iis, why can't your bussiness. IT has to be stable because all these opther bussinesses wouldn't be using it.)IT says good things about solaris's architecture but blasts it as a poor performer. The editor not suprisingly choses NT because you would need 4 solaris servers to have the same performance of just one NT server.
Good lord. I think I am sick.
Please don't blame Notes, they are the *only*
.. no matter what mail system you put in it will be crap.
....
widely deployed public key system in the planet
- and *replication* ooooh - that is a dream !!
But if you has *bad* sysadmins who "learn as they go" - the same one I have in my organization
I work in financial industry, and I just saw that my E-mail box my *admin* put in the intranet *without* any password - ( domino / http server ) !! I can't wait to see them fired
This "trapdoor" is the same as exists in MSIE, Netscape, and every other US provider of encryption technology. Aside from certain exceptional cases, the software company is forced to downgrade its encryption strength to 40 bits to comply with US export requirements.
This fact is WELL DOCUMENTED and is known by every Lotus Notes administrator. "Secret trapdoor?" hardly!
Complete and utter bullshit. You seem to be forgetting about Digital Unix, Secure Solaris, Multics, etc.
You need root priveldges just to check your email
Not at all. The delivery system needs root privs, but the users do not...at all. In fact, you need no special privs _AT ALL_ to check mail
He thinks that sco=unix because of his experience with 10 sco boxes getting screwed up constantly but he knows what he is talking about.
If he thinks sco=unix then he's got to get his head out of his ass and use a decent unix. He may not know as much as you think he does.
Can i easily drop in my choice of editors in Outlook? I can in pine. Or mutt. Or elm.
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no
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Can i change pager behavior? I'd like to be able to use spacebar to page, rather than having to move from touch-typing to pagedown.
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dunno.. I would guess not
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For that matter, i'd like to not have to use a mouse at all, and easily access all commands, menus, and headers with a few keystrokes.
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50% of functionality can be access throughkeyboard. I say 50 because for some mouse is a must (or that I dont know how).
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I'd like to be able to filter which headers i do and do not see.
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Why dont you set filters and folders? Filter a set of messages to specific folders.
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I'd like to set my Reply-to: address.
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didnt try that..
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I'd like to easily access multiple POP mailboxes,
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get Outlook 98
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and have replies appear to come from the address in the To: header.
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do this: on the list header click right mouse button. in menu run field chooser.. Drag the to field onto the header and viola.. its there
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Mutt and fetchmail do that one just fine.
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sure they do..
Outlook is a bitch... I dotn like it eiter.. I say that OUtLook express is tons better then outlook. Unfortunatelly Outlook express dont handle exchange (which also is brain dead)..
emacs + nmh provide all the functionality
I can dream up.
Obviously this poster only uses Windows machines, where if you don't have a mouse, you can't even use your computer.
Can you use Outlook without a mouse? Can you telnet/ssh in to a remote computer and use Outlook at a terminal?
Please tell us one thing that Outlook can do that you can't do with a unix mail client, and if it is worth anything, I'm sure someone will add soon enough. That's the nice thing about open source, you can actually add any functionality that you want.
(chuckle) (sniff) Bwahahaha...
Wow. Made my morning. Someone get a big 'ole foot icon for this. I always enjoy running into humorous gems like this. I might print it out so others in my office can have a good laugh too.
Yeah, but SCO does own UNIX now.h tml
Anyway, for anyone who wants to know what's certified for what security, check out: http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/epl/epl-by-class.
It seems to be a little old, but a whole slew of
UNIXes are certifed to C2 and B1, a few even to
B2 and B3. Note that there are no A1 secure
OSes as of this page!
I take that back... Wang's SCOMP Version STOP Release 2.1 is A1!
Well, I have been there and done that (played learn-as-you-go with Notes). It was ugly. It was also dropped on me with no notice, no training, not budget for a serious admin dedicated to Notes (which you really need), and no time to ramp up. It was at a law firm, which, like financial institutions, are famous for not paying anything. I looked around after the third serious screwup that I would have fired me for, and left. And I went to a job as a very junior admin for Notes and senior for HPhUX (ug)(but some Solaris), and learned it the right way. And it is pretty good, if you know what you are doing. How much are your admins paid? If you want to pay "experienced" "senior" admins $30k, then you deserve what you get.
Take a look at Netscape SuiteSpot (specifically Messaging Server) teamed with Communicator Pro. It does everything Exchange/Outlook does and then some.
I praise Pine every time I have to suffer with Outlook though - luckily not often,.
I use Notes every day and while I do eventually GET the email, it sure takes a hell of a lot longer than SMTP. On top of that is uses some crappy wire protocol that uses a TON of bandwidth just to retrieve an email. The whole design is completely broken, as you basically need to replicate your email setup locally to get any kind of reasonable performance out of the system.
The straw that broke the camels back for me is the fact that the Notes Client is slowly and surely becoming a Windows-only product. AFAIK there is not going to be any non-Windows R5 client made.
In short anyone considering using Notes who has Unix: don't waste your time.
Iris/Lotus/IBM seem to be migrating Domino to be purely browser-based and getting out of the client business, which IMHO is a good thing because Notes clients have always been buggy crap.
Isn't this the aspect the Swedish government was so upset about, because they *weren't* notified their communication wouldn't be secure from US eyes?
Yes. That was the problem. I don't really understand why the heck we are so interested in Sweden's military email. Strategic aquavit depots? Secret torture techniques using 60 straight hours of Swedish film retrospectives? Lutefisk (sp?) cluster bombs?
They just don't DO anything. This is like spying on Australia. Why?
Scheduling a meeting can involve enough give-and-take between N people that it really needs some sort of messaging, and not to use mail for that is just silly. Of course there's always iCalendar, the IETF draft standard that I believe Netscape and others implement.
THANK YOU. Everyone forgets MH. It kicked ass years ago and still does. I can do everything with bash and MH and vi. You too must be a sysadmin.
Microsoft has historically refused to develop software for other platforms because it doesn't want to strengthen other platforms. So what's the significance of the email client? They're just porting Exchange and Outlook to UNIX to avoid losing a very big customer. The effort expended in porting these apps to UNIX will be miniscule compared to the profits Microsoft reaps.
Does that mean they're going to mass market these UNIX apps? Hell no. Like I said, they don't want to strengthen other platforms. They want to tie you into their platform with every opportunity. The government is the only organization that will ever see this software.
Does this secret backdoor also apply to PGP?
Just because MS Exchange not used by military, you shouldn't jealous about Lotus Notes using a clueless point.
Lotus Notes day is far longer than any browser mail system.
Paranoia aside, I don't think the US is unusually interested in Sweden's private communication. It's just that our fscked-up unConstitutional export rules forbid Lotus from selling the version with full-strength keys to *anyone* outside the US, and apparently the ramifications of the "international" version weren't made clear to the Swedish government buyers.
What's a "skiff," apart from a very small boat?
I don't know if I'd ding NT for that. Granted, no app should be able to bring down an OS, but if anything can it's the Notes runtime. The Red Box of Death was one of the few ways to bring down OS/2 since the Notes R3 days....
We need to make sure all the related FAQs say you'll be LARTed if you do that. <NAIVE>Linux users are still somewhat more likely to read FAQs, right?</NAIVE>
Sure, let's all start using a mail client from the company that never learned what the hell multi-user means.
Do we really want to see Linux made vulnerable to the Melissa virus?
Just say no to Microsquish apps on Linux.
The US version can be exported to Canada.
hrm.
I beg to differ, M$ has ported many of its packages to other OSs. For instance the entire Office suite was ported to MacOS as was IE.
SCIF?
Something like a Secure Communication Information
Facility or something like that. Its a room
with Obscenely secure perimeter, Blocked Ductwork,
Non-conductive Pipes, Atomic powered watchdogs,
The place where information is exchanged in
UTTER SECRECY. Hence the storage of the Disk drives.
OLE must be a really cool technology to these people!
Geeks will go ga ga with joy over the above powerful features, but stand behind an HR person or data entry operator sometime and watch them fumble with clear big shining buttons.
Dude, people don't care about all these techie config details. Have you interacted with REAL normal office users who use email clients? They have training classes for them to use *browsers*.
They have difficulty saving and moving files.
You can't change users. You need to change software to make users happy, not the other way around.
For eight years I have been a Notes Administrator for an very large international financial institution. We have NEVER lost an email message. We use internal, SMTP, generated messaging - everything. You either don't know what you are talking about, don't know how to spell, or don't know how to read manuals.
JWZ has quite a rant about mbox format on his
site. Go read it.
They can't possibly believe a critical mass of Linux users are stupid enough to use irreplacable closed-source components as vital infrastructure. Games and SQL databases, sure, but....
I work in the army and in my unit we use MS Outlook and Exchange Server exclusively. It is used on intranet and internet connected machines. Lotus might be in use, but not everywhere.
If NT can bring a navy cruiser to its knees, why not turn it loose on the army?
Where is the dividing line between mere incompetence and actual treason?
If the commies were still a threat, I'd say that M$ exchange was a commie plot.
-jcr
Ummm... urr... Microsoft DID ship Internet Explorer 4 AND 5 for Solaris and HP yucks. Those would, IMHO, qualify as "non-MS operating systems"...
I work in the IT department of a miltary installation, and we are in the process of converting our email system from VAX-based mail (with PC software clients) to Microsoft Exchange. (Going from one mistake to another.) One of the reasons Exchange was chosen over Lotus Notes, in our situation, was that Microsoft Exchange is compliant with the Defense Message System (DMS) guidelines. ("DMS provides a fully integrated, supportable, secure, and accountable messaging system for individual and organizational users within the DOD." -- This includes IMAP compliance and LDAP.) Of course, roughly half of our users -- who tend to be engineers and scientists -- were already receiving their mail through various Linux servers and they were not happy to hear they were being "upgraded" to an NT-based email server and client. Due to the funky schedule imposed on us from on high (think PHBs with stars on their shoulders), the migration is not considered complete until 100% of the users are using the Outlook 98 client. Those of our customers without PCs are in the lurch; we acquired several dozen hand-me-down Pentium 100 systems for the express purpose of being able to say they have Outlook. So, despite the occasional glimmer of intelligence suggested in the article, I don't recommend rescinding the oxymoronic status of "military intelligence".
Also, not that they have obviously never heard about FastCGI, which in many respects are way superior to NSAPI and ISAPI.
Test's I've done have shown that for some types of dynamic applications we've seen between 2 and 5 times the performance of ordinary CGI's with FastCGI's... That would have placed Linux on par with Solaris and IIS on most of those tests.
Also, I'm curious about the TCP/IP issues they whine about that made them choose 2.0.35 over 2.2...
At best they screwed up again. At worst it's intentional FUD.
Who else would wear a purple satin shirt with puffy sleeves?
Seriously though, geeks of his caliber don't like anything.
> Why do you need it all integrated?
How about this? The end users only have to deal with one program. Its more of a psychological advantage, I admit, but people whine enough about having to learn one program.
"Army Intelligence" is NOT a misnomer ... - it's an oxymoron, just like MS "technical support".
There probably won't be any boxes at MS running Linux/unix _for this project_ because "Microsoft is working with a third company..." This probably means that they are paying someone to write the software (like they licensed Spyglass Mosaic when they needed to "develop" a browser).
Heh, JWZ entertains me. Once you realize that all operating systems suck, it'll start to make sense.
Also, I've never made that much money working on a software project, or known that much about X, or really *used* IRIX (although the big machines are really impressive) so I'm really not in a position to judge.
However, JWZ gets much respect for what he has managed to write under X, even though it sucks. (everyone knows about xdaliclock, and some people even use xscreensaver, especially with the new matrix mode, written by... guess who?)
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The article explicitly says they'll be porting the *client*. The Exchange server still has to run on NT, doesn't it? (I have to know, we're running it here - not my choice, BTW). If they were dismissing Exchange because of NT's security problems, then Microsoft would be porting both the client and the server to Unix, which I believe they won't be doing for a long time ("long time" approaching infinity, in this case).
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
OK, so basically they're porting the Exchange client to Unix (like they did with IE). Doesn't look like it will be much different than the Win32 version, I guess. Also, it's scary that the Army would reconsider using MS products, after proving they don't meet their needs.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Can i easily drop in my choice of editors in Outlook? I can in pine. Or mutt. Or elm. Can i change pager behavior? I'd like to be able to use spacebar to page, rather than having to move from touch-typing to pagedown. For that matter, i'd like to not have to use a mouse at all, and easily access all commands, menus, and headers with a few keystrokes. I'd like to be able to filter which headers i do and do not see. I'd like to set my Reply-to: address. I'd like to easily access multiple POP mailboxes, and have replies appear to come from the address in the To: header. Mutt and fetchmail do that one just fine.
Can Outlook do ANY of these things? NO!! So don't give me crap about how "powerful" Outlook is.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
I already did....
Do not read this
I don't have time to correct all the mistakes you've made here. Get a copy of "Computer Security Basics," by Deborah Russel and G. T. Gangemi Sr., from O'Reilly & Associates and read it, then come back and we'll talk.
Doug Loss
Whats the suprise here, MS will always go where the money is. This is a point I discussed with a friend a couple of years ago. The USA DOD has lots of cash for software, so MS will eventually write software for the platform that is preferred. If this is a Sun product then that is what they will target, if it is Linux then expect Word for Linux.
I would expect MS to go the linux route then they can target Sun, Corel, IBM/Lotus and StarDivision all in one go !
For example, the company I work for is currently a contractor for the US Navy, and we're using Lotus Notes internally (at the Navy). It seems like all of the Navy uses Notes, BTW. The Marines use some Vines-like thing, and maybe Notes as well (the Marines are *technically* related to or part of the Navy).
Just wanted to point out that just because the Army is developing or forcing Unix-based systems, doesn't mean the Navy (who had the smart ship program) is doing the same thing. In fact, our NT based Domino servers have been flaky all week, further increasing everyone's ire with MSFT here
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
One of my noisiest bitches with Netscape Messenger is that it saves attachments with the message. So, if I want to keep the message text in my Inbox without this 10MB attachment some dumb-ass sent me, I have to manually edit the nsmail folder and remove the attachment part.
(Granted, it's nice I'm _able_ to just edit the mbox, but I'd rather an option to save certain mime-types into an attachments directory.)
Another bitch is not having direct access to the "From" header when writing a new message. I loved Eudora's "personalities", but I'd settle for just being able to edit that damn header. (I assume Netscape doesn't allow this because it'd make it easier for lamers to send weak fraud e-mail.)
If I didn't have a job keeping me busy, I'd try to write a Eudora-ish client myself. I'm astonished nobody else has-- maybe all the new-breed hacker kiddies are used to sub-par Unix clients, or feel the need to irrationally stick to a command line.
I use Mutt to check mail when ssh'ing from my cablemodem, but when I'm in X, I want to use a graphical mailreader. Right now it's Netscape, but I'm aching for something better.
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#19845
I admit, it isn't very nice to set up at all. But once you figure out how to use it, it's the best mail client ever. Spam filtering? Much more intuitive than any other mail client. Inbox sorting? You can use basically any elisp expression possible to use to sort your mail. The flexibility is unbelievable.
Gnus has my vote for most functional mail client. As for ease of use, well... not. =)
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
They've already done Outlook Express for Solaris, but based on my experience, DoD is looking for something larger, such as full Outlook.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
I thought it was because the post was completely off-topic. Or maybe because it's an obvious troll. Oh, maybe it was because it was repeated in several articles already.
But I guess I must have been wrong.
Rob is evil. Let's kill Rob.
Ben
Lotus Notes might be nice for administration, but as a mail system it sucks massively. The UI is atrocious - quite possibly the worst I've ever seen. The speed is a joke, and yes, I know it's a database underneath because it exposes this fact (which the users shouldn't need to know about) every chance it gets. You're right, mail doesn't go missing, in fact it arrives multiple times, days apart.
How anyone has the bare-faced cheek to sell this as a mail system is beyond me, it's so awkward to use that since being forced to use it we're seeing mail volumes drop considerably as people find it easier and quicker to hand write messages and stick them in the internal post or use services like HotMail for sending internal mail !
This reminds me of the articles of why "NT is good for the enterprise developer" 'cos it saves a few cycles here and there, but misses the point that as a developer it's so hard to find out what's going on beneath the veneer that those precious few cycles fade into insignificance for those who don't work for MS, IBM, Sybase or similar (hence a thriving industry in "internals", "secrets", "undocumented areas" etc.).
I don't want a "powerful database merging programmable blah blah blah", I just want to send mail to people (please). Anyone got an Emacs RMAIL to Lotus Notes binding lying around ?
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Lotus notes is a terrible program! (from what I know about it handling mail) you have about 75% chance of a message actually arriving, no biff or .forward capabilities and the unix version is still buggy like windows. No wonder NATO misses all targets ;)
-LJ
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Eudora and Visio are the only reasons to use a micros~1 product.
If you like Visio, you should try playing around with dia. It's not nearly as powerful, but it can do some neat things with network diagrams, and object/class diagrams. I think it's really coming along nicely.
somebody told them to get that buggy, crackerjack marketing FUDcrap outta here. We need some serious software for some serious life/death business.
Only a fool goes into the email server w/o a strategy.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
And they suck badly. I believe the IE for Solaris is even still beta. At least the one I downloaded and tried recently was.
I wish I could set vim as my editor in Outlook and get rid of all of that extra formating. I hate seeing these large fonts in rainbow colors and other MS-Word formated e-mails. A coworker even tried to send me an e-mail with coloumns aligned to easy reading. It turns out Outlook reformats the e-mails as they are sent. It deletes certain numbers of spaces or something.
If Outlook would let me edit with my own editor and allow me to read messages in non-proportional font (without having to select it for each message) without having to use the mouse, I would be mildly happy.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
eBay users are restless due to numerous system performance embarassments. Unfortunately, I can't get the link because Wired News's search engine is down :-(, but I seem to remember reading it there.
D
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Didn't the military make a major commitment to NT only a year or so ago? I see this as a major turnaround, an admission that switching to NT just isn't working. (Perhaps that "smart ship" debacle turned the tide. I know it would make me think twice).
I think it's striking that an unspecified company is doing the port by an unspecified time. I'm not holding my breath for this software; when MS is really serious about something they give a (wildly optimistic) deadline.
Finally, does anyone use and like Internet Explorer for Solaris or any other Unix? The few people I've heard from who've tried it promptly switched back to Netscape, calling it a major dog. I would assume there's at least some common code between IE and Outlook, so whoever did IE is bound to get the Outlook project, and the result is bound to have the same problems.
D
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True - I said "user level functionality", which means mouse-wielding WIMP users (Windows/CDE/Linux DE). For the record, I currently use telnet+Pine, Outlook, Netscape, and Lotus Notes on both Windows and Unix platforms. Different tools for different circumstances.
Unix mail certainly has more "functionality" - it's just not as accessible on the user level. But apparently "user" is a four letter word around here so give 'em ssh and mutt.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
1. Roaming support is provided via Windows roaming user profiles. A bit sucky, esp on Win9x. Intellimirror improves this on paper.
2. I've been able to set up mutiple mail sources in Outlook, but never never tried multiple IMAP servers. The UI makes it look possible, though.
3. LDAP is supported.
4. If you are using LDAP, there's no reason you can't use PINE or something in addition to Outlook.
5. Windows and a substandard Mac client only. I would guess that a Unix port would have poor "public folder" support just as the Mac client does.
6. Internet client-side mail filters work fine in Outlook 98 without an Exchange server.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I meant
4. If you are using IMAP, there's no reason you can't use PINE or something in addition to Outlook.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The "North American" version of Notes/Domino does not have this supposed back door.
Note that the "back door" is so Lotus can export a 64 bit encryption version, only that the US government knows 24 of the bits, effectively making it 40-bit when the USG is trying crack you.
Lotus has documented this. Go to http://orionweb.lotus.com and search for technote 162546.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
There is about 50 posts here guffawing at Microsoft's crappy software and poor unix ports. Har Har.
But is there even one Unix mail program (commercial or otherwise) that comes even close to the user-level functionality of MS Outlook? And before anyone nominates KMail or Netscape Messenger, try using both side-by-side!
(Admittedly Outlook is a 30 MB install, but where I come from, mail is the #1 application by far. Of course, the PST format can go hairy, but again, so can Netscape's mail database.)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
mbox gripes: writing a program to access a mbox file securely is, let's say, non-trivial, especially when combined with NFS. It can be done, though, look in the procmail sources. The fun really starts when sendmail is using a different locking mechanism than your mail client....
I've found ">From" in books. What's the cause: the mbox format.
Then again: mbox is ancient, I don't think the author of binmail can be blamed for this.
The amount of cruft we've collected over the years sometimes scares me.
I hate to say it, but Outlook is terrible! I can rant all day on it, but I already did that. Check out: http://www.binary.net/thehaas/t houghts/outpuke.html.
In short - it's a memory hog, it causes my Win95 machine at work to crash more often, and it is nasty and non-inititive to configure.
Contrary to Microsoft's claims, one size doesn't fit all, more isn't always better, and there is no single "#1 application" for everybody.
I'm not sure what JWZ wants. He doesn't like X11 (yes, X11 has faults, but it's far better than any other windowing system and it's also freed), complains about Unix, feels that Mozilla failed (when it hasn't--M5 is pretty good, although I'm still waiting for something release-quality), and goes on and on about the glories of IRIX (which is an embodiment of everything I would not want in an operating system).
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
One of the nice things about mbox format is that it's incorruptible.
Cheers,
Joshua.
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
The Navy has MS all over its PC's both on shore commands and onboard ships. Fortunately, the fire control systems use a completely seperate method of operation (won't discuss, don't ask). And our backup computer systems (COTS based) runs HP-Unix.
Thank God the supply people have their stuff straight. Logistics is handled through a *nix. But if we don't get MS off those f***ing PC's, some bright individual is going to learn how to connect it to the combat systems and then we should all worry about all hell breaking loose.
Fortunately, it takes a live person to press a button. I don't trust a computer to say whether or not we're going to start WW3.
Digital Wokan, Tribal mage of the electronics age
Mail Clients were designed to read mail.There's not a heck of a lot of "functionality" needed. Sure its nice to have a group calendar, but you can easily use one of several solutions for that (some of which are web based, so everyone, no matter what their OS can acess it easily). A calander is not part of a mail client.
Address Books are fine, but I get that in pretty much every mail client I use... many of which can use LDAP, so that multiple clients can work well together.
A mail client should first and foremost do its job... and do it well. After it gets that right, then perhaps it might look at some extra functionality. Otherwise, the functionality is a waste, designed only to overwhelm the user into beliving that they have something good.
Its amazing what can be done when people use things for what their intended to do, not fifty extra things that they were never intended to do.
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
Thanks for posting that link, it was pretty amusing. Seeing how so many people were clamoring for tests using dynamic, rather than just static, web pages, this study should make them happy. -[[ Takes another look at the graph of Linux's dynamic performance compared to NT's and shudders ]]- Ummm, then again, maybe not. :)
In case anyone got discombobulated with your tagging error, they can go to, 2256617,00.html?chkpt=hpqs00019
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/reviews/0,6755
to see the study.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Well, sending email as HTML for one thing. I've never really done it, but mabye some people dig it. They can dig it, html is ok.
But you know whats really missing? I do!
A SPINNY ICON. Thats right, in todays market, if it doesn't have a lame memory eating icon spinning in the top right corner it doesnt cut it.
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
Not to mention Word 6 for the Mac....
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I have yet to see an argument for NT that can't be answered with the domain name hotmail.com.
It's owned by Microsoft, but according to Netcraft:
hotmail.com is running Apache/1.2.1 on FreeBSD
Hmm, I thought they were running Solaris, but this is even better! They've tried to switch to NT more than once, and it just couldn't keep up. What more do you need?
Even your average NT fan couldn't be this dumb right?
Trolls. Sigh.
Please don't feed the troll. Move along, move along.
Either that, or this dweeb has never administered both. (I have/do, and fscking hate it).
"All those tubes and wires and careful notes!"
M$ has been a developer on the Mac platform for years.
\//
Their existing software is crapworthy and insecure, so they'll write some new cw&i software for Unix. Where's the improvement?
Or maybe they'll buy something that a real software producer has already made, and sell it under the MS brand. But then they'll want to be "better" than the competition rather than merely functional and reliable, so they'll start adding in support for macro viruses and all that, and they'll be right back where they are today.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The reason these tests don't get any respect here is that too many ./ participants have firsthand real-world experience with running Linux and NT side by side, or with replacing one with the other, and they know exactly what happens when they do so.
Quote whatever authorities you want; people are still going to believe what they see with their own eyes.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
MS porting a package to a non-MS operating system? Not in my lifetime. This is obviously just a vaporware announcement to get the Armies attention.
Why? Because MS's operating systems are its bread and butter, its cash cow. Witness IE and the whole anti-trust deal. They needed IE to succeed (for strategic, not monetary reasons), so they bundled it. Anything that weakens the operating system business won't fly.
I expect this to go as far as IE for Solaris (which they mislabeled "IE for Unix", as in we support (all) Unices). Just lip service to satisfy people who argue "we need (portability|security)".
My advise to the US Army: take a cue from the Navy (can you say "dead in the water"?), and don't touch MS software with a laser guided smart bomb.
Outlook may have a lot of whiz-bang Intelli-*(tm) slickness, but what it really comes down to is that it is pretty lacking in when you are working in an open-standards environment.
Here are some of my biggest beefs. Does Outlook have:
1. Roaming access like Netscape Messenger? As a contractor who spends a significant amount of time on client site, I'd constantly be setting up new mail profiles. With roaming access, all my settings follow me around (with my bookmarks and browser settings too). Plus my Netscape settings are consistant whether I boot into Linux or Windows. (I think Win2000 Intelli-mirror does something similar.)
2. Decent handling of multiple IMAP servers? Makes life much easier when you recieve mail from multiple sources.
3. LDAP address books? Many companies have their e-mail directories available through LDAP. Can Outlook use them?
4. Command line functionality? Sometimes, telnet is your only friend...
5. Available on Unix and Windows platforms? Sounds like Microsoft is getting better here.
6. Mail filters? Ok, I actually use procmail for this, but still. The last version of Outlook I used had the annoying and inexplicable limitation of not allowing (client side) mail filters unless the mail server was MS Exchange.
Until I find a mail client with all of these, I'll stick to Netscape and Pine.
While I don't want to kick a dead horse here, but I found this little piece on wired today about lotus notes
he report charges that popular software programs such as Lotus Notes and Web browsers include a "back door," through which the NSA can gain access to an individual's personal information......"Lotus built in an NSA 'help information' trapdoor to its Notes system,"......"The feature reportedly
broadcasts 24 of the 64 bits of the key
used for each communication, and relies
on a public key that can only be read by
the NSA.
This is still somewhat arguable, the US has not admitted to such, and Louts was not reachable for comment. This would kind of leave one to think that Lotus and The US military are in bed together oon many things. I wonder how far M$ would go to get a Goverment contract? Would they agree to such clauses in their own software? Have they Already?
Just something to ponder
Yep, didn't even occur to me this was the equvilent of 40 bit encription polices set by the US for foreign export (64 -24, Doh where was my math?)
He said that the secure, DMS version of Lotus Notes running on Solaris "provides us with better security" than a Microsoft solution. He added that "Lotus Notes is a far more technically superior product."
;-)
Boy I bet that stung M$ like a bi*&$.
M$ developing unix apps? Does that mean we will see more M$ ip's running linux/unix for development reasons? Hmm, mabey an internal revolution within M$ company culture will occur after employees get to use a real os!
Probably not
You mean you don't spy on us already using Pine Gap (US military installation in southcentral Australia)? :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
I suggest you take a good look at mutt. mutt's one of those programs where, once it's set up, people think, "Ahh, this is the way email was *meant* to be!" If the only thing it did better than pine was to thread messages, that would be a good enough reason to switch. It does much more than just that, though.
You're a suburbanite.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
so bill's scrambling for a piece of that war chest action? not a bad move... i wonder if he's taking a leaf out of howard hughes' book [who managed to score himself a pretty penny for that wonderful spruce goose and many many other less than effective flying contraptions].
all we need bill to do now is start buying up casinos [online gambling?] and wearing tissue boxes on his feet.
anyway,email clients [crappy as they are] i can handle, it's not going to really get scarey until bill starts talking embedded systems with these army guys....
--
Rare Window - free your photos
Doh! *Sigh* Oh well. I'd rather use notes than MS bloatware.
Just think, Microsoft NT crashes and the world gets nuked. Most actually highly classified work gets done on computers with removable hard drives that get locked up in a skiff at night. Can you imagine if one of them went down? Then the aliens would be furious! ;)
"Alt-F4 that's for quitting" quoth Dan_Wood
http://www.southsoft.com
Small, fast, built in PGP. Best client I've ever used...on windows and OS/2. When I asked the developers, they said they may port it to linux.
URL should be:
http://www.southsoft.com
I don't get it. Are they going to attempt to make a "new {standard,revolution}" in Unix clients? Perhaps move Unix from the savage, old world way of using a CLI for mail to using a GUI? That's what they basically said about Internet Explorer, and I don't see a revolution yet. (Plus of course Netscape exists.)
What I do anticipate is an increase in morons posting HTML to Usenet from their shiny new Linux system.
I am new to Linux. Would love to see Eudora on Linux.
I primarily use Outlook Express 5.0 on NT4.0WS. Email is my primary application. I access more than a dozen different mailboxes, have even more "From:" "Reply To:" identities. Like the choice of either text or html editing. Don't mind the mouse. Outlook 98 is overkill. Eudora 4.x is the only thing that approaches Outlook Express in flexibility.
Keep hearing about the virtues of Pine and Mutt -- are there any X-based clients with this same functionality in one package available for Linux?
If Eudora goes OSS and something wonderful happens -- great! Alas, it will be a long time before MS ports IE/Outlook Express to Linux.
Any practical suggestions?
-sennin
Perhaps the army's choice is related to the forthcoming Lotus Notes on Linux ? Meanwhile you can get a look at
2
http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/newsviews
If your friend is so good at configuring NT and OE, have him contact micros~1. I understand they are offering various contractors around US$50,000 bonus to get this bid back. They haven't had any serious takers in almost 2 months. And that's the bonus, on top of the $20,000 or so for the one week of work.
SunFed sells Secure Solaris, which has an A2 rating even in small network clusters. But they only sell it to approved government agencies.
And there are two linux boxes here with C2 ratings.
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Eudora and Visio are the only reasons to use a micros~1 product.
Eudora has the interface almost nailed down to perfection. It could use a few more interface whizzies, and better LDAP and IMAP backends, but it does everything I need in an email front end.
When the rumors of Qualcomm releasing the Eudora source as OSS went around last year, I was rejoicing. As soon as that happened, I knew the Open Source community would jump on it and make it into a truly inspired and great program. Then I could make up extremely cheap email machines for my clueless relatives, instead of now getting them cheap 98 machines with AOL or Eudora. And with something like Enlightenment to make the windows pretty, it would be the coolest machine on their block.
But alas, Qualcomm has failed in their duty, but they might do it yet... there is another Qualcomm story on the wires this morning...we wait and see
the AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Here's my favorite:
:-)
the company provides highly reliable security "out of the box.... Policywise, you have to make sure you configure it correctly."
A group I work with for setting up some secure systems recently invited micros~1 to send some experts to set up a system with proper security. There was a rather large contract riding on this bid, and as near as we can tell micros~1 DID send their most knowledgable engineers. But after three days of configuration and re-configuration, we could break the box with any of a dozen script-kiddie exploits, and with several custom made attacks.
The micros~1 experts finally went away muttering a few feeble excuses. Only one seemed genuinely embarassed, the others 'just didnt get it'.
So the bid going to the customer will be almost entirely unix based, and only a handful of M$ machines to cover a specific need in the contract. The account team from micros~1 are crying themselves blue right now, since it was going to be their quota for the year. Either way, I get paid
The AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on