Fucking Microsoft

Hmph....

You mentioned switching to Outcrook

Fucking Outcrook.

When I had to commence my job working for our federal private insurer, one of my first tasks was to explain why we should stick with Notes and not move to Outcrook, even though they would have paid for my Mc.SE ("Would you like Exchange with that").

Now I could regale you all with stuff about Security, Stability, ROI, and not being tied to that monumental fuckup that is Active Directory, but let's all just take that stuff as a given.....

Notes/Domino allows your company, with fewer administrative and support staff, servers, licenses and packages, not only deliver mail, but instant messaging, fax, data storage, and collaboration on whatever the fuck it is that you would otherwise do on paper. That's probably why they called it Lotus "NOTES" and not Lotus "Porridge".

The single thing that Outcrook can lay claim to, is that it is more "user friendly" which basically translates thus: "Those people, who freak out at the mere sight of a computer, yet still think they have a place in today's offices would prefer to use the interfaces that they learnt by rote at home picking up shitty scripting viruses whilst using MS Outlook FUCKING EXPRESS, on account of how... whilst in the 'crook they double click their _desktop_ icons to get to mail, in Notes they are expected to double click their _workspace_ icon for their mail. In the 'Crook, they press (hang on... lemme check... ) "Create Mail" to compose an email, whereas in Notes, they have to (gads..) press "New Memo".

Oh shit... The sky's falling in. How can they cope?!?!?

Incidently, for any budding Notes admins out there. When you are expected to supply such a document because some officious bean counter somewhere wants to justify his bloated paycheque and meaningless existence whilst maybe showing that he has some kinda sway over IT, thus maybe convincing himself that he hasn't been left by the technological wayside, try this....

ND6 webmail allows you to get to your mail from any browser in the world as I'm pretty much sure the 'crook does too. (This is important to CXO's who don't know how to let let the client automatically replicate their overbloated mail boxes to their practically redundant notebooks). Middle management can only aspire to being this stupid.

Anyway... grab yourself a screendump of the 'Crook webmail interface and compare it to the ND6 equivalent, (to all intents and purposes, and with maybe a tweak or two, they're practically identical) and then tell them that ours is customisable to the hilt. Then get one of your staff to do a costing on what it would cost to cut over to the 'Crook, upgrading everything else that so much as looks at it as you go, because hey... Bill demands it that way. Be sure to include the cost of retraining not only your department, but the entire fucking organisation.

Ask them... "Who is the richest man in the world?"

Then: "Did he get there by supplying quality products, or did he get there by getting ignorant cretins like yourselves to fork over countless bucks in upgrades and new releases in the vain hope that you would one day achieve he kind of systems that your company needs?"

Trust me... Problemo solved.

Sure the Legume Approximator will still fire up, but he will get zero support from his little blue/pin stripe suited buddies on account of how most companies can't stand to spend a red cent on IT. They're still hurting over Y2K, even though yes, there was a mission critical situation and YES, it WAS the accountants' fault, because they thought they could save a measly 5 or so percent on storage costs by using a 2 digit field to represent the year. Jesus... The only IT project ever completed to time and budget and the fuckers call it a hoax. Any accountants/finance types out there? "SORE FUCKING LOSERS" is all I got to say to you mofos. How about y'all go back to saving the world with your Miltonian "sociology-should-have-nothing-to-do-with-economic-theory" dreamworlds. A few more years of that shit and we'll all be bankrupt, starving and dead. Your skill is stealing for the rich, not info tech. It's like little Johnny Howard, who is such a political fuckup that he wants to play dietician by telling us which drugs we are allowed to eat.

But... and I'll say it again, as I usually do... I digress.

Play up the security aspect. Like I said, if yer in government, finance and/or insurance they actually tend care about these things. Then do a costing on what it would take to replace your dbs with Sequel Server trash (Microweenies can't spell 'SQL'), and tell them that they will have to periodically retrofit there SOEs with whatever Bill's latest abomination is because they have to upgrade their entire fucking email systems to plug its numerous security holes. (Remember that Domino does email as a side project and does it standing on its head and can run on about 7 different platforms - it is just replacing paper afterall). (Oh yeah and there were something like 800+ security patches in W2k SP2 alone). Hmmm... Still no viruses written for Domino yet either) oh... and while you're at it... that OS you were using is no longer compatible with yo 2 bit M$ messaging 'client'... You might wanna upgrade that one to M$ Cashcow2006.

IM? Sure Notes bundles it with a CD that lets you do do it internally from the mail server you already use, and if you want external, it's gonna cost you a workstation, but with MS you can have the world's least secure messaging client. Use that instead!

Oh yeah I mentioned fax? See the bit on IM. And as for workflow and collaboration, why use Notes built in functionality, when you can have endless meetings and phone/video/web conferences where everyone stutters and takes twice the amount of time to communicate any idea due to the fundamental limitations of VOX technology.

By the way... Notes does web conferencing to. Got the CD with my 6.5.4 bundle.

Oops... I said 'web'. On that topic, do you: a) install MS Frontbum, IIS, ASP and whatever the fuck else, or b) go to your Domino console and type "Load http" to get that data source published to all your rich graphic wanting fucktard customers. Your choice.

And while I'm at it, MS is a debilitating disease that wrecks lives and has no cure. Why give it to your systems?

The thing about the executive is that they know jackshit about IT. The only cunt on the board who sometimes DOES know anything about it is the CIO and they normally don't even give him a vote. This means that them and the microweenies who will infiltrate your organisation speak roughly the same marketing based wanklanguage. All about "exciting innovations" and shit, while anyone with half a brain would say "lamentable breaches of ISO standards". I mean... how long did it take MS to get TCP/IP right?

Anyways... you'll probably have to present your findings (in a fucking powerpoint bloat ummm... I mean 'demonstration'), which means the fatass with male pattern baldness (that bean counter again) will pipe up with his drivel mid sentence to try and keep you from getting a run on. It's your floor so just talk over the top of him and if that doesn't work, remind him that he probably knew he was entering a Notes house, probably said that he was au fait with NDx, and that if he is having problems with the 'user friendliness' of Notes, then he obviously lied on his application and in his interview and if we shouldn't have believed him then, what makes him look so fucking credible now?

That's right. Get all Malcom X on that motherfucker. He's a bored, insecure dweeb who would do anything to gain status and your putting him in his place should keep him hiding there for months to come. Lines like... "Hey. I don't tell you how to fleece the Third World. You don't tell me what's good for your IT systems" pack some real punch, especially if you're tied to a banking multinational. Then of course, you've bought some time so you can find ways of binding your organisation even closer to your preffered product.

ANyways.... I got another topic to start, so that is all for now. I've also gotta stack my metadata with terms like "Notes", "Exchange", and "Porn" so I can hopefully score that Google "I Feel Lucky" spot that we all covet. Maybe some Notes guy who has to do that ND6 vs Exchange paper might stumble across this piece of prose. All I gotta say to that poor dude is "Hey. Fair use buddy. Serve the whole shebang up to those fucktards. They probably won't read it anyway. "Too much jargon".

What's more, this bottle of Sambuca is almost done.

I welcome any dissenting opinion as I have Truth, Reliability, Quality, ROI and Security on my side. Yeah that's right motherfuckers. Notes boys respect that shit enough to capitalise the terms. All the microweenies can give me is 'popularity of use by virtue of its poorer cousin coming free with our desktop software', 'user friendliness', and 'been there done that'. Well.... Familiarity breeds contempt and I'm getting awfully familiar with Microskank.

Peace out.

Yak.

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Let them eat steak cake