I could not agree with you more. Outlook is the biggest POS I have ever used.
I think people like it because they have never used anything else or it comes with office. I can't imagine anybody actually prefering it to the competition.
"If and when these midrange vendors compile Linux versions (web-based really doesn't work for high-volume ERP transactions), then we can look at moving to Linux. But unfortunately not before."
Yes, it sucks to be locked in by your vendor doesn't it. Here you have a situation where technological decisions of your company are no longer being made by what's in your best interest but by what your vendor dictates you use.
Your best bet in this situation is to pray that your competition is also locked by their vendor. If they can actually determine their own future and choose their own technology you will in all likelyhood be out of business in five years.
good luck to you. I bet the next five years are not going to be fun where you work.
"At least with Windows they know what to expect and they have something they paid for that they can blame (rightly or wrongly) for fuckups."
What an odd statement. Is there some CIO someplace saying "oh our servers just got borked but hey no worries at least we can blame it on MS"
How does blaming MS help you? If you know of any CIO who chose a technology because they have somebody to blame it's your duty to name the CIO and the company so that the rest of us don't accidentally own any of their stock. I would shudder to think that any company in my portfolio is making those kinds of drug induced decisions.
"Windows is getting better and better and the average user is getting to be more knowledgeable."
Linux keeps getting better and better too. As for the average user I think they are getting dumber and dumber but hey that's just me.
All I know about windows is that it's getting more and more complex. Just look at AD and SP2 for example. Both the sysadmins and the end users now have t deal with lots of things they never worried about before.
Really? AMAZING. I have known druggie hermits, I have known garage hermits, I have known musician hermits, I have known artists hermits, I have known game addicted hermits and yes I have even known windows hermits.
And you know what none of them wanted to get off their asses and help me with my problems either.
Why do people expect other people to help then whenever they need it anyway?
"But the difference is that the anti-cigarette people are not flicking buts at smokers and calling them enviormental-terrorists. "
And when did anybody from PETA threw meat at you?
"They don't want to pick a fight. "
That's a lie.
"What does PETA do, they don't want to just give out truthful information and let people make up their mind, PETA wants to force everyone to live like they want to."
PETA does not pass along truthful information? Provide a link to something they provide that's not truthful.
How is PETA forcing you to do anything. Explain in detail please. Provide a real life example where PEAT forced YOU to do something you didn't want to.
"So yes, I will eat more KFC just to piss them off. I figure if KFC sales keep going up, even while PETA is using dirty tactis, KFC will just ignore them."
You do that. As I said while you are at it also shoot up some heroin. Those anti drug commercials are just people forcing you to do what they want.
"And if they piss me off, I'll eat more meat to spite them"
That's a great philosphy. I would also reccomend you smoke a lot of cigarettes just because there are lots of ads telling you not to. Oh and every time you see an anti drug commercial you should shoot up some heroin.
That will show em!
"If, for example, a newbie came to a meeting, a windows user, and wanted help with getting Open Office working, and opening Word files in linux, and someone starts talking crap, that person might leave thinking it ain't worth the effort."
Yes, if it did. I have never been to alinux users group meeting where that happened but hey an MS shill wouldn't lie would they?
Yes, the open source people should just shut up and sit down. How dare they say anything when Bill gates calls them communists.
When Bill Gates calls open source people communits and anti-american that's a good thing. When people call it open sores that's wonderful. When MS execs call the GPL cancer that's just dandy.
Don't date defend yourself or counter attack though. That is RADICAL, just like those PETA people. Don't be RADICAL, just shut up, sit down and quietly do what you are told.
Also don't ever go to a linux users meeting. Everybody who is at a linux users meeting are mean and dorks. They are also ugly losers. DOn't ever go to one, they suck.
Hey I called MS customer service and they held me on line for a half an hour, then they made me much around with a ton of stuff and made me reboot my machine five times, then they could not solve my problem, fuck them.
Laura DiDio is pissed because anytime she publishes a study telling the world how creamy and delicious MS products are and how open source products make the baby jesus cry the community immediately calls her on her bullshit, makes fun of her, and tells the world of all the other bullshit she has spewed in the past.
I would be pissed too.
Here is the problem though. Our megaphone seems to be louder then hers. Maybe, just maybe our voices are being heard louder then hers in the corporate halls. If this is true she will soon be out of a job as MS tries to find other means to get their message across to CIOs.
Need I go on? Brands are brands, they don't have anything to do with the product.
This is the thing you guys don't seem to get. You think that the name of something needs to describe the thing and that has never been true. Does access and excell describe what the product does? People who bitch about product names are dimwits who know nothing about marketing. If it was up to them ford would name every product "car with four wheels" and "minivan".
"Did you ever figure that there are other people on Slashdot other than die-hard computer geeks? "
He is not confused about the technology, he refuses to learn about the technology because he is confused about the names.
Of course there are lots of people who know nothing about technology. Unfortunately some of them end up as CIOs. All I want is the name of his company so I don't invest in it.
Who else but a CIO would know nothing about linux, refuse to learn about it because they find the names funny, is inable to differentiate between products and is working on the linux strategy.
I would like to ask you a favor though. Could you please let me know the name of your company? I want to make sure I don't have stock in a company that hires people like you. Let's face it if the management of your company is willing to hire people like you who know what other boneheaded decisions they are making.
One of the problems is that the indian workers know they are being employed because the company does not care enough about it's employees to pay them well. Currently they are the cheapest labor around so they get to have jobs but they also know that tommorow the company will probably move to vietnam or some other place where the people are even poorer.
The really sad thing is that the indians also know they can't ever ask for raises or demand better working environments. Again the company will move to another place where it can exploit cheaper and more compliant workforce.
For india outsourcing will be a boom and bust thing. As soon as another country can make a case that their employees will work for less money the jobs will dry up and they will all be on the street. It's not like the US corporations have any moral problems with prison labor or indentured slavery.
It does not surprise me that the attitude is "get it while the getting is good".
I am not condoning crime, it just doesn't surprise me.
"Lower taxes, state's rights, and free trade have never been considered traditional liberal values"
Well guess what, they have never been conservative values either. Sure they give lip service to it but when it comes to action they always do the opposite.
I am so sick and tired of the religious right running this country. I mean nobody can make a freking song, movie or write a book without the american taliban jumping up and down and screaming about it. It would be OK if they didn't freaking own the congress, presidency and the media but apparently if the taliban are upset about something the govt will intervene and pass laws. Look at the case of that poor woman for example.
Really folks, if I wanted to live under a theocracy I would have moved to afghanistan.
It's time to put the religious right back where it belongs, in the church and out of my life.
The competition for java is not C#. Let's face is there isn't a whole hell of a lot of difference between them. The competition is from python and ruby.
Hibernate may be great but all the buzz these days is about ROR (ruby on rails). It takes a completely different approach to persistance layers and it still a bit immature but it has potential and some great brains behind it.
While java is looking over it's shoulders at C# languages like python and ruby are becoming more ubiquitus.
"Nobody's twisting anybody's arms and saying, "Go out and blacklist people!""
Although I am not twisting anybodies arms I am begging the RBLs to blacklist more people. Please Please Please expand your lists because you are only catching 25 to 40 percent of the spam coming to my server.
How is being listed on an RBL an outage? You can still send mail, you can still receive mail.
The only people who won't get your mail are the people who CHOSE to use a particular RBL. When you get the bounce message you can contact them ask them to either not use the RBL or provide you with another email address (perhaps a yahoo or gmail one) so you can give them the wonderful and magical email they have been waiting for so desparately.
Honestly what's next? Take away the RBLs and people will build their own blacklists. When that happens you will have to deal with thousands of individual email admins instead of one entity.
I for one am probably going to block the entire countries of croatia, hungary, china, and korea pretty soon. If somebody in croatia wants to write me an email tough luck, they can call me and I'll let their IP address through.
Slashdot Mirror
I could not agree with you more. Outlook is the biggest POS I have ever used.
I think people like it because they have never used anything else or it comes with office. I can't imagine anybody actually prefering it to the competition.
"If and when these midrange vendors compile Linux versions (web-based really doesn't work for high-volume ERP transactions), then we can look at moving to Linux. But unfortunately not before."
Yes, it sucks to be locked in by your vendor doesn't it. Here you have a situation where technological decisions of your company are no longer being made by what's in your best interest but by what your vendor dictates you use.
Your best bet in this situation is to pray that your competition is also locked by their vendor. If they can actually determine their own future and choose their own technology you will in all likelyhood be out of business in five years.
good luck to you. I bet the next five years are not going to be fun where you work.
"At least with Windows they know what to expect and they have something they paid for that they can blame (rightly or wrongly) for fuckups."
What an odd statement. Is there some CIO someplace saying "oh our servers just got borked but hey no worries at least we can blame it on MS"
How does blaming MS help you? If you know of any CIO who chose a technology because they have somebody to blame it's your duty to name the CIO and the company so that the rest of us don't accidentally own any of their stock. I would shudder to think that any company in my portfolio is making those kinds of drug induced decisions.
"Windows is getting better and better and the average user is getting to be more knowledgeable."
Linux keeps getting better and better too. As for the average user I think they are getting dumber and dumber but hey that's just me.
All I know about windows is that it's getting more and more complex. Just look at AD and SP2 for example. Both the sysadmins and the end users now have t deal with lots of things they never worried about before.
"Seriously, I have known the linux hermits."
Really? AMAZING. I have known druggie hermits, I have known garage hermits, I have known musician hermits, I have known artists hermits, I have known game addicted hermits and yes I have even known windows hermits.
And you know what none of them wanted to get off their asses and help me with my problems either.
Why do people expect other people to help then whenever they need it anyway?
"But the difference is that the anti-cigarette people are not flicking buts at smokers and calling them enviormental-terrorists. "
And when did anybody from PETA threw meat at you?
"They don't want to pick a fight. "
That's a lie.
"What does PETA do, they don't want to just give out truthful information and let people make up their mind, PETA wants to force everyone to live like they want to."
PETA does not pass along truthful information? Provide a link to something they provide that's not truthful.
How is PETA forcing you to do anything. Explain in detail please. Provide a real life example where PEAT forced YOU to do something you didn't want to.
"So yes, I will eat more KFC just to piss them off. I figure if KFC sales keep going up, even while PETA is using dirty tactis, KFC will just ignore them."
You do that. As I said while you are at it also shoot up some heroin. Those anti drug commercials are just people forcing you to do what they want.
"And if they piss me off, I'll eat more meat to spite them"
That's a great philosphy. I would also reccomend you smoke a lot of cigarettes just because there are lots of ads telling you not to. Oh and every time you see an anti drug commercial you should shoot up some heroin.
That will show em!
"If, for example, a newbie came to a meeting, a windows user, and wanted help with getting Open Office working, and opening Word files in linux, and someone starts talking crap, that person might leave thinking it ain't worth the effort."
Yes, if it did. I have never been to alinux users group meeting where that happened but hey an MS shill wouldn't lie would they?
Yes, the open source people should just shut up and sit down. How dare they say anything when Bill gates calls them communists.
When Bill Gates calls open source people communits and anti-american that's a good thing. When people call it open sores that's wonderful. When MS execs call the GPL cancer that's just dandy.
Don't date defend yourself or counter attack though. That is RADICAL, just like those PETA people. Don't be RADICAL, just shut up, sit down and quietly do what you are told.
Also don't ever go to a linux users meeting. Everybody who is at a linux users meeting are mean and dorks. They are also ugly losers. DOn't ever go to one, they suck.
Hey I called MS customer service and they held me on line for a half an hour, then they made me much around with a ton of stuff and made me reboot my machine five times, then they could not solve my problem, fuck them.
Laura DiDio is pissed because anytime she publishes a study telling the world how creamy and delicious MS products are and how open source products make the baby jesus cry the community immediately calls her on her bullshit, makes fun of her, and tells the world of all the other bullshit she has spewed in the past.
I would be pissed too.
Here is the problem though. Our megaphone seems to be louder then hers. Maybe, just maybe our voices are being heard louder then hers in the corporate halls. If this is true she will soon be out of a job as MS tries to find other means to get their message across to CIOs.
I would be pissed too.
Hey I have an idea. Let's wait till the license is written and then decide whether we like it or not.
sony, nintendo, 2000, NT, XP, longhorn, b2000, rx7, allero, qtip, optiplex, itanium, xeon.
Need I go on? Brands are brands, they don't have anything to do with the product.
This is the thing you guys don't seem to get. You think that the name of something needs to describe the thing and that has never been true. Does access and excell describe what the product does? People who bitch about product names are dimwits who know nothing about marketing. If it was up to them ford would name every product "car with four wheels" and "minivan".
"Did you ever figure that there are other people on Slashdot other than die-hard computer geeks? "
He is not confused about the technology, he refuses to learn about the technology because he is confused about the names.
Of course there are lots of people who know nothing about technology. Unfortunately some of them end up as CIOs. All I want is the name of his company so I don't invest in it.
Are you are CIO? YOu sure sound like one.
Who else but a CIO would know nothing about linux, refuse to learn about it because they find the names funny, is inable to differentiate between products and is working on the linux strategy.
I would like to ask you a favor though. Could you please let me know the name of your company? I want to make sure I don't have stock in a company that hires people like you. Let's face it if the management of your company is willing to hire people like you who know what other boneheaded decisions they are making.
Good point. I would much rather have a company called micro soft offer me a long horn.
What would you rather have? A soft and furry hedgehog or a long and hard horn?
Don't forget to add MS access in there for any non trivial access application.
One of the problems is that the indian workers know they are being employed because the company does not care enough about it's employees to pay them well. Currently they are the cheapest labor around so they get to have jobs but they also know that tommorow the company will probably move to vietnam or some other place where the people are even poorer.
The really sad thing is that the indians also know they can't ever ask for raises or demand better working environments. Again the company will move to another place where it can exploit cheaper and more compliant workforce.
For india outsourcing will be a boom and bust thing. As soon as another country can make a case that their employees will work for less money the jobs will dry up and they will all be on the street. It's not like the US corporations have any moral problems with prison labor or indentured slavery.
It does not surprise me that the attitude is "get it while the getting is good".
I am not condoning crime, it just doesn't surprise me.
"Lower taxes, state's rights, and free trade have never been considered traditional liberal values"
Well guess what, they have never been conservative values either. Sure they give lip service to it but when it comes to action they always do the opposite.
Ask a random sampling of bush supporters the following question.
"Are you a conservative?" and I bet 99% say yes.
They are conservatives. Sorry if they are giving conservatives a bad name but it's true.
I am so sick and tired of the religious right running this country. I mean nobody can make a freking song, movie or write a book without the american taliban jumping up and down and screaming about it. It would be OK if they didn't freaking own the congress, presidency and the media but apparently if the taliban are upset about something the govt will intervene and pass laws. Look at the case of that poor woman for example.
Really folks, if I wanted to live under a theocracy I would have moved to afghanistan.
It's time to put the religious right back where it belongs, in the church and out of my life.
How am I attacking anybody by subscribing to an RBL?
Did you read my post? You got a bounce message, call me.
The competition for java is not C#. Let's face is there isn't a whole hell of a lot of difference between them. The competition is from python and ruby.
Hibernate may be great but all the buzz these days is about ROR (ruby on rails). It takes a completely different approach to persistance layers and it still a bit immature but it has potential and some great brains behind it.
While java is looking over it's shoulders at C# languages like python and ruby are becoming more ubiquitus.
"Overzealousness is not going to help."
Of course it is. From this point on your ISP will be more responsive spamming complaints. Especially if you ask for a refund.
You know what, after this experience I bet your ISP will be much more proactive about preventing spam from their networks.
"Nobody's twisting anybody's arms and saying, "Go out and blacklist people!""
Although I am not twisting anybodies arms I am begging the RBLs to blacklist more people. Please Please Please expand your lists because you are only catching 25 to 40 percent of the spam coming to my server.
How is being listed on an RBL an outage? You can still send mail, you can still receive mail.
The only people who won't get your mail are the people who CHOSE to use a particular RBL. When you get the bounce message you can contact them ask them to either not use the RBL or provide you with another email address (perhaps a yahoo or gmail one) so you can give them the wonderful and magical email they have been waiting for so desparately.
Honestly what's next? Take away the RBLs and people will build their own blacklists. When that happens you will have to deal with thousands of individual email admins instead of one entity.
I for one am probably going to block the entire countries of croatia, hungary, china, and korea pretty soon. If somebody in croatia wants to write me an email tough luck, they can call me and I'll let their IP address through.