This is a "feature" of Exchange to stay connected, much like IMAP's features for staying connected, that causes unnessisary responsibility on the part of an admin.  It should be possible to switch all the active users to another server and perform maintnance.

It should also be possible to perform maintnance on the backend storage(taking down all the server), during peek hours of the day.

 I've actually got several of my brothers and friends on (K)ubuntu now. Leaving off high-performance PC gaming, which I would say the vast majority of people no longer use their PCs for, there is not single compelling reason that one MUST use Windows over a nice Linux distro with Wine. Windows is still a little easier on the user, but following that argument as the utmost precedent we'd all be using Mac anyway. Today I tackle the task of converting my mom's ancient desktop from XP to Kubuntu, should be interesting.

Regarding XCerion, it failed for me as soon as I read this:

icloud is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Google Chrome support is not available at the moment.

Please use Internet Explorer 7 for the best icloud experience.

Sorry, but no. If you wrote your Microsoft-defeating cloud-computing alternate software delivery platform in a way that it breaks in standards-compliant modern browsers and can't even run in the fastest web-app browser on the market, you failed somehow, somewhere. I'm sure support for other browsers will come at some point, but the fact that it's not standards-compliant out the door indicates that they missed a major sign on web app development road.

You don't think Mac would compete?  What about Notes?  Suse?



I think the sad thing is that ppl don't consider options other then Windows, they don't take the time to think for them selfs and investigate the many other options available.  Remember there was a time when ppl would use Novel and OS2, those days are gone and the days of ppl using Windows will eventually end as well.



I think many enterprises are looking at giving their users the choice to run Linux, especially when it comes to new hirers.  I hear a lot about needing to leairn Linux for the new programmer that was hired.  This trend will continue, unfortunately(There are better OSes).



The other failure of Windows is the Web2.0 push, more and more businesses are adopting the LAMP stack.  Exchange alternatives that make use of this technology will be adopted in the future, considered an alternative to OWA.

 

MChristophe says ...

Tech_Insider says ...

Thanks D_N.....

Yeah, I've read about people making references to something called a cloud, but haven't read much about it.

Thanks for the info., will look into it. It has been a toss up between Knoppix and possibly Ubuntu. The Adobe

and MS usage is tempting though, but I've heard that quite a few shareware apps like OpenOffice are a decent

substitutes for MS products. Will have to put those statements to the test I suppose.

 

Are you talking about Cloud by Google ?

 

I don't like the cloud!!!! Don't like having 90% of my information and programs to be "out there". In the long run it'll make us more vulnerable.

obtrunco, dull looking Linux?

Novell Linux 10 xgl Technology Demonstration - 11:43 - Feb 24, 2006

Novell Linux has just released this amazing technology demonstration video showing off some of the new features of their impressive operating system. While Windows Vista takes about 500MB to boot this Linux technology can run on almost any hardware.

There is just no comparison to other windowing systems available today. fusion.org/Plugins/Animation#Burn">http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Animation#Burn

Some of the lack of eye-candy is because of the network nature of the Unix windowing system, every application should be network transparent and provide support for using a remote terminal. In contrast windows exports a display using RDP server. The remote nature of the Unix GUI sets it apart from the other solutions of the 1980's. The simple concept that a screen is to be shared by other computers like a printer is rather obvious, making the RDP method vary awkward for it's users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11#History

Perhaps some one from Novell would be better able to explain, it's never been my strong suit so I use lots and lots of referances.  Either way the technology is 3 years old and the feature set is well above anything OSx or Vista currently offer users who are impressed by eye-candy.

I think the Demo Video along with http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Animation#Burn basicaly show off the kind of power Linux users have avalible.

Any links to other OS's powers?

By no means am I an MS fanboy but I have yet to find something I like better. I have spent way too many wasted hours with Linux when I am in a rush and I need to access something off a flash drive. Mount it? I have to MOUNT IT? Why? Someone please tell me why!

Microsoft is way too integrated into the business community. People do not want to move away because a lot of people simply do not care. They want to use what they know how to use and they will pay for it. Others say Vista’s footprint is way too large. Well, that maybe true but when you can get a 1.5TB for $100.00 is that really an issue any longer?

...your links don't work. fail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_(Unix)

The mount Unix command line utility instructs the operating system a file system is ready to use, and associates it with a particular point in the system's file system hierarchy (its mount point). The counterpart umount [sic] instructs the operating system that the file system should be disassociated from its mount point, making it no longer accessible. The mount and umount commands require root user privilege or the corresponding fine-grained privilege.

The number one reason is that introducing files into a Unix system is a security threshold.  If a normal user were able to mount a file system that he/she created then device drivers(like /dev/mem or /dev/hda) would be accessible by the user, offering a vary simple means of privilege escalation.

The solution is pmount, ALA sudo mount.  Sudo is just a bad application...  If it wasn't then there would be no pmount there would just be a sudo config to allow user to use mount.  It will forever(but not always) be better to code an application for your task then relying on sudo.

pmount is a wrapper around the standard mount program which permits normal users to mount removable devices without a matching /etc/fstab entry. This provides a robust basis for auto mounting frameworks like GNOME's Utopia project and confines the amount of code that runs as root to a minimum.

Mount and unmount are also part of Win32, most users know to unmount there flash drive b4 disconnecting it.  Thus one can also mount a file system and unmount it, it's some where under disk management in AD.

Security VS Flexibility.

Something I believe Bengerman Franklin said...  Giving up freedom for security offers the end result of having neither.  This is Windows, many features with no concern for security...  Are you going to patch again this month?  This is not a selling point, it's the selling point.  Migrate to UNIX or you will eventually be hacked and on-top of that you have to patch all the time.

Unix offers the flexibility to access memory(and just about every thing else) as if it were just any other file.  To that goal each device needs(or rather has been configured as, sure go ahead and change this and update all the programs that make use of '/dev' should be an easy task a preloaded library can handle programs you didn't patch.) to be a regular part of the file system.  Thus mount becomes a problem in the hands of normal users, they should not be able to create these device nodes.

This is the way the system was designed and provisions for Accountants, ect have been made.  Making mount available for the users simply required a new tool that separated out all the flexibility and features of mount.  Simply put the system has always been secure, but is still growing Flexibility, the other method of doing things is like building the house first then the foundation afterwards.

The true power of Unix is that you can run a big flashy fantastic GLUI, but are still able to "hit the BOSS key" and get back to work quickly.  Using two instances of X one running compiz the other sawfish(or whatever), both configured vary differently.

You can even run a program called xmove and are then able to move applications from one server to the other as if moving them to another workspace.  This could be vary handy for office applications, forget about saving and emailing the document...  Just send the application's output to your boss's screen directly, he can read it make notes and send it back.  No need to worry about having several copies of the same document floating around and some one working off an outdated copy.

That's a valid point about Hell freezing over.  Let's face it if every one was always doing what they were supposed to then there would be no need for things like Hell.  However I don't believe you can call "This item prevents hell from freezing over" as a valid place, under the concept of a place for everything and every thing in it's place.

I believe that the simplicity of Unix systems is far beyond that of Windows.  The emergence of Live CDs/DVDs makes Unix so much simpler to use than any other solution available, as soon as concepts like BartsPE become as wide spread as they have in the Unix world...  Then perhaps you could claim simplicity.

Simply Playing games:

http://live.linux-gamers.net/

Simply Tivo:

http://linvdr.org/projects/linvdr/index.en.php

There are millions of really good 'boot from this CD/DVD' solutions available to every one with a computer.  Some of these solutions work particularly well with a VM.

Your "simply tivo" isn't really an option for me... Thanks for the suggestion though. I do like the way Linux works for the type of system my home theater pc is... It's basically a throw-away/re-use system... the specs:

AMD 3200+ (SOOO slow compared to my P4 2.8C - Which is slow itself!!!)

256mb DDR 400

DVD-CDRW/DVD-Rom

9600 Pro

Video input card

Few hard drives ~500gb storage for copies of my DVD's and Music

 How hard is it to find drivers for hardware though... thats the question. I don't even remember what kind of card I'm using on that thing... It's not a tv tuner card though, it's a video input card... MUCH cheaper and allows me to use an old (dead) DVD player as the TV tuner. That also gives me a remote to control channel up/down and volume without paying $xxx :) hehehe

You shouldn't have to do anything to get the drivers working.

Just a Composite capture card will be simpler then a TV tuner, use lspci to determine the type of card.  I'd be surprised if hal/v4l didn't detect the card for you.  'lspci -n' will give you the exact vendor:product that the chip reports itself as, this will be vary helpfully in locating a driver.

You should investigate LIRC for a remote, but I'd be happy with a wireless keyboard myself.  Using LIRC your computer should be able to change channels for you. ;)

I'll try to stay focused on the aspects of Linux that make it better then any other operating system(the topic).  For example the way it was designed and developed, a vary stable and well tested ABI/CLI followed by a GUI that is incomplete but ?just as stable? and being tested.

I'd be surprised if troubleshooting was the correct way to progress forward for any Unix/Linux situation, I think straight onto a bug report is the correct method for a "solid foundation first" development strategy...   Ubuntu and RH excluded, these distributions take advantage of users who consider problems and failure part of a usable OS(yeah... "citation needed").  Most UNIX users would rather use an OS with no features(like DOS) then ever try to use something that has the slightest chance of not performing.  I'm sure most users would agree(that it's better to have something that works, then it is to have "something"), if they were educated about the *large number of ppl who think this way or shown there is a choice.

* Samba,Wine,FlashPlayer,GJC,ect... Many ppl dedicating a lot of time to making Unix just work with other solutions.

The priority's of Unix stability/security/usability make it the ideal platform for every one.  It may not have features, but the features that are not included are the features that would break or be incomplete...  Users don't want features that may break or be incomplete, thinking so is popular since lack of troubleshooting takes many jobs away.  It's sad to see the number of ppl who would chose to provide or support a defective product in the face of un-employment, they should simply be let go.  Unfortunately capitalism may have failed in the face of miss-information.

There are continuing problems with hardware and software not behaving well together, but it's more then likely these problems existed with other OS as well...  Though I will say there is a better chance that these were fixed with a patch release prior to them being corrected in Linux, however this shouldn't count(isn't fair) as MS likely has a team dedicated to making sure all the fixes implemented in Open Source projects are also added to their products.