[olug] MSWord Rqmt and MS lock in

[Phil Brutsche]

Eric Penne wrote:
> I don't do the PDF conversion in the end.  I'm not authorized to sign
>  off on them.  I just do the grunt work.  The lab manager (Windows 
> only) does the final PDF conversion.  It is a Windows business but 
> I'm using Linux.  They are stuck with MSOffice and I haven't/can't 
> put together a convincing enough argument for them to switch to 
> OpenOffice.  The computers they use are owned by Southeast Community
>  College and therefore fall under the site licensing for SCC so they
>  software is already paid for.  To this business (not for profit) the
>  software is "free".  In fact, everything that they have is owned by
>  SCC.

It's hard to successfully make the "Open Source" argument under these
conditions...  Being an educational instituion they get their licenses
particularly cheap (One school I work with got their licenses for $50
apiece).

> I've already tried to present them with an LDAP address book that 
> would work for them but I ran into a couple of problems (all me) and
>  they choose a $600 ACT software package.

Bah!  ACT! sucks.

I bet this is the program you had trouble getting to work under Windows.

> I put together an email server.  They said the goal was to integrate
>  seamlessly into Outlook and be backed up with our regular backup 
> schedule.  I set it up as an IMAP server.  Outlook doesn't play with
>  IMAP the same way it works with POP.  When you delete a message with
>  IMAP it just puts a strikethrough on it.  You have to add a button 
> "Expunge" to get rid of the message.  Mozilla moves the message to 
> the Trash folder to get it out of your way.  This is consistent with
>  POP and IMAP in mozilla.

Actually, Mozilla is being the wierdo here.  And it doesn't actually
move anything to the mailbox called "Trash".  There's no way for it to
move anything; there is no "move" command in the IMAP protocol RFCs.  It
literally *copies* the message into the "Trash" mailbox and marks the
original as deleted; messages marked for deletion are hidden from view.
  In order to fully delete the message you still need to perform the
expunge step - aka "Compact Folders" in the lingo of Netscape 6+,
Mozilla, and Thunderbird.  It doesn't expunge for you because it can be
an expensive operation in terms of time taken, especially with UW-IMAP &
large mailboxes.

Keep in mind that those are the default settings; you can tell
Netscape/Mozilla/Thunderbird to mark messages as deleted rather than
"moving" them to the trash.

What Outlook does when you hit the "delete" button is mark the message
as deleted, and "strikes" it through to show you the message has been
marked for deletion.

Compare this behavior with that of pine, mutt, IMP (the webmail
program), Evolution, Netscape 4, or any number of other IMAP mail
clients.  Outlook mirrors their default behavior.

The cliffs notes version: Mozilla is actually the wierdo, Outlook is
being normal compared to other email clients, to get the behavior
they're used to they need Exchange, or something else Outlook can talk
to via MAPI.

One such thing that you might want to investigate is Communigate Pro
(http://www.stalker.com/cpro/default.html).  It's an LDAP, IMAP, POP3
(and more!) server that runs on quite a large number of platforms - how
many currently-maintained mail server products do you see running on
OS/2???

Apparently newer versions have MAPI support.  It's been some 3+ years
since I've used it, so I can't speak for what funtionality you'll get
out of it's MAPI support.  It looks like the MAPI connector needs to run
under Windows, though.

> They download all their mail via POP and store it on their local hard
>  drives.  It never gets backed up.  I pointed out the advantages of 
> the server and how via samba I could have the Win2k server back up 
> the mail files.  They still said no.  The general manager has over 
> 1GB of email spanning 4 years that isn't backed up.  The lab manager
>  has just under 1GB that isn't backed up.  I'm worried about what 
> happens when a few sectors of their hard drive goes bad right in the
>  middle of that outlook email file.

Sometimes it takes a major catastrophe for people to see the light.
Unless you can do the "network nazi" thing ("You WILL do X, and you WILL
do it THIS way") there's not much you can do.

Oh, and those Outlook .pst files are a pain in the butt to get backed
up.  Technically you could you smbtar to get to the file(s), but if they
left Outlook open the file(s) will be locked and you won't be able to
copy them.  And don't even think about storing them on a file server...

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at brutsche.us