PC or Mac?

Notes never had much of an interface by default (hence Gary's dislike of the beta, which I haven't seen) but it was/is all configurable and Notes as a product certainly treads a distinct path all of its own. Now, I've not worked in an organisation that makes extensive use of Notes since 1999 (when my contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers ended) but my memories were of a very flexible product with some major flaws but it could do things that Exchange could only dream of.

I don't miss it, as I think creating good Notes sites, etc., is a non-trivial task and the result is often unwieldy, awkward interfaces and dodgy interaction schemata, but I wouldn't dismiss it entirely without at least using it for a while.

I have no idea of the capabilities of Notes in this modern age, however. I welcome the introduction of Notes interoperability into the OSX world, though, as this would allow Mac systems to be a more viable choice in distributed business information systems.

John (in corporate babble mode)

PS. Gary, how's the i86Mac?
 
bloody marvellous John, I am really chuffed I made the move, none the least of which for the tidyness of it all.

What is it that Lotus does that cannot be done by something else today?
 
Yup.

Its a trojan horse programme you have to manually install for it to do any harm.

I suspect this will be the year that apple gets hit hard, I am going to hold out as long as I can before purchasing anything to do with AV software.

The good news is CLamVX is under devlopment for intel macs and its free.
 
What is it that Lotus does that cannot be done by something else today?
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Notes provides the seamless integration of very powerful database application with a solid and capable messaging system. The real beauty is it's versatility and scalability – it is a blank canvas that can be tailored by a skilled developer to the exact needs of a business. For a while in the 90s I was the IT manager for a small part of a huge multinational pharmaceuticals / medical products company and the way Notes was implemented in that environment was seriously impressive, I can think of no single app that is able to compete. A hugely powerful app. Notes has no use whatsoever to the home user though, so I understand your bemusement with the beta.

Tony.
 
garyi said:
What is it that Lotus does that cannot be done by something else today?
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Well I wouldnt want to bore you, but... :)

Using the analogy of a smallish business. Typical needs these days... (correct me if I'm wrong): e-mail & calendaring - via client, browser, smart phone, pda (with Notes server you can actually use Thunderbird or Outlook too); to-do's and group to do's; you need an SMTP gateway storage of company documents and approval/audit trail; contact management; opportunity management; data storage, searching and sorting; sending of e-newsletters and management of opt in lists; creation of forms and completion/storage/searching of said forms; a web site - say one you can manage the content yourself; perhaps a web site with a shopping cart/order feature; perhaps a products and/or services catalogue; and of course you change a product or service and you want this change to appear on the web site; you want somewhere secure to capture order and credit card info; you want to take data with you on the road and to meetings and you want change you make offline to synchronise with the server when your back online (without you having to think about it); you want different levels or security for different types of information vs different user types; you want reporting that pumps directly out to Excel, or whatever; you want a secure area on your website where your partners and customers can login and access the info related to them; you want to collaborate on projects and manage info related to these projects; you want to connect to other database systems easily; your needs evolve and you want to start to provide and consume web services; you start working with someone with a java system you need to integrate easily........

ALL of this can be achieved with the notes server platform on linux, windows, aix, solaris, os/400 (and now os x it would seem) at £91 per person and no additional server licence. Of course specific applications require skills as with any platform, but compare the above to Microsoft - you'd need windows server, exchange, sql server, sharepoint, iis, etc. you'd also need to be immensely careful about how MS products were setup and connected due to virus' etc. and probably additional hardware.

Other nice touches - Notes server (Domino) v 6.0 runs faster on the same hardware than v 5.0, v 7.0 faster than 6.0. Not sure MS would ever be able to say that.
 
Gary, glad you like the new iMac. I'm vaguely tempted to do as you've done - i.e. sell the G5, and get one. Not because I have any issues with the G5 (which is in my case a stonker - dual 2.7GHz, 5Gb RAM, 400Gb HDD, 6800Ultra, BT) but because I have had a bit of news not entirely unlike your own news if you get my drift which has sort of made me re-assess things. So, if I can get £1800-2000 for the above (bearing in mind the upgraded RAM, HDD and graphics) I would buy an iMac and stick the rest away for a bit...

I really like my G5, but I am not scratching the surface of its enormous power, and 5Gb RAM was a somewhat happy accident (as was the 6800) which means I might just have had a free Mac for a year ;)
 
Update: the comparable current PowerMac would be the 2.3 dual core, though that's a tad slower than a dual 2.7, and speccing it up to 4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD, comparable graphics, etc., took the price to £3k. So, maybe £2000 isn't so unreasonable?
 
Well Its all so difficult to advise you one this. From my perspective I have never had work critical stuff to do at home so this is all just for fun.

My Powermac was significantly less specced than yours so an iMac intel will be faster, its dual for a start.

However if you position is the same as mine in terms of work critical then there is something to be said for the tidyness of the iMac no wires and stuff on the floor etc.
 
To tell the truth, I do do a lot of freelance work but due to the same change in life circumstances I am looking for a full-time position (I am on rolling fixed-terms right now) so the need to keep a big machine for the freelance gig is diminished. Sure, I like its power, the memory and the fact it's not got an Intel inside :D but the reality is that I'd consider downgrading/sidegrading (depending on how you look at it) to claw back some funds and to liberate some cash. I might be wrong but I believe you went through a similar thing for similar reasons, but I might be confusing you with someone else. So, a nod's as good as a wink, etc., if I've got your history correct.
 
No, you have the correct person haha.

The iMac is no slouch but I don't think its will be as fast overall as the duel 2.7, but there again it has a better front bus, so I realy don't know.

What work do you do on it? If its photoshop kinda thing then that is a bit of a dog under emulation, it works fine and faster than my single 1.6 powermac but not as fast as a duel 1.8 powermac. so there you go.
 
auric said:
Dev,
quite a few others have had the same reaction as yourself, a few even create a dual boot system as a precursor to moving to a Ubuntu only system. I Know such a machine is not a mac but a dual boot Windows / ubuntu but it could be a low cost alternative to purchasing a shed load of new hardware and a bit of new software.

Best of luck Dev, let me know what happens with your machine at work.
Click to expand...
Finally got around to installing Ubuntu on a Compaq Deskpro at work and I must admit it was the easiest OS I've ever installed. For installation the on screen instructions just could not be clearer.

Runs OK considering the spec of the PC. Firefox runs fine. Can open Word, Excel files using Openoffice 2 without any issues and to be honest for normal home user it seems just great. For work though, I now need to find out how to go about installing samba, minicom (terminal), VSFTPD and SSHD. On the whole it's much much simpler to install and use than other OSs I've used but I think SuSE 10.0 seems more flexible, perhaps it's just because I'm more used to it.

The only issue I came across was that a Firefox plugin (flash I think) auto install failed and I couldn't be bothered to find out why. This is annoying, I feel we should expect it to be part of the standard package. On the plus side I like the way they've tackled security. root is disabled (can be enabled if needed), the normal user ID is administrator equivalent but isn't allowed to even browse certain directories and yet using the tools provided (say control panel) can change the system setup without the need to switch users.

I think overall I still prefer SuSE.
 
Dev said:
...I think overall I still prefer SuSE.
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I like SuSE, but I'm not sure how things will pan out now they are fully owned by Novell.

The per processor server licensing is pretty costly really - approaching Windows. Unlike Red Hat enterprise where yes the purchase was costly, but you could install it on multiple machines, SuSE server is per processor per server. Any thoughts?

Edited to add: we need to use UnitedLinux which is, as I understand it, SuSE server with a slight deviation. Does anyone know whether UnitedLinux is available other than in the form of SuSE?

We cant use Red Hat due to their implementation of Java libs.
 
What's a license? :D

Sorry, I bought the older version directly from Novell for a tenner plus another tewnty for packaging and postage all the way from Hammersmith to Ilford.

Subsequently, my employers have bought version 10, but I didn't know it was that expensive. I think they could price themselves out of the market.
 
I'm not really sure what Novell are expecting to achieve. Just smacks of a bit of arrogance really. Plus their portal is as slow as a slow dog in a slowest dog competition.
 
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned that with the new Intel Macs, Apple did not block installing Windows. I bet within a year, someone will have a switching software so that both operating systems will run natively at full speed (not Virtual PC).

My e-zine, Affordable$$Audio is published entirely on a mac with stock software.
 
The new Intel Macs use EFI rather than BIOS which Windows XP doesn't support. However, Windows Vista will support it at which point it will be trivial to have a dual-boot Mac with both Windows and OS X on it.

Michael.
 
Pc-v-MAC

Mac every time i have done the windoes bit and quite frankly it is a pain- with Mac- no virus problem no need for virus software- simple opperating system OSX- you might consider microsoft Office for Mac to quarantee 100% back to back compatability but I would suggest you work with Mac first to see in you require it- i use a iBook G4

Regards

kenneth
 
kenneth cooke said:
with Mac- no virus problem no need for virus software-
Click to expand...
For how Long? Have you read any of the links above?

We had someone in today who's new iMac arrived DOA. To get a replacement he had to buy another and then they'd credit back the amount sometime in the next 2 weeks. I don't know who supplied it but that seems a bit extreme on the T&C front. Also he had to get a new printer as OSX didn't support the one he already owned.
Needless to say the chap wasn't very happy.

I'm sure this will all be forgotten if anyone asks 'PC or Mac?'
 

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