what phone? slower than what? buggier than what? define terrible phone, do you mean your handset has a horrible RF antenna? nearly as bad PDA, how so?
How they came to be more prevalent than palm, let me count the ways: -better voice recognition. -text to speech conversion. -office mobile and exchange activesync. -single-touch capable. -thousands of.cab files available for every application you would ever want. -custom cooked ROM images to fit a variety of needs, including "fast and stable". -setting options to be as battery hungry and performance oriented or as battery fiscal and longevity oriented as you want. -ability to support multitudes of hardware configurations and features, so handset manufacturers who want to put GPS receivers, graphical chipsets, 3g frequencies, and play around with different form factors can do so easily. -better applications than the competition. Try to find something on S60, UIQ, iPhone, or any java MIDP based handset that is as good as Windows LiveSearch for Windoes Mobile. Namely, GPS-based proximity gas price search and voice-enabled search queries that both work flawlessly... sorry Google Maps and Nokia Maps... you're good, but you can't touch WLS.
The list goes on. Next time you buy phones, you might want to ask the person who does the research and authorization on phone purchases to stop worrying so much about saving a few bucks and actually spend the money on quality phones; and OS is not really a primary concern for a quality phone, as I can name quality phones that use every major phone OS, manufacturer too.
But don't mind me, continue bashing MS with inane argument that make you look like an uneducated zealous tool.
The iPhone is slickly marketed, does a few things well, and sacrifices a lot of features to get that multi-touch display and maintain a $400-500 price tag.
Any serious phone addict could care less about the admittedly nice intuitive interface and awesome browser. They want PC-level features, and that means HSxPA, a-GPS, BUTTONS, both free AND commercial applications, and (travelers want) removable batteries whether Apple admits it or not.
Business users will still prefer their god-awful blackberries, E-series Nokias, and single-touch + full keyboard WinMo Pro handsets, simply because they are better at fulfilling the need of the user, and already have every app that anybody would want available for download.
Personal/individual users either want a phone that their carrier will subsidize 100%, or at least only make them pay $100 or less for a phone that would be $400-500 if it was unlocked. They still have N-series Nokias, SE walkman, and LG phones to compete at the iPhone price point, not to mention the Samsungs, Motorolas, and Nokias that are at the "a whole helluvalot cheaper" price point, minus the multi-touchscreen and desktop-level browser.
Apple, if anything, shows that you CAN catch up quickly to the competition... if you just aggressively market your sole device and make sure the news reporters catch your employees high-fiving the poor schmucks who coughed up >=$400 for a phone that plays music and video and has a browser, but lets you touch it in more than one place at a time... a kinky phone, in other words. Yes, I'm rooting for Android to lay the smack-down - but not to Apple - to MS, Symbian, Palm, and RIM.
I fail to see the point. What idiot consumer is going to run out and buy a new OS just because it's $30 cheaper. It's still $130 out of their pocket, and if they really wanted it before, they would've bought it at the $160 point. And if they really want cheap, there's linux.
I expect to see a major turn-around with their next desktop OS release or it might be time to start beating the drum for desktop linux instead of hiding my linux boxes exclusively in the server room. End users will just have to deal with the inevitable problems.
I'd go with the N95-3 instead. everything the same as the N95 8GB except it has US 3g (ATT),.2" smaller diagonal screen, and microSD instead of 8GB internal.
The items I would add for travel are: - 2 spare batteries. - 3 4GB microSDHC cards.
As for laptop, I'd go with Asus EEE PC, linux or windows whatever your needs dictate. If you really need something more powerful and/or larger than that, I'm sure there will be computers available for those specific tasks where you're going.
"Great UI is one of those things yhat you get and you can't go back - and for a lot of people it trumps corner cases of connectivity. Remember, the iPhone has WiFi so if I'm in a WiFi zone I can do all those marvelous things you speak of as well, faster than 3G - but I don't really miss it much if I can 't find a hotspot."
Great UI is only great if it includes the features that you want. If it doesn't include the features, then I hate to tell you but I haven't found a phone with an unusable interface yet. Yes, the WinMo and Symbian phones require me to move shortcuts around to get them where I want them, but after an initial 15 hour fiddling investment, I typically stop touching them and know where everything is. Please don't claim you didn't fiddle with your iPhone for 15 hours, cuz that would make you... A LIAR!
"It already has location finding, and a battery you MAY have to replace once every two YEARS if you use it heavily, four or so if not. For long plane flights I have an external solar charged power pack, which is not much more bulky than a second battery would have been and I can also use to recharge other devices..."
Please never compare cell-based location finding to GPS again. That's like comparing paces to meters; cubits to feet; courtney love to heidi klum.
external solar charged power pack? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! Try a 2x2" spare battery... you can even charge it during the night! amazing.
3g is just one of those things that you get and then can't go back, like broadband internet. Sure, you can explain that 3g gives you simultaneous data and voice instead of having to stop data to answer a phone call, and while on the phone with someone having to hang up to look up whatever information you were going to before calling them back instead of just doing it while they're on speakerphone, but its not until you actually use the feature on 3g, then try to use the feature on EDGE that you realize what the difference really is.
Going from a 3g HTC TyTN II (ATT branded TILT) to an EDGE capable unlocked Nokia N95-2 when I thought EDGE would be "good enough" too, especially with Wi-Fi. Now I know what the buzz about 3g is all about, because I miss the hell out of it when I'm not near a wifi hotspot. Its important enough to me that I'll be returning the N95-2 and replacing it with a N95-4 when it comes out in another week, at a cost of around $200, JUST to get US frequency 3g.
Oh, and call me when iPhone has GPS and a removable battery. Then I'll be interested in its fabulous interface.
Seriously, why the hell turn off indexing? Anytime you do something interactively on the system indexing pauses itself. Anytime you have some software package doing something indexing slows down to allow the other process to run with however much processor it wants. I mean, we don't want to have near-instant system searches now because we believe that the index will steal the processor from us? Lets try to keep up with the technology please.
I mean, yes, it was stupid for MS to screw up their integrated smartsearch so badly when you turn off indexing. But at the same time, if you let people who don't know what the fuck they're doing setup and configure ANY computer system based off their limited luser knowledge of XP and XP alone... well, they're gonna screw the pooch on just about any other OS on the planet, except maybe win2k.
Pretty much every level of I.T. won't die anytime soon, and will more than likely grow as hybrid I.T. (both in-house and outsourced) converge to give a completely custom level of implementation, support, and development.
The one thing this guy ignores is the fact that every single site has individual needs and requirements, with different levels of infrastructure, different budgets, and different styles of management. Add that the physical architecture of the site and physical location are almost always different - even within the same physical regions - and you get a "one solution per site" setup, which somebody has to manage. That person (if they are smart) will realize that they will be more efficient with internal employees for some roles and outsourced employees for other roles, and they will likely fluctuate on a yearly basis if budgetary costs are to be kept in check.
As much as people like to talk about standards and/or turn-key solutions, you can't just define I.T. as a commodity and then go on with life or else your business will fail. You need at least one high-level manager, at least one help-desk guy, at least one developer (web, app, db, or other), at least one system/network/DB admin, and at least one phone support tech. Sure you can have small shops where 1 employee is expected to fill all of those roles except for maybe management, but good luck retaining someone that smart for more than a year. THAT is where 3rd party support shops do great, but that's limited to very small companies, say 15 employees or fewer. Once they start getting to 25+ employees, management starts trying to do funky custom things with databases, reporting, web services.
And honestly, what self-respecting I.T. employee wants to work on such a small scale? Nobody I know... I.T. becomes so much more easier to expense when their job affects 100 employees or more. Program a web-based timeclock for a 10 employee company... "why'd you do that? we're outsourcing payroll next month anyway!" Program the exact same timeclock for a 100 employee company... "good job on the timeclock, now I need a report that tells me how many employees didn't keep up with their timeclock and have it automatically emailed to my inbox every day." Program the exact same timeclock for a 1000 employee company... "memo to all employees: thanks to the long hours of our overworked and underpaid IT staff, we are rolling out a brand new timeclock system next monday. They are getting a new breakroom to show our appreciation for all their efforts. And a new cappucino machine to boot."
Well, I might've exaggerated, but you get the idea.
Get your Exchange admin to create a transport rule for you that copies your email to wherever.
Or set your mailbox's mail flow settings to forward your mail to another external mail contact.
That way, the rule is always in effect instead of depending on you logging in from the client that has the rule in place.
Or maybe they don't want you screwing around and sending business email to some mail server that they aren't liable for and think you're retarded for even wanting duplicate repositories for your mailbox and refuse to fulfill your request.
"This is not to look at office 2k7 because I haven't seen an office with it yet. If you use the "new" outlook, what are your impressions?"
Nice improvement over Outlook 2003, but not 100% necessary unless you are integrating with the new version of SharePoint 2007. Emailing someone your Outlook Calendar in HTML format is rediculously simple in Outlook 2007, but I wouldn't mark it down as a huge selling point or anything.
Word and Excel actually are far more different. They seemed to have dumbed down Word so any retard will have a nicely formatted report if they just type and hit enter at the end of paragraphs, but of course it has more useless new tracking features that sync up with SharePoint. Excel seems to have gotten more advanced with additional ways to do advanced equations and pivot tables. Excel seems to be the driving app for people requesting Office 2007 in my environment, so apparently it does SOMETHING that the older versions don't do.
"or using a shitty Web interface that has not kept up with the regular client"
The OWA client for Exchange 2007 is so good that there are companies who are getting rid of Outlook for all normal mail users and having everyone use the web client. The only people who get Outlook 2007 are Exchange Admins and special case-by-case basis (usually execs). So heterogenous environments are better from a client perspective (plus its easier to administer the web client anyway).
"licensing costs"
marketing websites and resellers say different things. resellers get massive breaks and pass them on to customers. Our Exchange 2007 organization license was just under $3k from our reseller and our CALs were $25 per user.
"future licensing costs for upgrades to support new clients"
OWA is going to be the client of choice in the future. Outlook already has too many garbage features that nobody uses in it. This is not a big secret to system integrators, sr system admins, tech managers, or MS. There are too many advantages to web clients for most environments to bother with issues related to mail clients, including future licensing costs for upgrades.
"lousy cross platform support"
OWA light does suck (firefox, opera, safari, etc). But if you can use IE, OWA is great.
"added expense to support smartphones"
Simply wrong. There are no additional licenses required to use Exchange ActiveSync on your CAS server. You licensed the user to access a mailbox. They can use any method to access that mailbox that you turn on. You may be confusing this with the premium CAL required for users of companies who choose to go the unified messagine route. You can't use OVA without UM which requires the premium CAL.
You have to buy a blackberry enterprise server if you want to use blackberries, but you had to do that before and will have to do it again in the future. that's RIM's deal, not MS. Any symbian or palm phone that support EAS will work just fine out of the box, and obviously all the windows mobile phones are seamless to integrate.
"lack of choice for clients"
Outlook, OWA (web), EAS (mobile), OVA (voice), and basically any client that supports POP3 or IMAP4 if you choose to turn those features on, on the server. Nobody says you are limited to the native Exchange MAPI unless you choose to do so.
"lack of choice for server platform (only Windows and VMWare) Whereas CalDav servers like Zimbra also support OS X, Linux, Solaris, etc."
True, but do you really blame them? As nice as it would be to load Exchange up on Linux, it just doesn't help MS make more money by doing that. The fact that Exchange depends on all sorts of Windows-specific technologies like PowerShell and the.NET platform doesn't make it a very easy application to port to another OS, either.
"lack of choice for support and customization and services, only MS instead of RedHat, Zimbra Inc, IBM, etc. (If MS does not fix a security hole tht is a problem for you, you're screwed, whereas with CalDav you can hire someone else to fix it or even fix it using internal programming resources)"
True, and really the only valid point you made. Congrats!
You can be both quite easily. Darwin, Galileo, Einstein, Copernicus, and Tesla would all disagree with your supposition that observation and faith are mutually exclusive. I'm sure there are plenty of other giants I missed, but you get the idea.
Great job giving a quacky research girl - who fights the creationists more vitriolically than they fight evolution - the status of "source" for this article. She's obviously smarter than I, since I can't figure out what it is she does, other than "biology research". She also has obviously already made up her mind (as is typical of any 24 year old grad student) that she has to work in "the right" field.
I, on the other hand, can be perfectly content in the knowledge that the earth is billions of years old (and God created it in 6 days some odd thousands of years ago), that the expanding universe is indicative of the big bang (and God was around before that, if it happened), and biological evolution is definitively stated (though possibly not on quite as macro a scale as a proponent of natural selection would have you believe). I'd like to be able to logically explain how all those beliefs can coexist, but since my primary job is to pay the mortgage and not reconcile conflicting philosophies, I'll leave that to someone else.
Still, it always boggles my mind when I hear researchers fighting about their beliefs. As a researcher you should be preaching a very teeny portion of the time and searching a great majority of the time. Also be sure to let me know when this girl moves out of the blogosphere and into the peer-reviewed journal stage. Maybe then slashdot can link to a real source article.
If they get away with copyright infringment, they'll be just like the vast majority of slashdotters, and we can't have slashdotters and creationists sharing any similar traits!
no wait, I have a better one...
first copyright infringment, then TERRORISM! Lets nip this in the bud right now! Sick the RIAA on them!
I'd have to tell any hiring manager asking about my accomplishments being listed on google to get bent.
1. My primary job function has nothing to do with SEO. 2. Even if it did have to do with SEO, why would I be required to optimize myself on google? I already wrote up a resume that optimizes my prior work history and experience exactly as I want it to appear. 3. I use no less than 3 online nicknames specifically to decentralize/distribute the ability for people to know everything that I do simply by tracking a single nickname.
Seriously, I would never put an online nickname on a resume just because of some retarded hiring manager that thinks he's techno-smart for googling an applicant.
Been doing the "2 external USB drives" backup solution for small businesses - without any business continuity plan and without any money to implement one - for a few years now. Run a daily backup from file server's internal drive to external drive #1, then a copy command from file server to dupe drive #1 onto drive #2 a few hours later. Yeah, I should use checksums for integrity but if they wanted integrity they would've sprung for a real backup solution. You get what you pay for.
2003 made some nice improvements to Outlook. (rpc over https, junk-mail filter)
2007 made some nice improvements to Word/Excel/Outlook (excel bug notwithstanding).
If you are a power user for any of the basic Office apps and still using 2000, you would enjoy any office upgrade.
If you're just supporting Office and aren't really a power user, then I can see how you wouldn't notice any differences. But that means you are holding back your power users instead of enabling them to do more. Try Office 2k7 for 2 weeks and your users will get used to the new UI and wonder how they ever got along without it.
Vista still sucks for corporate environment though.
I don't even want it on my primary management workstation because it doesn't run win2k3 admin tools properly. I still make others in the company run it to find any software compatibility issues (haven't found any yet), but for IT work purposes, I'd rather just use XP than worry about remoting to a DC.
And as for the MS recommendation to remote to a win2k3 management server, what about the 90% of companies out there who don't have the resources for that?
Anyway, I'm still getting all new systems with Vista licensing with downgrade rights so a year down the road a Vista migration won't be quite as expensive. But there's no way I'm moving out of beta for my environment without the ability to run server admin tools on a Vista box.
Slashdot Mirror
what phone? slower than what? buggier than what? define terrible phone, do you mean your handset has a horrible RF antenna? nearly as bad PDA, how so?
.cab files available for every application you would ever want.
How they came to be more prevalent than palm, let me count the ways:
-better voice recognition.
-text to speech conversion.
-office mobile and exchange activesync.
-single-touch capable.
-thousands of
-custom cooked ROM images to fit a variety of needs, including "fast and stable".
-setting options to be as battery hungry and performance oriented or as battery fiscal and longevity oriented as you want.
-ability to support multitudes of hardware configurations and features, so handset manufacturers who want to put GPS receivers, graphical chipsets, 3g frequencies, and play around with different form factors can do so easily.
-better applications than the competition. Try to find something on S60, UIQ, iPhone, or any java MIDP based handset that is as good as Windows LiveSearch for Windoes Mobile. Namely, GPS-based proximity gas price search and voice-enabled search queries that both work flawlessly... sorry Google Maps and Nokia Maps... you're good, but you can't touch WLS.
The list goes on. Next time you buy phones, you might want to ask the person who does the research and authorization on phone purchases to stop worrying so much about saving a few bucks and actually spend the money on quality phones; and OS is not really a primary concern for a quality phone, as I can name quality phones that use every major phone OS, manufacturer too.
But don't mind me, continue bashing MS with inane argument that make you look like an uneducated zealous tool.
The iPhone is slickly marketed, does a few things well, and sacrifices a lot of features to get that multi-touch display and maintain a $400-500 price tag.
Any serious phone addict could care less about the admittedly nice intuitive interface and awesome browser. They want PC-level features, and that means HSxPA, a-GPS, BUTTONS, both free AND commercial applications, and (travelers want) removable batteries whether Apple admits it or not.
Business users will still prefer their god-awful blackberries, E-series Nokias, and single-touch + full keyboard WinMo Pro handsets, simply because they are better at fulfilling the need of the user, and already have every app that anybody would want available for download.
Personal/individual users either want a phone that their carrier will subsidize 100%, or at least only make them pay $100 or less for a phone that would be $400-500 if it was unlocked. They still have N-series Nokias, SE walkman, and LG phones to compete at the iPhone price point, not to mention the Samsungs, Motorolas, and Nokias that are at the "a whole helluvalot cheaper" price point, minus the multi-touchscreen and desktop-level browser.
Apple, if anything, shows that you CAN catch up quickly to the competition... if you just aggressively market your sole device and make sure the news reporters catch your employees high-fiving the poor schmucks who coughed up >=$400 for a phone that plays music and video and has a browser, but lets you touch it in more than one place at a time... a kinky phone, in other words. Yes, I'm rooting for Android to lay the smack-down - but not to Apple - to MS, Symbian, Palm, and RIM.
Apple isn't the competition.
Well, gee, thanks for the story. Now wtf does it have to do with TFA?
I fail to see the point. What idiot consumer is going to run out and buy a new OS just because it's $30 cheaper. It's still $130 out of their pocket, and if they really wanted it before, they would've bought it at the $160 point. And if they really want cheap, there's linux.
I expect to see a major turn-around with their next desktop OS release or it might be time to start beating the drum for desktop linux instead of hiding my linux boxes exclusively in the server room. End users will just have to deal with the inevitable problems.
"What are you talking about? Vista runs every well written program and most of the garbage ones too."
Hear that MS? Windows 2003 Server Admin Tools is below most of the garbage programs out there.
I'd go with the N95-3 instead. everything the same as the N95 8GB except it has US 3g (ATT), .2" smaller diagonal screen, and microSD instead of 8GB internal.
The items I would add for travel are:
- 2 spare batteries.
- 3 4GB microSDHC cards.
As for laptop, I'd go with Asus EEE PC, linux or windows whatever your needs dictate. If you really need something more powerful and/or larger than that, I'm sure there will be computers available for those specific tasks where you're going.
AT&T HSDPA has plenty of bandwidth. TMo will be joining the crowd within the next 6 months.
"Great UI is one of those things yhat you get and you can't go back - and for a lot of people it trumps corner cases of connectivity. Remember, the iPhone has WiFi so if I'm in a WiFi zone I can do all those marvelous things you speak of as well, faster than 3G - but I don't really miss it much if I can 't find a hotspot."
Great UI is only great if it includes the features that you want. If it doesn't include the features, then I hate to tell you but I haven't found a phone with an unusable interface yet. Yes, the WinMo and Symbian phones require me to move shortcuts around to get them where I want them, but after an initial 15 hour fiddling investment, I typically stop touching them and know where everything is. Please don't claim you didn't fiddle with your iPhone for 15 hours, cuz that would make you... A LIAR!
"It already has location finding, and a battery you MAY have to replace once every two YEARS if you use it heavily, four or so if not. For long plane flights I have an external solar charged power pack, which is not much more bulky than a second battery would have been and I can also use to recharge other devices..."
Please never compare cell-based location finding to GPS again. That's like comparing paces to meters; cubits to feet; courtney love to heidi klum.
external solar charged power pack? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! Try a 2x2" spare battery... you can even charge it during the night! amazing.
3g is just one of those things that you get and then can't go back, like broadband internet. Sure, you can explain that 3g gives you simultaneous data and voice instead of having to stop data to answer a phone call, and while on the phone with someone having to hang up to look up whatever information you were going to before calling them back instead of just doing it while they're on speakerphone, but its not until you actually use the feature on 3g, then try to use the feature on EDGE that you realize what the difference really is.
Going from a 3g HTC TyTN II (ATT branded TILT) to an EDGE capable unlocked Nokia N95-2 when I thought EDGE would be "good enough" too, especially with Wi-Fi. Now I know what the buzz about 3g is all about, because I miss the hell out of it when I'm not near a wifi hotspot. Its important enough to me that I'll be returning the N95-2 and replacing it with a N95-4 when it comes out in another week, at a cost of around $200, JUST to get US frequency 3g.
Oh, and call me when iPhone has GPS and a removable battery. Then I'll be interested in its fabulous interface.
ur dumb, mr dummy dumb dumb.
go find a mirror to argue with.
meanwhile i want a 3g iphone, not an edge iphone.
i bet that makes u madd!!!!!eleventyone111111
Seriously, why the hell turn off indexing? Anytime you do something interactively on the system indexing pauses itself. Anytime you have some software package doing something indexing slows down to allow the other process to run with however much processor it wants. I mean, we don't want to have near-instant system searches now because we believe that the index will steal the processor from us? Lets try to keep up with the technology please.
I mean, yes, it was stupid for MS to screw up their integrated smartsearch so badly when you turn off indexing. But at the same time, if you let people who don't know what the fuck they're doing setup and configure ANY computer system based off their limited luser knowledge of XP and XP alone... well, they're gonna screw the pooch on just about any other OS on the planet, except maybe win2k.
Pretty much every level of I.T. won't die anytime soon, and will more than likely grow as hybrid I.T. (both in-house and outsourced) converge to give a completely custom level of implementation, support, and development.
The one thing this guy ignores is the fact that every single site has individual needs and requirements, with different levels of infrastructure, different budgets, and different styles of management. Add that the physical architecture of the site and physical location are almost always different - even within the same physical regions - and you get a "one solution per site" setup, which somebody has to manage. That person (if they are smart) will realize that they will be more efficient with internal employees for some roles and outsourced employees for other roles, and they will likely fluctuate on a yearly basis if budgetary costs are to be kept in check.
As much as people like to talk about standards and/or turn-key solutions, you can't just define I.T. as a commodity and then go on with life or else your business will fail. You need at least one high-level manager, at least one help-desk guy, at least one developer (web, app, db, or other), at least one system/network/DB admin, and at least one phone support tech. Sure you can have small shops where 1 employee is expected to fill all of those roles except for maybe management, but good luck retaining someone that smart for more than a year. THAT is where 3rd party support shops do great, but that's limited to very small companies, say 15 employees or fewer. Once they start getting to 25+ employees, management starts trying to do funky custom things with databases, reporting, web services.
And honestly, what self-respecting I.T. employee wants to work on such a small scale? Nobody I know... I.T. becomes so much more easier to expense when their job affects 100 employees or more. Program a web-based timeclock for a 10 employee company... "why'd you do that? we're outsourcing payroll next month anyway!" Program the exact same timeclock for a 100 employee company... "good job on the timeclock, now I need a report that tells me how many employees didn't keep up with their timeclock and have it automatically emailed to my inbox every day." Program the exact same timeclock for a 1000 employee company... "memo to all employees: thanks to the long hours of our overworked and underpaid IT staff, we are rolling out a brand new timeclock system next monday. They are getting a new breakroom to show our appreciation for all their efforts. And a new cappucino machine to boot."
Well, I might've exaggerated, but you get the idea.
After perusing the mostly pointless flash website HERE, I have a quick question...
Is it okay to use the device while sitting or does it only work while lying down on your stomach and grinning at it like a retard?
tired of doing point by point analysis, but Exchange 2007 is probably one of the most valuable products that MS still offers.
keep using those faulty arguments, though.
Get your Exchange admin to create a transport rule for you that copies your email to wherever.
Or set your mailbox's mail flow settings to forward your mail to another external mail contact.
That way, the rule is always in effect instead of depending on you logging in from the client that has the rule in place.
Or maybe they don't want you screwing around and sending business email to some mail server that they aren't liable for and think you're retarded for even wanting duplicate repositories for your mailbox and refuse to fulfill your request.
"This is not to look at office 2k7 because I haven't seen an office with it yet. If you use the "new" outlook, what are your impressions?"
Nice improvement over Outlook 2003, but not 100% necessary unless you are integrating with the new version of SharePoint 2007. Emailing someone your Outlook Calendar in HTML format is rediculously simple in Outlook 2007, but I wouldn't mark it down as a huge selling point or anything.
Word and Excel actually are far more different. They seemed to have dumbed down Word so any retard will have a nicely formatted report if they just type and hit enter at the end of paragraphs, but of course it has more useless new tracking features that sync up with SharePoint. Excel seems to have gotten more advanced with additional ways to do advanced equations and pivot tables. Excel seems to be the driving app for people requesting Office 2007 in my environment, so apparently it does SOMETHING that the older versions don't do.
Insert mindless Excel display error joke here.
"or using a shitty Web interface that has not kept up with the regular client"
.NET platform doesn't make it a very easy application to port to another OS, either.
The OWA client for Exchange 2007 is so good that there are companies who are getting rid of Outlook for all normal mail users and having everyone use the web client. The only people who get Outlook 2007 are Exchange Admins and special case-by-case basis (usually execs). So heterogenous environments are better from a client perspective (plus its easier to administer the web client anyway).
"licensing costs"
marketing websites and resellers say different things. resellers get massive breaks and pass them on to customers. Our Exchange 2007 organization license was just under $3k from our reseller and our CALs were $25 per user.
"future licensing costs for upgrades to support new clients"
OWA is going to be the client of choice in the future. Outlook already has too many garbage features that nobody uses in it. This is not a big secret to system integrators, sr system admins, tech managers, or MS. There are too many advantages to web clients for most environments to bother with issues related to mail clients, including future licensing costs for upgrades.
"lousy cross platform support"
OWA light does suck (firefox, opera, safari, etc). But if you can use IE, OWA is great.
"added expense to support smartphones"
Simply wrong. There are no additional licenses required to use Exchange ActiveSync on your CAS server. You licensed the user to access a mailbox. They can use any method to access that mailbox that you turn on. You may be confusing this with the premium CAL required for users of companies who choose to go the unified messagine route. You can't use OVA without UM which requires the premium CAL.
You have to buy a blackberry enterprise server if you want to use blackberries, but you had to do that before and will have to do it again in the future. that's RIM's deal, not MS. Any symbian or palm phone that support EAS will work just fine out of the box, and obviously all the windows mobile phones are seamless to integrate.
"lack of choice for clients"
Outlook, OWA (web), EAS (mobile), OVA (voice), and basically any client that supports POP3 or IMAP4 if you choose to turn those features on, on the server. Nobody says you are limited to the native Exchange MAPI unless you choose to do so.
"lack of choice for server platform (only Windows and VMWare) Whereas CalDav servers like Zimbra also support OS X, Linux, Solaris, etc."
True, but do you really blame them? As nice as it would be to load Exchange up on Linux, it just doesn't help MS make more money by doing that. The fact that Exchange depends on all sorts of Windows-specific technologies like PowerShell and the
"lack of choice for support and customization and services, only MS instead of RedHat, Zimbra Inc, IBM, etc. (If MS does not fix a security hole tht is a problem for you, you're screwed, whereas with CalDav you can hire someone else to fix it or even fix it using internal programming resources)"
True, and really the only valid point you made. Congrats!
You can be both quite easily. Darwin, Galileo, Einstein, Copernicus, and Tesla would all disagree with your supposition that observation and faith are mutually exclusive. I'm sure there are plenty of other giants I missed, but you get the idea.
Great job giving a quacky research girl - who fights the creationists more vitriolically than they fight evolution - the status of "source" for this article. She's obviously smarter than I, since I can't figure out what it is she does, other than "biology research". She also has obviously already made up her mind (as is typical of any 24 year old grad student) that she has to work in "the right" field.
I, on the other hand, can be perfectly content in the knowledge that the earth is billions of years old (and God created it in 6 days some odd thousands of years ago), that the expanding universe is indicative of the big bang (and God was around before that, if it happened), and biological evolution is definitively stated (though possibly not on quite as macro a scale as a proponent of natural selection would have you believe). I'd like to be able to logically explain how all those beliefs can coexist, but since my primary job is to pay the mortgage and not reconcile conflicting philosophies, I'll leave that to someone else.
Still, it always boggles my mind when I hear researchers fighting about their beliefs. As a researcher you should be preaching a very teeny portion of the time and searching a great majority of the time. Also be sure to let me know when this girl moves out of the blogosphere and into the peer-reviewed journal stage. Maybe then slashdot can link to a real source article.
This is a slippery slope my dear friends!
If they get away with copyright infringment, they'll be just like the vast majority of slashdotters, and we can't have slashdotters and creationists sharing any similar traits!
no wait, I have a better one...
first copyright infringment, then TERRORISM! Lets nip this in the bud right now! Sick the RIAA on them!
I'd have to tell any hiring manager asking about my accomplishments being listed on google to get bent.
1. My primary job function has nothing to do with SEO.
2. Even if it did have to do with SEO, why would I be required to optimize myself on google? I already wrote up a resume that optimizes my prior work history and experience exactly as I want it to appear.
3. I use no less than 3 online nicknames specifically to decentralize/distribute the ability for people to know everything that I do simply by tracking a single nickname.
Seriously, I would never put an online nickname on a resume just because of some retarded hiring manager that thinks he's techno-smart for googling an applicant.
To show progression.
Been doing the "2 external USB drives" backup solution for small businesses - without any business continuity plan and without any money to implement one - for a few years now. Run a daily backup from file server's internal drive to external drive #1, then a copy command from file server to dupe drive #1 onto drive #2 a few hours later. Yeah, I should use checksums for integrity but if they wanted integrity they would've sprung for a real backup solution. You get what you pay for.
Office 2000 is long in the tooth.
2003 made some nice improvements to Outlook. (rpc over https, junk-mail filter)
2007 made some nice improvements to Word/Excel/Outlook (excel bug notwithstanding).
If you are a power user for any of the basic Office apps and still using 2000, you would enjoy any office upgrade.
If you're just supporting Office and aren't really a power user, then I can see how you wouldn't notice any differences. But that means you are holding back your power users instead of enabling them to do more. Try Office 2k7 for 2 weeks and your users will get used to the new UI and wonder how they ever got along without it.
Vista still sucks for corporate environment though.
I don't even want it on my primary management workstation because it doesn't run win2k3 admin tools properly. I still make others in the company run it to find any software compatibility issues (haven't found any yet), but for IT work purposes, I'd rather just use XP than worry about remoting to a DC.
And as for the MS recommendation to remote to a win2k3 management server, what about the 90% of companies out there who don't have the resources for that?
Anyway, I'm still getting all new systems with Vista licensing with downgrade rights so a year down the road a Vista migration won't be quite as expensive. But there's no way I'm moving out of beta for my environment without the ability to run server admin tools on a Vista box.