May 01, 2006
I'd just like to point out
So for months now we've been on countdown here at work because they were going to change over the email program to a new server.
D-Day was today, May 1, protests be damned, full speed ahead.
There were meetings and gnashing of teeth and all kids of emails about this for months. MONTHS.
Let me sum up: New server, Switched email access to Outlook and Outlook Web Access for "security reasons."
As FUCKING IF. Anybody out there got a virus that DIDN'T come in via Outlook and IE?
So know we must use IE as somehow this piece of shit knows the difference between IE and IE open in a Firefox tab. And, although it will open in FF, you lose all of your functionality EXCEPT reading and sending mail.
Fucking Bill Gates. But on to my point.
One of the biggest bones of contention across campus has been that people like to forward their mail to a personal account (in my case gmail) and then reply/send from that account.
What we had been told EXPLICITLY is this: You may forward messges to a personal account (in fact we were given reasonably simple instructions on how to do this), however this software DOES NOT allow aliasing messages from your personal account to look as though they were sent from your work account (via bouncing or POP forwarding).
Yeah. Right.
Guess what? I can fucking send ALL the messages I want from my gmail that look like they come from my work address. HOWEVER, I can not RECEIVE a single piece of mail at my gmail from my work address.
Yep. Exactly the opposite. The not-at-all-practicable opposite.
Two fucking hours on the phone with the IT tech, who is also stumped, since I had already followed the instructions in his book to the letter. TO THE LETTER. He even did a VPN and had me show him what I did, agreeing that I had done it correctly.
I fucking quit.
Posted by caltechgirl at May 1, 2006 01:10 PM | TrackBackOh jeez... what a mess. I hate dealing with stupid $#*! like that. Hope your afternoon gets better!
Posted by: Richmond at May 1, 2006 01:36 PMtell us how you really feel!
(we're a mac family)
I blame illegals for my computer problems.
Posted by: Cardinal Martini at May 1, 2006 09:17 PMMoving TO Outlook? Hmm. Interesting. Nice when the IT people don't know much about IT, huh?
Posted by: Marie at May 2, 2006 06:53 AMRunning Mozilla Thunderbird under Linux here. Virus? What's that?
Then again, my computer, my Mandriva Linux boxed PowerPack set, my POP mail account, my DSL line. All paid for out of my own pocket. I and I alone know the root password on my system.
I can only imagine the headaches that come with having other forces embroiled in decisions on how my computer, and my email, shall be run. You have my sympathy...
As a system administrator, I can speculate as to WHY they've chosen to go this route, but...
It's very likely that they've gone to Outlook and Exchange because it has a centralized message store, which makes it easier to backup and archive peoples' e-mail messages. Truth be told, they could have accomplished the same thing with postfix and IMAP and kept client neutrality, since everything from Pegasus Mail to Eudora to Macintosh Mail to Outlook supports IMAP and LDAP, so the decision to go that route seems a little odd to me.
The other advantage that Outlook/Exchange has over, say Thunderbird or Mac Mail is the other groupware functions, like shared calendars and contact list. Yes, these can be implemented using WEBDAV/iCal and LDAP, but the level of integration is not as good, or as flexible.
BUT...the big downside is exactly what you've encountered. Exchange doesn't play well with others. So maybe that's fine in a corporate environment, where the company's paying for the machines and software anyway (and worse, is run by DELL DRONES like my employer - we actually have a former Dell employee working for us, which is saying something for a 10-person company in Rome, NY) but it's really silly in a place where it's "run what you brung"...
Posted by: Andrew Blackburn at May 6, 2006 02:40 AM
