Anything by Mimms gets my vote. I still have some of his books I bought back in the '70s. On my bookshelf right now sits "Electronic Music Projects Vol 1" by Mimms.
Craig Anderton's stuff is good too - "Electronic Projects for Musicians".
Another favorite of mine is Don Lancaster, but you may want to wait until you have the basics down first.
Above all - have fun with it!
Absolutely consider Lotus Notes. It can be simple enough for nearly anyone to develop with, yet can be complex enough for most any workflow application. Also, its security is second to none. It allows control to be as granular as you would like - down to the field level.
Yes, the client does have a non-standard interface, but it can grow on you too. Using the client allows for fairly easy development of some quite complex applications too.
Glad to hear that you're not having virus issues with Outlook.
Notes also allows the use of a single object store for mail files, but very few admins choose to use it. It's easier to deal with any file recovery issues when using individual mail files, plus all of your eggs aren't in one basket that way - a corrupt file only affects one user).
Yes, using AD is good. I still prefer using ID files, as it's very secure. It's a method of two factor authentication - something you have + something you know. More secure than just something you know.
Having been a Notes admin/developer since the mid 90s, I've seen a lot of improvement in the product, and heard a lot of the compaints about the product too. I used to absolutely hate it, but the more familiar I became with it, and the more of it's features I became aware of and understood, the more I saw the tremendous value it has. There's a lot there for any single product. Anyway, from what I've seen, a lot of the complaints about it are made by people who either don't understand how to configure it, or have to use a system that was configured by someone that didn't do a very good job. I'm not saying it's easy to configure - it's definitely not - but it's worth the effort.
Notes/Domino may have it's share of problems, as do all other systems, but security generally isn't one of them. If the admin has a reasonable understanding of what Notes/Dom has to offer it can be one of the tightest systems around.
Take for instance the stolen ID issue. First off, the user's ID's should not be available to anyone but the owner to begin with (i.e. don't store them in the address book, or a network drive). Also, if you're talking about them being stolen from the user's machine, that's another security issue altogether. Back to the topic, users should be forced to use strong passwords (which is easily configured when creating the IDs) and change them regularly. The servers should be set up to use password checking so even if someone were able to steal an ID and get it's password changed, only the valid user's password could be used to access the mail file on the server. Also, the local copies/replicas of files on a users machine can be automatically encrypted so they're only available when using the ID they were encrypted for.
Yes, Notes gets a bad rap, and some of it is deserved, but it's security is top notch. Also, every time some virus trashes countless machines in the corporate world I am glad I'm not using Exchange/Lookout!
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Anything by Mimms gets my vote. I still have some of his books I bought back in the '70s. On my bookshelf right now sits "Electronic Music Projects Vol 1" by Mimms. Craig Anderton's stuff is good too - "Electronic Projects for Musicians". Another favorite of mine is Don Lancaster, but you may want to wait until you have the basics down first. Above all - have fun with it!
...as I'm sure most are already quite able to generate all the wind needed - and them some!
I think my thin client must run on diet coke.
SWEET!
Absolutely consider Lotus Notes. It can be simple enough for nearly anyone to develop with, yet can be complex enough for most any workflow application. Also, its security is second to none. It allows control to be as granular as you would like - down to the field level. Yes, the client does have a non-standard interface, but it can grow on you too. Using the client allows for fairly easy development of some quite complex applications too.
Glad to hear that you're not having virus issues with Outlook. Notes also allows the use of a single object store for mail files, but very few admins choose to use it. It's easier to deal with any file recovery issues when using individual mail files, plus all of your eggs aren't in one basket that way - a corrupt file only affects one user). Yes, using AD is good. I still prefer using ID files, as it's very secure. It's a method of two factor authentication - something you have + something you know. More secure than just something you know. Having been a Notes admin/developer since the mid 90s, I've seen a lot of improvement in the product, and heard a lot of the compaints about the product too. I used to absolutely hate it, but the more familiar I became with it, and the more of it's features I became aware of and understood, the more I saw the tremendous value it has. There's a lot there for any single product. Anyway, from what I've seen, a lot of the complaints about it are made by people who either don't understand how to configure it, or have to use a system that was configured by someone that didn't do a very good job. I'm not saying it's easy to configure - it's definitely not - but it's worth the effort.
Notes/Domino may have it's share of problems, as do all other systems, but security generally isn't one of them. If the admin has a reasonable understanding of what Notes/Dom has to offer it can be one of the tightest systems around. Take for instance the stolen ID issue. First off, the user's ID's should not be available to anyone but the owner to begin with (i.e. don't store them in the address book, or a network drive). Also, if you're talking about them being stolen from the user's machine, that's another security issue altogether. Back to the topic, users should be forced to use strong passwords (which is easily configured when creating the IDs) and change them regularly. The servers should be set up to use password checking so even if someone were able to steal an ID and get it's password changed, only the valid user's password could be used to access the mail file on the server. Also, the local copies/replicas of files on a users machine can be automatically encrypted so they're only available when using the ID they were encrypted for. Yes, Notes gets a bad rap, and some of it is deserved, but it's security is top notch. Also, every time some virus trashes countless machines in the corporate world I am glad I'm not using Exchange/Lookout!