N.Z. Students Can Use txt Speak on Tests

[Mercutio]

In other words, people are putting up with the limitations of their crap software because they paid for it and they don't know there's anything better.
ddrueding, it's your job to show 'em.

 

[ddrueding]

In other words, people are putting up with the limitations of their crap software because they paid for it and they don't know there's anything better.
ddrueding, it's your job to show 'em.

If you feel up to it, show me. What is the better corporate e-mail system? How does it tie into a global contacts list? What should we use for a calendar that supports sharing? How would NOD32 integrate with it on the server and workstation sides? Does this include a replacement of all of office with something else?

 

[Handruin]

I'm also rather curious to see an example. We have outlook fully integrated with Exchange and LDAP/active directory with the built in calendar system. I know that something like thunderbird would not cut it here. The integrated calendar/scheduling is required for outlook and the only other product I can think of that would do this is lotus notes.

 

[Mercutio]

There's such a thing as iCal for Calendar sharing. It's a standard protocol and clients exist that handle it. Vista comes with one. Sunbird is another.

Yes, Thunderbird *does* do what most people need. Most people need access to E-mail. Not to Notes or Calendars or weird IM systems or whatever the hell else Outlook does. But, OK, integrate mail with calendar: Google Mail + Google Calendar might be a decent jumping off point. Obviously, Google's stuff is at the moment google-only, but certainly, they know how to build and scale their applications and they do have a history of packaging their solutions for smaller operations (Google Search Appliances). Authentication would be an issue, but LDAP is an open system. It shouldn't be that hard to figure that one out.

Really, messaging, address books and calendars are all things that work well on with a thin client and a thick server. A web browser is a great universal client for everything else anyway. There's great, light authentication systems in your browser. Just displaying X messages or dates at a time instead of sending them all to the client is a win for all parties. It certainly SHOULD be possible to build something decent from all the wonderful AJAX building blocks that are floating around nowadays.

 

[Clocker]

I text message my wife while I'm on the can at work just to say I Love You. Seriously. That's the only time I use it though.

 

[Clocker]

We use Lotus Notes at my work. I think it's pretty good. The web version of the e-mail client works pretty good too.

 

[Handruin]

I text message my wife while I'm on the can at work just to say I Love You. Seriously. That's the only time I use it though.

I text while on the can also. :rotfl:

 

[Handruin]

There's such a thing as iCal for Calendar sharing. It's a standard protocol and clients exist that handle it. Vista comes with one. Sunbird is another.

Yes, Thunderbird *does* do what most people need. Most people need access to E-mail. Not to Notes or Calendars or weird IM systems or whatever the hell else Outlook does. But, OK, integrate mail with calendar: Google Mail + Google Calendar might be a decent jumping off point. Obviously, Google's stuff is at the moment google-only, but certainly, they know how to build and scale their applications and they do have a history of packaging their solutions for smaller operations (Google Search Appliances). Authentication would be an issue, but LDAP is an open system. It shouldn't be that hard to figure that one out.

Really, messaging, address books and calendars are all things that work well on with a thin client and a thick server. A web browser is a great universal client for everything else anyway. There's great, light authentication systems in your browser. Just displaying X messages or dates at a time instead of sending them all to the client is a win for all parties. It certainly SHOULD be possible to build something decent from all the wonderful AJAX building blocks that are floating around nowadays.

Does iCal work as good or better than the calendar system in outlook (when used with Exchange)? Setting up meetings within the company is important and used often. Being able to see available time slots from everyone you add to a meeting is very easy within outlook and that's why it is useful for us. We can see who is available at different times and plan meeting accordingly.

We also don't deal with PST files. The company forbids storing anything in them so I never have to manage them on my local machine.

We do need access to notes, calendars, and user directories (which also have names, numbers, locations, and organizations)...it's not just me, but 90% of the people who use outlook (and that's over 25K people) use those features.

Google is not a viable option because the data travels outside the company. If they sold an e-mail appliance like their Google appliance (which we've bought one) it might be a viable option. Otherwise I don't see how Thunderbird with IMAP could handle the volume of e-mails and calendar sharing we do. We do not use (or know of) any IM client that comes with Outlook 2003. I've tried to suggest using Wildfire (Jabber/XMPP) internally but I don't know where that is going yet.

I'm not saying Outlook/Exchange is the best product on the planet...but I don't see an easier solution for larger corporations that need these integrated products. Piecing together 5 different tools is not ideal in this environment IMHO.

 

[Mercutio]

The Exchange/Outlook system only seems better until you realize the fantastic amounts of money your company is throwing at just continuing to use Exchange and Outlook.

 

[Handruin]

Again, what are the alternatives for 25K-30K users of a corporate e-mail system that need those features? Yes, I'm sure it costs a ton when you figure the number of servers, storage, networking, backups, and people to manage it. But given the number of end-users, I can say they've done a decent job keeping high availability over the past 6 years I've been using it. I can only remember one or two times when e-mail access was not available or performing poorly.

 

[ddrueding]

Here I am, 4.5 hours into a (botched) simple server migration, looking at hours more work before I can even restore simple service, still with some hope that I can do so without losing any data and completing before start of business Fri (7.5 hours from now). If there is another client/server combo, I would love to hear it. If it's OSS, I might actually deploy it to this company of 200 tonight!

 

[Handruin]

I don't know if this would help any. It's a virtual appliance built on Linux designed to be used as an e-mail server (if I'm not mistaken). I've never used it though so i can't speak of any experience. :crap:

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/rpath.html

 

[ddrueding]

...and as 1:30 AM rolls around, Exchange has managed to take all of Active Directory with it, and when I lost one of my DCs...DNS got shot to hell. What a mess.

 

[ddrueding]

...stupid ISTG role holder...3AM, contemplating the blanket in the back of my car...would make this server room just a bit warmer...

 

[ddrueding]

4AM. Got the DNS poisoning under control; still can't get the ISTG moved away from the dying DC. Replication is starting to work again except for one DC that opted out because of an IP conflict for double the tombstone time limit (that no-one mentioned :boom:

I'll see if the new exchange server can see it's schema master (considering it IS the schema master) yet. If so, I might get to sleep tomorrow night after all!

 

[Mercutio]

I've heard of Zimbra as an Outlook/Exchange replacement. It's web based. It's dirt cheap. It scales well. It is a LAMP app and it is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.

In the past I would probably have recommended HP Openmail, which was a drop-in Exchange replacement (including collaboration stuff like the calendar) that ran on *nix boxes and could handle many times the load of Exchange on Windows. It was free for noncommercial users for a while. HP gave it up a while ago and now it is no longer available.

 

[ddrueding]

Looks interesting. And considering it is now 6AM and I'm still buried in AD/DNS issues, very tempting.

 

[ddrueding]

2PM...still here...I've had MS on the line (and connected to my network) for the last 8 hours. One team in Bangalore working on Exchange and another somewhere in China doing the AD work. Both are frustrated as hell and have been running around in circles for hors. Not bad for a $300 phone call

This is what makes AD/Exchange worth it.

 

[Mercutio]

What? Having a system that's too complex to actually repair?

 

[ddrueding]

No, having 4 guys from Microsoft spend 8 hours fixing everything for me while I watch (and bill). The client was less worried about my charges and more about what the army from Redmond would charge. Their total cost? $300.

 

[Mercutio]

Why didn't you have a redundant system in the first place?
Didn't you have your Directory backed up? Couldn't you restore to another machine, even temporarily?

If I had to spend roughly 20 hours doing emergency service on a client site, there's no doubt in my mind I would lose that client unless there was something very tangible that was ON FIRE the whole time. Needing to pull an all-nighter isn't going to improve anyone's estimation of one's competence.

Microsoft needing 32 man-hours to fix their broken product isn't exactly heartening, either.

 

[sechs]

You can spend two entire days fixing the problem, or one day nuking the current system and replacing it with something that's less likely to break.... Am I missing something?

 

[ddrueding]

Spending one day nuking the current system only sounds like a good idea if you know the problem will take 2 days to fix. Justifying the expense of a redundant system only makes sense if you suspect that a 2-day outage is even possible. This started as a simple server migration. Active Directory was actually available (and in use) the whole time; DNS was spotty and e-mail was down for 2 days. You guys do this kind of thing, you should know that you don't have all the information going in; and that the unexpected tends to happen at 3AM. Potential to lose the client? You bet. That's why I called Microsoft; to show to the client the severity of the problem "it's not my incompetence; MS is taking 8 hours to fix it!".

Microsoft needing 32 man-hours to fix their broken product isn't exactly heartening, either.

This is the problem for me. In the end, they ended up rebuilding AD and DNS by hand (using ADSIedit.mmc and DNSmgmt.mmc) in order to make e-mail work! No one was having issues logging in, just with e-mail. I don't like the fact that these two systems are so closely linked.

 

[Tannin]

Look, I don't know Jack Shite about big, distributed email systems, or about larger networks at all. But even my current level of knowledge is ample to make the judgement that I need to make here: viz, that the Heath-Robertson system you are talking about is entirely unacceptable.

I don't really blame Microsoft for that. What reason - other than simple commonsense, which is not something they are renowned for - do they have to change it? I don't really blame you, now whatever misguided IT department put it in in the first place. Nope: the blame belongs to the management of the company. Quite clearly, the management of that particular company (and a heap of others like it) failed to examine their day-to-day machinery and decide that the system they were using was unworkable and impractical and way too expensive. This happens because management is afraid of computers, and because IT departments are afraid of management. If you had the same sort of BS going down in any other part of the organisation - the car pool, for exampe, heads would roll.