Things that go Wump in the Night..

I’ve just read about the $200Bn Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are being allowed to play with and have realized something that surprises me greatly.

“We the people” often think that things are the way they are because government is this monolithic supertanker of an entity that lacks agility, changes slowly, and almost requires an act of congress to get something done.. no wait - bad analogy - or should I say “touche” as we are talking about the Bush administration.

But here we are, on Wednesday and already:

• The FED have made billions available to Investment Houses like they would to banks
• Interest rates have been cut.. again
• The FED managed to overnight make an agreement to secure $30Bn of Bear Stearn’s assets to massage the buyout by JP Morgan

Look at the MAGNITUDE of the decisions made here.. in FOUR DAYS! Why can’t the government move this quick around situations when they aren’t getting their asses handed to them?

Now that you can’t use iTunes, what do you do now?

In this day and age, for many the choice of music player is often more important than writing application!

Since switching over to Linux 18 months ago, I’ve been a big a Rhythmbox fan, but have just switched to Amarok, and here’s why.

Rhythmbox

Switching from Linux to Windows is a pretty big step which is made easier by finding tools that clone the ones that you are used to. For many, that means finding something that looks and acts like iTunes - and Rhythmbox is it!

Apart from iPhone support, and the iTunes music store, everything is where you expect it to be, and acts accordingly. The view is clear, easy to navigate, fast and reliable.

It’s pretty amazing how iTunes has set the standard for how a music player should look and act.. but think about it for a minute, what iTunes does is help you find the music you are looking for, whether it is your favorites, a specific band or specific tracks.

In some ways I find that limiting, and that’s a major reason why I now like Amarok. My perception with Rhythmbox is that when I use it I only listen to music that I decide to listen to.. it’s very good at helping me find what I WANT to hear.

Amarok

For someone who has been indoctrinated by iTunes to what a music player SHOULD do, Amarok is very confusing. The application is divided into two side by side panes with the right one being your current playlist. The left pane allows you to scroll through your music, or find stuff by genre. At first it’s frustrating.. you click something on the left expecting to suddenly hear it, but instead, it gets added to the current playlist.. Hmm. Do I like that? At first I didn’t, but when you change your way of thinking - it’s very very cool.

My entire way of thinking about listening to music has changed from instant gratification to spending some time up front lining up a load of stuff that might last me the day.. I like it. While you CAN do this with Rhythmbox, it’s simply not the way it’s designed to be used.

Amarok has really changed the way I think about listening to music. The highly visible left pane ( even though it’s not unlike the artists list in Rhythmbox ) leads me to different music. I find myself listening to more of the stuff that I’d forgotten I had, and enjoying my collection more.

Some Amarok features worth mentioning

Up front, I have no doubt that some of these exist in Rhythmbox, that’s not the point.. the point is that I use them now as part of this new way of listening to music.

Short Cut Keys

I’m dumping much more stuff into my playlist now, and I’m not going to like it all. I like the WindowsKey B ( next track ) short cut key and I use it alot.

CD Burning

I’ve always found the iTunes / Rhythmbox method of CD burning really clunky.. having to create a playlist for the purpose of burning. Well, with Amarok, the entire playing experience revolves around a “current” playlist, so creating a list of stuff to burn, and burning is much more intuitive.

EQ

It’s good.. really good. The Headphone settings are excellent.

In summary

I’m enjoying something new and that’s always good.

The 2008 conference is wrapping up, and IMHO it’s been great. There have been some big changes since the last conference in September 2006:

• New Owners! FindWhat are gone, thank God.
• New version. 5.5 is just about to roll out and the goal for 2008 is adding features to Miva Merchant so that in side by side comparisions, it no longer looks deficient compared to inferior products
• Lots of people here! From an attendance perspective, and therefore a sponsor perspective the last conference was a disaster! Lots of people where, and that’s great to see

So, to summarise.. Great to see that Miva Merchant is not dead and gone. It was close. For the first time in a ling time, Miva Merchant is heading in the right direction, and being taken there by the right people.

Just because Digg is floundering under the weight of “I just switched to Linux” submissions, it doesn’t mean that Linux on the Desktop is making significant inroads in corporate adoption.

Here’s the kicker. Microsoft Exchange Server is a honking great MONSTOR of a standard in larger businesses, and for good reason. While I’d probably kill myself if I had to pay for it or maintain it, as an end user, there is much to love about what Exchange does.

Got a desktop and a laptop? No problem. Exchange server will sync your inbox, folders, contacts and calendar.

Use a mobile device? No big deal. Add a contact to your phone, and it will sync to exchange server, and that contact will be added to your outlook contacts.

Your PC died from virus infections? ( Well of course it did.. it’s running XP ).. Just get another one, configure outlook to your exchange server and bang, you’ve got all your stuff back.

Need to setup a meeting with someone? Find them with Exchange Servers central directory, and check out their calendar to find a good time for a meeting.

In summary, life is sweet when you connect your Microsoft OS PC or Microsoft OS mobile device to your Microsoft Exchange server, and crank up your Microsoft Outlook application. Even your Microsoft Office installed Mac can get in on the act with Entourage. How lovely.

Switch to Linux? You’re screwed.

You have three options:

1) Use Evolution Mail which supports the full Exchange feature set through the provided connector.. except that the connector is horrible! It’s buggy. It’s slow. It’s unreliable.. it will drive you nuts.

2) POP or IMAP to the exchange server. It’s better, but forget about calendaring and contacts integration. Calendar events arrive as emails and you loose a feature you’ve become very accustomed to. Group calendars? Forget it.

3) Depending on the security settings of your Exchange server, you might be able to connect using Outlook ( running under Wine emulation ), either directly or through a VPN.. Yuck.

So how do you solve the problem of connecting a Linux desktop to Exchange Server? You don’t.

The problem isn’t Linux, the problem is that you’re buying into the belief system that Microsofts has chosen for you. Not only are you spending out the wazoo for Exchange server, but as a knock on effect, you’re spending out multiple wazoos for MS Office so you can connect to exchange server! Then of course, you’re primarily sticking to Microsoft OS, because what choice do you have!

Dee-De-Dee!

Let’s look at MS Office first. You need it, right?

Wrong.

You need to be able to work on Word and Excel spreadsheets, but you don’t need Office for that. Suns OpenOffice can do all that for you. Available for Mac, PC and Linux, Open Office is a VERY MS Office compatible productivity suite, and it’s FREE. I say “very” because some people tell me it’s not - but I can honestly say that I’ve never in my usage seen any issues.

Let’s do some cost analysis on that:

If you have 10 employees, setting them all up with OpenOffice costs 10 x $0 = $0 If you have 100 employees, setting them all up with OpenOffice costs 100 x $0 = $0 If you have 1000 employees, setting them all up with OpenOffice costs 1000 x $0 = $0

Get it?

Upper management wouldn’t go for it? OK - price out what will happen if you buy MS Office for THEM, and whatever other subgroup you choose ( perhaps accounting? ), and give the other zillion people in your organization OpenOffice. Trust me.. Money talks.

Ah - but what about EMAIL you cry! Microsoft products are the only thing that reliably connect to Microsoft Exchange server!

You’re right - so ditch it.

Go and look at Zimbra. It’s an Open Source Exchange Server KILLER, and Yahoo recently bought it for a gazillion dollars. Why? They haven’t really said, but I imagine it has something to do with a reply to Gmail rolling out IMAP. Things could get interesting if you’re one of those people willing to sacrifice privacy for free services.

Zimbra is easier to install. It’s easier to maintain. It’s easier to scale.. and if you switch someone from Exchange to Zimbra they truly won’t even realize you’ve done it. Appointments, group calendars, contacts - it all works just the same. They truly won’t see any difference from their end. Oh - that’s not true.. if they use the webmail application they will get a shock. It makes Exchange Server Webmail look like a bucket of boiled excrement.

Then what?

Your C-level guys can use Outlook or Entourage just as they always have. PC people using OpenOffice can use either Outlook Express, or the Evolution Mail Beta Your Mac people can use iMail and iCal.. they’ll love you forever. They could alternatively use a Beta version of Evolution. Your geeks can now use Linux, and use Evolution

Then we’d get to see some truly AWESOME Digg articles, about how corporations who look at their internal usage find that 40% of their employees only use the internet, email and office tools - so can easily be switched to Linux for cost savings, security, productivity gains, and so they can show off their spinning cube desktop thingy and wobbly windows to PC and Mac users ;-)

The bottom line is that when Corporations release the strangle hold they put on themselves by using Exchange Server, the results can be nothing but great.