IE7

[Limey]

My company's about to encrypt my laptop, and so I've had to do a lot of housecleaning in advance.  This included removing the (unauthorised) installation of Firefox, just in case anyone saw it, so now I have to use IE.

What an ugly heap of garbage!  Web bworser by Fisher Price.

That is all.

[Nate in IA]

My company's about to encrypt my laptop, and so I've had to do a lot of housecleaning in advance.  This included removing the (unauthorised) installation of Firefox, just in case anyone saw it, so now I have to use IE.

What an ugly heap of garbage!  Web bworser by Fisher Price.

That is all.

Hey but now you can collect all of the ActiveScript viruses!

[Limey]

Hey but now you can collect all of the ActiveScript viruses!

Internet herpes.  The gift that keeps on giving.

[Limey]

Day #2 of my forced patronage of IE7.

Dear Lord does it suck the dicks of a thousand, crab-infested donkeys!!!

Every single button is in the wrong place.  Every. Single. One.  The font looks like it's running out of ink.  50% of the time, my Yahoo home page looks like it's been downloaded through a kaleidascope.  It's slow as shit.  There's no on-the-fly spell check.

I haven't hated software this much for quite a while.

[Outlawscotty]

WFW

[Andyzipp]

I use Safari and IE7.  I have never had a problem with either browser, and don't really have a preference, other than our company intranet stuff only works on IE.

[Waldo]

The font looks like it's running out of ink.

Your ClearType settings may need to be adjusted.  For LCD screens, ClearType "smooths" (blurs) the edge of fonts so that they don't look so rough.  Sometimes it blurs them too much though.  To disable:

Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> uncheck "Always use ClearType for HTML"

Or, if you really want to feel empowered, download the ClearType Tuner powertoy:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

By the way, I'm not a fan of IE7 either.

[Limey]

I use Safari and IE7.  I have never had a problem with either browser, and don't really have a preference, other than our company intranet stuff only works on IE.

Example:  Both Firefox and Safari have a right-click option to copy a link location, which is useful for copying links to be pasted into a TZ post.  With IE7, I have to right-click the link, select Properties, physically select and copy the link and then close the Properties dialog box.

I feel a bit like Seinfeld going on about Asians still using chopsticks "...they've seen the fork...".

[JackAstro]

Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> uncheck "Always use ClearType for HTML"

Aliased text makes Baby Jesus cry.

[Gizzmonic]

It could be worse.  You could be stuck using IE 6.  At least you have tabs.

Plus...WTF is up with IT nazis prohibiting Firefox?  I'm in IT, and everyone I know in IT absolutely loves Firefox.  I fear some of them may even love it too much.

[Waldo]

Example:  Both Firefox and Safari have a right-click option to copy a link location, which is useful for copying links to be pasted into a TZ post.  With IE7, I have to right-click the link, select Properties, physically select and copy the link and then close the Properties dialog box.

Right click -> "Copy Shortcut"

[Limey]

It could be worse.  You could be stuck using IE 6.  At least you have tabs.

...which are done very badly in IE7.  For example, you have to make a tab the active tab to close it.  In Firefox and Safari, the "x" is either always there or shows up when you mouse over the tab, so you can close any tab you want.  Just one of the many bahzillion minor-but-still-annoying flaws with IE7.

Plus...WTF is up with IT nazis prohibiting Firefox?  I'm in IT, and everyone I know in IT absolutely loves Firefox.  I fear some of them may even love it too much.

I am sure my IT department is surfing away on Safari or Firefox, happy in the knowledge that they've got everyone's PC* locked down tighter than a gnat's chuff.

* I had Firefox because they had to give me admin rights on my laptop because, without them, I was not able to use any European hotel's high-speed internet service.  Because I have such rights, I am able to add things like Firefox, but I've had to take it off in advance of an audit and encryption of my laptop (which I'm sure will go swimmingly well and won't be a complete bollocks-up).

[Limey]

Right click -> "Copy Shortcut"

Ahh, thanks.

And before anyone feels the need to post, I do know (now) that I can close a tab by right-clicking on it and clicking close.  But why not just give me a fucking "x"?

[BizidyDizidy]

...which are done very badly in IE7.  For example, you have to make a tab the active tab to close it.  In Firefox and Safari, the "x" is either always there or shows up when you mouse over the tab, so you can close any tab you want.  Just one of the many bahzillion minor-but-still-annoying flaws with IE7.

I'm posting this in firefox and I only have the X for the active tab (I can right click close tabs though). Maybe it's an add-in?

[Limey]

Ironically, for some reason IE7 has just lost the ability to display the Apple website.

[Limey]

I'm posting this in firefox and I only have the X for the active tab (I can right click close tabs though). Maybe it's an add-in?

I'm going from memory here, but if you mouse over an inactive tab the "x" comes up.

[Waldo]

Plus...WTF is up with IT nazis prohibiting Firefox?  I'm in IT, and everyone I know in IT absolutely loves Firefox.  I fear some of them may even love it too much.

While I don't ban Firefox, I can sort of understand why some picky admins would.  Windows Update patches (including IE updates) can be controlled using a domain security policy, so the admin always knows what patches all the computer has.  Firefox updates itself independently, so there's no way for an admin to make sure a user's Firefox is updated unless they physically go to the computer or RDP in.

[Limey]

While I don't ban Firefox, I can sort of understand why some picky admins would.  Windows Update patches (including IE updates) can be controlled using a domain security policy, so the admin always knows what patches all the computer has.  Firefox updates itself independently, so there's no way for an admin to make sure a user's Firefox is updated unless they physically go to the computer or RDP in.

As I said, I wouldn't mind if the IT guys lived with the same rules as the rest of us, but they don't.

At my last company, my office was near the IT department.  If I burst through the door unexpectedly (it was a short-cut for me to the lifts), pretty much everyone in the whole place alt-tabbed off of some porn site or game - all of which was (quite rightly) blocked to the rest of us.

[Jacksonian]

As I said, I wouldn't mind if the IT guys lived with the same rules as the rest of us, but they don't.

At my last company, my office was near the IT department.  If I burst through the door unexpectedly (it was a short-cut for me to the lifts), pretty much everyone in the whole place alt-tabbed off of some porn site or game - all of which was (quite rightly) blocked to the rest of us.

Now we get to the heart of it.  All this bitching amounts to you being jealous of the IT guys.

[austro]

Speaking of alt-tab, is there some alt-tab equivalent to switch between tabs in Firefox?

And don't get me started on centrally-controlled updates. All of our machines, including my development machines, must have this Big Enterprise Server shit installed on them, which puts a seemingly permanent 3% load on the machine, with periodic unpredictable spikes. Does wonders when you're trying to benchmark things.

[Waldo]

I'm posting this in firefox and I only have the X for the active tab (I can right click close tabs though). Maybe it's an add-in?

Are you using an older version of Firefox?  I think close buttons on all tabs came standard with Firefox 2.

Try this.  In the URL field, type about:config and press enter.  In the "filter" box, type "tab" and press enter.  Then look for the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting and look in the right-most column for its current value.  If it's not 1, double-click the line and change it to 1.

[Waldo]

Speaking of alt-tab, is there some alt-tab equivalent to switch between tabs in Firefox?

Ctrl-tab

And don't get me started on centrally-controlled updates. All of our machines, including my development machines, must have this Big Enterprise Server shit installed on them, which puts a seemingly permanent 3% load on the machine, with periodic unpredictable spikes. Does wonders when you're trying to benchmark things.

I don't think that has anything to do with the managed updates.  Could be a managed antivirus, network audit, or some other kind of software running on the domain though.

[BizidyDizidy]

Are you using an older version of Firefox?  I think close buttons on all tabs came standard with Firefox 2.

Try this.  In the URL field, type about:config and press enter.  In the "filter" box, type "tab" and press enter.  Then look for the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting and look in the right-most column for its current value.  If it's not 1, double-click the line and change it to 1.

Hmm weird. Mine is set at 1, but only the X on the active tab. I'm in firefox 3, so maybe they took 'em out?

[Waldo]

Hmm weird. Mine is set at 1, but only the X on the active tab. I'm in firefox 3, so maybe they took 'em out?

Try changing it to other numbers, such as 2.  For instance, in Firefox 2, "0" means only the current tab gets it, "1" means all tabs get it, and "2" means no tabs get it.  That doesn't really make any sense, so they could've done some rethinking on it.

I haven't upgraded to Firefox 3 though (and won't be anytime soon), so I have no personal knowledge of it.

[Limey]

Now we get to the heart of it.  All this bitching amounts to you being jealous of the IT guys.

Jealous?  No.  But I've had my work product fucked from the ground up by an uncaring and incompetent IT department, so they get no quarter from me.

I'm sure I posted at the time, but our IT department neglected our server from the moment they wrested control of it from us.  It got so bad that it was just an array of warning lights and was unable to run the daily back-up routine.  Despite repeated pleadings for this to be remedied, and the opening (and premature closing) of dozens of tickets, the server was never addressed and it was expected to simply limp on.  Finally, we got the attention of the IT folks, and they sent a man to come take a look.

His assessment was that it needed to be rebooted.  We objected and his boss (via cell phone) agreed that the worse thing to do would be to take the server down without getting it backed up, because it may never boot up again and months of data would be lost.  He was left alone for 5 minutes with the thing and, in the middle of the day with a dozen people attached to the server, despite all the warning lights and prohibitive instructions from his superiors, the fucker pulled the plug.

The server never came back up.  Forensic IT people couldn't retrieve any data because it was 96% corrupted.  We lost three months of data, spanning the busiest three months of our year.  Our restored back-up is also full of corrupted data, because they didn't maintain proper back-up protocols even when it was working, so they were mixing and matching tapes with us and other departments.  We found out that they'd cancelled the contract that we had, when we used to look after our own server, for off-site tape storage, so all the tapes were just strewn around the server room.

And these are the same fuckers who don't trust me with Firefox.

Yes, I am bitter.

[tophfar]

Try changing it to other numbers, such as 2.  For instance, in Firefox 2, "0" means only the current tab gets it, "1" means all tabs get it, and "2" means no tabs get it.  That doesn't really make any sense, so they could've done some rethinking on it.

I haven't upgraded to Firefox 3 though (and won't be anytime soon), so I have no personal knowledge of it.

The exist in 3, and should be there with the 1 setting.  they are greyed out on non-active tabs, but should highlight and be active when you mouse over them.

[BizidyDizidy]

The exist in 3, and should be there with the 1 setting.  they are greyed out on non-active tabs, but should highlight and be active when you mouse over them.

Ha - solved it; I was on the 1 setting but if you have sufficiently many tabs open, they don't show up. Thanks guys.

[BudGirl]

Limey that really sucks.

[MRaup]

Now we get to the heart of it.  All this bitching amounts to you being jealous of the IT guys.

Yeah, I hate those IT Guys... Wait... What?

[Limey]

Limey that really sucks.

What's really going to suck is when we are running up to the same period this year, and all the documents we need to start rolling the annual contracts forward aren't there.  There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of documents to be reconstituted, most likely by OCR, but that will still require re-formatting and proof-reading.  I suspect that this will be the time when I go truly postal.

[BudGirl]

What's really going to suck is when we are running up to the same period this year, and all the documents we need to start rolling the annual contracts forward aren't there.  There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of documents to be reconstituted, most likely by OCR.  But that will still require re-formatting and proof-reading.  I suspect that this will be the time when I go truly postal.

I can't imagine losing everything like that.  Just the history of everything.  Gives me chills.

[JackAstro]

Yeah, I hate those IT Guys... Wait... What?

Quick, tab away - some jealous SOB is walking up behind you...

[Limey]

PS  IE7 is also unstable as hell.

[Limey]

I can't imagine losing everything like that.  Just the history of everything.  Gives me chills.

The idiot got reassigned, but he was lucky he still had a gender.  We were/are still fucked.

[Jacksonian]

What's really going to suck is when we are running up to the same period this year, and all the documents we need to start rolling the annual contracts forward aren't there.  There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of documents to be reconstituted, most likely by OCR, but that will still require re-formatting and proof-reading.  I suspect that this will be the time when I go truly postal.

What company do you work for?  If I have stock in it I want to be ready to sell at a moment's notice.  Someone going postal on the IT dept may drive down the stock price.

[Limey]

What company do you work for?  If I have stock in it I want to be ready to sell at a moment's notice.  Someone going postal on the IT dept may drive down the stock price.

I won't tell you who we are, but I will tell you that, within a week or two of all this happening, the company issued a new edict that required us all to charge our clients an extra $250 per policy for data handling and management.  We didn't, and are waiting anxiously for someone to come and ask us why not.

[Astroholic]

Jealous?  No.  But I've had my work product fucked from the ground up by an uncaring and incompetent IT department, so they get no quarter from me.

I'm sure I posted at the time, but our IT department neglected our server from the moment they wrested control of it from us.  It got so bad that it was just an array of warning lights and was unable to run the daily back-up routine.  Despite repeated pleadings for this to be remedied, and the opening (and premature closing) of dozens of tickets, the server was never addressed and it was expected to simply limp on.  Finally, we got the attention of the IT folks, and they sent a man to come take a look.

His assessment was that it needed to be rebooted.  We objected and his boss (via cell phone) agreed that the worse thing to do would be to take the server down without getting it backed up, because it may never boot up again and months of data would be lost.  He was left alone for 5 minutes with the thing and, in the middle of the day with a dozen people attached to the server, despite all the warning lights and prohibitive instructions from his superiors, the fucker pulled the plug.

The server never came back up.  Forensic IT people couldn't retrieve any data because it was 96% corrupted.  We lost three months of data, spanning the busiest three months of our year.  Our restored back-up is also full of corrupted data, because they didn't maintain proper back-up protocols even when it was working, so they were mixing and matching tapes with us and other departments.  We found out that they'd cancelled the contract that we had, when we used to look after our own server, for off-site tape storage, so all the tapes were just strewn around the server room.

And these are the same fuckers who don't trust me with Firefox.

Yes, I am bitter.

That really sucks.  As a SQL Server Database Analyst that is not in the IT department, I am constantly fighting IT for control of our servers.  I have in the past worked in IT, so I have been on the other side as well.  Unfortunately, there is a large degree of incompetence in this profession.

[Gizzmonic]

Jealous?  No.  But I've had my work product fucked from the ground up by an uncaring and incompetent IT department, so they get no quarter from me.

I'm sure I posted at the time, but our IT department neglected our server from the moment they wrested control of it from us.  It got so bad that it was just an array of warning lights and was unable to run the daily back-up routine.  Despite repeated pleadings for this to be remedied, and the opening (and premature closing) of dozens of tickets, the server was never addressed and it was expected to simply limp on.  Finally, we got the attention of the IT folks, and they sent a man to come take a look.

His assessment was that it needed to be rebooted.  We objected and his boss (via cell phone) agreed that the worse thing to do would be to take the server down without getting it backed up, because it may never boot up again and months of data would be lost.  He was left alone for 5 minutes with the thing and, in the middle of the day with a dozen people attached to the server, despite all the warning lights and prohibitive instructions from his superiors, the fucker pulled the plug.

The server never came back up.  Forensic IT people couldn't retrieve any data because it was 96% corrupted.  We lost three months of data, spanning the busiest three months of our year.  Our restored back-up is also full of corrupted data, because they didn't maintain proper back-up protocols even when it was working, so they were mixing and matching tapes with us and other departments.  We found out that they'd cancelled the contract that we had, when we used to look after our own server, for off-site tape storage, so all the tapes were just strewn around the server room.

And these are the same fuckers who don't trust me with Firefox.

Yes, I am bitter.

Wow, the worst thing about that is that you could see it coming a mile away, yet the IT department was incompetent enough to wantonly destroy it all! 

Maybe this will cheer you up.  The author, Nicholas Carr, presumes that IT will become a utility, and you'll just pay a monthly fee to plug in and receive "IT services" from a company like Google.

[Waldo]

our IT department neglected our server from the moment they wrested control of it from us.  It got so bad that it was just an array of warning lights and was unable to run the daily back-up routine.

Just out of curiosity, how old was the server?  Judging from this description, I'm picturing a beige box running NT 3.5.

[Waldo]

The author, Nicholas Carr, presumes that IT will become a utility, and you'll just pay a monthly fee to plug in and receive "IT services" from a company like Google.

This is already happening.  Last month I had a meeting with some folks that wanted to provide a lot of IT services, including moving all of our servers to their datacenter and monitoring them 24/7, and even giving our employees access to a help desk that they could call with any problems, ranging from the Blue Screen of Death to how to write an Excel formula.  Despite the fact that we really need our servers to be on site for a number of reasons, I wanted to ask them if they really thought I wanted to put myself out of a job.

[austro]

Despite the fact that we really need our servers to be on site for a number of reasons, I wanted to ask them if they really thought I wanted to put myself out of a job.

They're not really talking to you. They're talking to the guy who's writing your check.

[austro]

Ctrl-tab

Great! Works like a champ; I should have figured that out myself. Thanks.

I don't think that has anything to do with the managed updates.  Could be a managed antivirus, network audit, or some other kind of software running on the domain though.

Oh, it's not a MSFT thing. It's the tool our IT group uses to push updates to just about anything out to the myriad machines in our various networks. I can understand why they want to control that stuff centrally, but the implementation of this particular tool seems pretty braindead.

[Nate in IA]

  Unfortunately, there is a large degree of incompetence in this profession.

That's because everyone who can type thinks they can do IT work and companies are not willing to pay top dollar for what largely amounts to babysitting ignorant users.  They don't think of it that way of course and since the company wants control over the data in the company, they assign such control to IT departments because "they do computers".   There are ways to solve this of course, but no one wants to take the time to actually analyze needs and architect a data plan for a company.

[Limey]

Just out of curiosity, how old was the server?  Judging from this description, I'm picturing a beige box running NT 3.5.

No idea how old, but it was old.  A lady in our office spent years nursemaiding it, and ensuring that it backed up every night.  Then we were moved into the main office, and the "big company's" IT department decided that (a) our server was still serviceable (it was); and (b) that they would look after it from now on thank you very much.  Within 6 months...BOOM!

[Limey]

That's because everyone who can type thinks they can do IT work and companies are not willing to pay top dollar for what largely amounts to babysitting ignorant users.  They don't think of it that way of course and since the company wants control over the data in the company, they assign such control to IT departments because "they do computers".   There are ways to solve this of course, but no one wants to take the time to actually analyze needs and architect a data plan for a company.

I don't disagree.  The irony for my office was that we were managing our server quite well.  It was when the centralised yayhoos got hold of it that things went tits.

Oh, and FTR, I do realise that there are IT professionals in our community here.  I do differentiate between you people and the mouth-breathers my company allows to run our IT.  I swear I once saw one of them move his lips when reading a screen.

[Waldo]

No idea how old, but it was old.  A lady in our office spent years nursemaiding it, and ensuring that it backed up every night.  Then we were moved into the main office, and the "big company's" IT department decided that (a) our server was still serviceable (it was); and (b) that they would look after it from now on thank you very much.  Within 6 months...BOOM!

That's pretty hard to fathom.  If it was old enough, you'd think they would at least replace it with a new server with redundant hard drives.  Servers aren't THAT expensive.

We still have an NT 4 machine that runs our building automation system.  The hard drive has 700KB of free space.  There's a proprietary controller card in it that uses ISA instead of PCI, so it won't work in any new computers.  The software is 10 years old and the installation disks (actual 3.5" disks, from what I'm told) are long lost.

When the weather gets warm, we try not to look at it the wrong way or it might die and take our air conditioning with it.

[Limey]

That's pretty hard to fathom.  If it was old enough, you'd think they would at least replace it with a new server with redundant hard drives.  Servers aren't THAT expensive.

My company puts size limitations on email inboxes, and requires us to detach files from emails and save them on the server.  Not only is this ridiculous because server space is cheap as chips, it's incredibly dangerous in a business (insurance) where the chronology of who got what and when is of paramount importance.  Yet we are now faced with the possibility of not being able to prove what particular file was attached to what particular email, or that we haven't amended it in the meantime.  Not even the paper copy is a definitive document for the same reasons.  The only sure thing is to have the original email with the original attachments still intact - and we don't have that on anything.

Oh, and of course, if everything you receive is taken off your email server and put on your network server, and then your network server crashes...

Honestly, I could go on for hours about the wasteful shortsightedness of my company's IT strategy.

[Limey]

OOOh, joy!  My first IE7 crash of the day came early today!

[Andyzipp]

OOOh, joy!  My first IE7 crash of the day came early today!

I know I'm not fancy, but I've been using IE7 since the beta and I've NEVER had it crash on me.  WTF are you doing?

[Outlawscotty]

Bitching

[Limey]

I know I'm not fancy, but I've been using IE7 since the beta and I've NEVER had it crash on me.  WTF are you doing?

Just surfing the web.  I can't do anything too extravagant because the fun filter is all-pervading.

I get regular page load failures and few crashes a day.  Both were extremely rare with Firefox, on the same PC.

[Astroholic]

Just surfing the web.  I can't do anything too extravagant because the fun filter is all-pervading.

I get regular page load failures and few crashes a day.  Both were extremely rare with Firefox, on the same PC.

Maybe you should have your IT department look at it......oh nevermind.

[Nate in IA]

I don't disagree.  The irony for my office was that we were managing our server quite well.  It was when the centralised yayhoos got hold of it that things went tits.

Oh, and FTR, I do realise that there are IT professionals in our community here.  I do differentiate between you people and the mouth-breathers my company allows to run our IT.  I swear I once saw one of them move his lips when reading a screen.

I worked as an engineer for a semiconductor company and we had to extract ourselves from the IT department as well.  Actually the guys working in our IT department were good folk, they just had to work with ignorant upper management and so we had to partition ourselves off.

[MusicMan]

OOOh, joy!  My first IE7 crash of the day came early today!

So we've established that Firefox>IE7 under the category of "looking at Scarlett pics".

[Astroholic]

I worked as an engineer for a semiconductor company and we had to extract ourselves from the IT department as well.  Actually the guys working in our IT department were good folk, they just had to work with ignorant upper management and so we had to partition ourselves off.

That IMO is the only way to properly manage a server/database.

[Limey]

I worked as an engineer for a semiconductor company and we had to extract ourselves from the IT department as well.  Actually the guys working in our IT department were good folk, they just had to work with ignorant upper management and so we had to partition ourselves off.

Of course, I am singling out the IT department for uncommon abuse in this thread.  To be fair, I think the vast majority of departments in this company are about 50% incompetent, so why should IT be any different?  Our unit's moniker for such colleagues is "NTFT", which stands for "No Time for Tossers".

Yes, we are hated for our arrogance.  Yes, they have to live with it because we regularly are more profitable per capita than any onther unit in the entire company worldwide.

[Nate in IA]

That IMO is the only way to properly manage a server/database.

To be fair, most companies these days are heavily reliant on data management (as Limey's post pointed out).   Architecting that management is NOT a trivial task. Unfortunately, many senior managers don't understand this requirement and so take shortcuts which work well enough in limited circumstances.  They then task IT departments with implementing a "one-size-fits-all" strategy which clearly won't work for each part of their company.   This may or may not change, I'm not up to speed on the ideas in IT these days.

[Limey]

To be fair, most companies these days are heavily reliant on data management (as Limey's post pointed out).   Architecting that management is NOT a trivial task. Unfortunately, many senior managers don't understand this requirement and so take shortcuts which work well enough in limited circumstances.  They then task IT departments with implementing a "one-size-fits-all" strategy which clearly won't work for each part of their company.   This may or may not change, I'm not up to speed on the ideas in IT these days.

I am currently telling anyone who'll listen that we need to have our own, independent server etc.  And that it all be Apple-based.  Not getting much traction on that one.

[JackAstro]

I am currently telling anyone who'll listen that we need to have our own, independent server etc.  And that it all be Apple-based.  Not getting much traction on that one.

Avoid Leopard Server like the fucking plague. It is truly, thoroughly awful.

[Nate in IA]

Avoid Leopard Server like the fucking plague. It is truly, thoroughly awful.

How is upgrading from Tiger to Leopard on the desktop?

[JackAstro]

How is upgrading from Tiger to Leopard on the desktop?

That's a peach, and I recommend it. The server version of Leopard is atrocious for reasons that don't bleed into the regular consumer OS.

[Gizzmonic]

I haven't been that impressed with Leopard.  I really don't like the arbitrary changes in UI.  It's slower than Tiger, and I can live without all the flashy new features (Spaces, Time Machine, etc).  I suspect the Mac OS development team was gutted to work on the iPhone.

[subnuclear]

Avoid Leopard Server like the fucking plague. It is truly, thoroughly awful.

I actually use this, and I've had troubles with it because I have no training, but what specifically do you think is bad about Leopard Server?

[JackAstro]

I actually use this, and I've had troubles with it because I have no training, but what specifically do you think is bad about Leopard Server?

It would take a while, because the problems are many, and it's a crap shoot as to which ones will rear their head on any given installation. Panther Server was good, Tiger Server was very, very good. Leopard Server is, at best, seriously under-baked. And it pains me to say it, because I know and respect some people directly involved in portions of its development.

The problems I have center around user management and authentication - which was completely redone in this version - and general system stability. Others I've talked to have had huge problems with filesystem privileges, others have had issues with external service availability because of problems with the adaptive firewall. Overall, it's buggy as shit. So much so that I've been trying to locate another copy of Tiger Server, just so I can step back a version and have one server be normal again.

[Nate in IA]

That's a peach, and I recommend it. The server version of Leopard is atrocious for reasons that don't bleed into the regular consumer OS.

That's good.  The reason I ask is that Intuit has finally gotten off their Windows horse and has deigned to develop an entirely new application for the Mac to replace Quicken.  Quicken Financial Life is what they call it.  This has been the major application that I've needed to keep Windows around for (there are others but this is the main one).   The only catch is that I need to have Leopard to run it.   

[austro]

That's good.  The reason I ask is that Intuit has finally gotten off their Windows horse and has deigned to develop an entirely new application for the Mac to replace Quicken.  Quicken Financial Life is what they call it.  This has been the major application that I've needed to keep Windows around for (there are others but this is the main one).   The only catch is that I need to have Leopard to run it.   

Can Quicken Financial Life slurp up my 10+ years of Windows Quicken data?

[subnuclear]

It would take a while, because the problems are many, and it's a crap shoot as to which ones will rear their head on any given installation. Panther Server was good, Tiger Server was very, very good. Leopard Server is, at best, seriously under-baked. And it pains me to say it, because I know and respect some people directly involved in portions of its development.

The problems I have center around user management and authentication - which was completely redone in this version - and general system stability. Others I've talked to have had huge problems with filesystem privileges, others have had issues with external service availability because of problems with the adaptive firewall. Overall, it's buggy as shit. So much so that I've been trying to locate another copy of Tiger Server, just so I can step back a version and have one server be normal again.

Where is a good place to read about these issues?  I inherited a OS X server cluster and the IT people here won't touch it (which is good and bad), so I am on my own on resolving problems with it.   

[Nate in IA]

Can Quicken Financial Life slurp up my 10+ years of Windows Quicken data?

That's the $10 million question.  I have no idea and the Quicken website isn't forthcoming.  I signed up for the beta test however and will report back if/when I find the answer.   I too need this capability and I'm sure there are many others out there so I'm hopeful that it'll be included.

[JackAstro]

I haven't been that impressed with Leopard.  I really don't like the arbitrary changes in UI.  It's slower than Tiger, and I can live without all the flashy new features (Spaces, Time Machine, etc).  I suspect the Mac OS development team was gutted to work on the iPhone.

It's definitely not a huge leap, and some of the interface changes were [charitable] ill-advised [/charitable]. Spaces is really valuable for me, as are stacks, and the changes to iCal and Mail are excellent. All in all, not a crucial upgrade, but the positives have outweighed the negatives for me so far.

[Waldo]

My company puts size limitations on email inboxes, and requires us to detach files from emails and save them on the server.  Not only is this ridiculous because server space is cheap as chips

If you are using Exchange (and I'm assuming you are), this is something you can blame Microsoft for.  Even if you're running Exchange on a 500GB drive, it'll limit you to a certain number of GBs.  Exchange 2000 limited us to 16GB, and when the mailbox store exceeded 16GB, things got VERY ugly.  We've since upgraded to 2003 which supports a larger mailbox store, but we still enforce mailbox limits.  People complain about the limits, but they would complain more if the mail server wasn't working at all.

[Nate in IA]

If you are using Exchange (and I'm assuming you are), this is something you can blame Microsoft for.  Even if you're running Exchange on a 500GB drive, it'll limit you to a certain number of GBs.  Exchange 2000 limited us to 16GB, and when the mailbox store exceeded 16GB, things got VERY ugly.  We've since upgraded to 2003 which supports a larger mailbox store, but we still enforce mailbox limits.  People complain about the limits, but they would complain more if the mail server wasn't working at all.

I'm curious because I don't know the answer to this.  What does Exchange give you over a properly run Unix mail system (NOT sendmail)?

[Waldo]

I'm curious because I don't know the answer to this.  What does Exchange give you over a properly run Unix mail system (NOT sendmail)?

I don't know anything about Unix, but Exchange provides more than just e-mail... shared calendaring, meeting management, etc.  It now even integrates with Office Communication Server to provide enterprise IM, unified messaging and even PBX capabilities.

[Nate in IA]

I don't know anything about Unix, but Exchange provides more than just e-mail... shared calendaring, meeting management, etc.  It now even integrates with Office Communication Server to provide enterprise IM, unified messaging and even PBX capabilities.

Thanks.  I know next to nothing about Exchange.

[Limey]

How is upgrading from Tiger to Leopard on the desktop?

Fuck that!  I'm going TomCat...upgrading from Ocelot.

[JackAstro]

Fuck that!  I'm going TomCat...upgrading from Ocelot.

Silly Limey, Tomcat is a Java servlet. Perhaps you're thinking of Puma.

[Limey]

Can Quicken Financial Life slurp up my 10+ years of Windows Quicken data?

From what I've read, QFL can't even beat Quicken for Mac '07, which is barely as good as Quicken for Windows "Stoneage".  I run Quicken for Windows on my Mac via Parallels.  I would love to get a native Mac application, not least because I don't know how Time Machine backs up my Parallels database, but QFL isn't expected to reach QFM '07 parity until 2009.  Doubleyew-tee-eff?!!!!

[Limey]

If you are using Exchange (and I'm assuming you are), this is something you can blame Microsoft for.  Even if you're running Exchange on a 500GB drive, it'll limit you to a certain number of GBs.  Exchange 2000 limited us to 16GB, and when the mailbox store exceeded 16GB, things got VERY ugly.  We've since upgraded to 2003 which supports a larger mailbox store, but we still enforce mailbox limits.  People complain about the limits, but they would complain more if the mail server wasn't working at all.

We use Lotus Notes for email.  Yes, I realise how inherently stupid that is.

[Limey]

Silly Limey, Tomcat is a Java servlet. Perhaps you're thinking of Puma.

Big Puma or Little Puma?

[Nate in IA]

From what I've read, QFL can't even beat Quicken for Mac '08, which is barely as good as Quicken for Windows "Stoneage".  I run Quicken for Windows on my Mac via Parallels.  I would love to get a native Mac application, not least because I don't know how Time Machine backs up my Parallels database, but QFL isn't expected to reach QFM '07 parity until 2009.  Doubleyew-tee-eff?!!!!

I also run Quicken on Parallels and it works well (except for the crashes for no apparent reason) but I would like to reduce the memory footprint of Parallels so as to give more to the Mac side.   So where have you been reading about QFL?

[Limey]

I also run Quicken on Parallels and it works well (except for the crashes for no apparent reason) but I would like to reduce the memory footprint of Parallels so as to give more to the Mac side.   So where have you been reading about QFL?

Every once in a while I do a search on "The Google" to see what's going on with Quicken for Mac.  They're stalled at '07, which is mostly rubbish, and Quicken are all about the "Financial Life" overhaul.  However, from what I've read, it's going to have less functionality that the current Quicken for Mac effort.  I'm sticking with the Parallels option out of necessity, but I agree with you that it's an imperfect solution.

There are other personal finance managers out there, but none as good (IMHO) as Quicken for Windows.

[Waldo]

We use Lotus Notes for email.

Wow.  Just... wow.

[Limey]

Wow.  Just... wow.

[Poe]  Do you get the gist of the song now? [/Poe]

[Nate in IA]

Every once in a while I do a search on "The Google" to see what's going on with Quicken for Mac.  They're stalled at '07, which is mostly rubbish, and Quicken are all about the "Financial Life" overhaul.  However, from what I've read, it's going to have less functionality that the current Quicken for Mac effort.  I'm sticking with the Parallels option out of necessity, but I agree with you that it's an imperfect solution.

There are other personal finance managers out there, but none as good (IMHO) as Quicken for Windows.

Yeah, I just did a search to see what I could find and it doesn't look too promising.   Methinks there is a market on both the PC and Mac side for a decent personal finance program. 

[MusicMan]

Wow.  Just... wow.

One of the Big 4 accounting firms still does as well (not mine).

[Limey]

Yeah, I just did a search to see what I could find and it doesn't look too promising.   Methinks there is a market on both the PC and Mac side for a decent personal finance program. 

Well Quicken has the PC locked up, IMHO.  I just want to sync with my checking account and track my 4019K0 funds, which I don;t think is too much to ask.  From what I can tell, the Mac version, current or projected, struggles to do that.

Oh, and to make things more bizarre, the CEO of Intuit sits on Apple's Board of Directors.  Somebody needs to give that fucker a charlie-horse at the next quarterly meeting.

[Nate in IA]

Well Quicken has the PC locked up, IMHO.  I just want to sync with my checking account and track my 4019K0 funds, which I don;t think is too much to ask.  From what I can tell, the Mac version, current or projected, struggles to do that.

Oh, and to make things more bizarre, the CEO of Intuit sits on Apple's Board of Directors.  Somebody needs to give that fucker a charlie-horse at the next quarterly meeting.

I agree, Quicken on Windows is good but they aren't yet great which leaves a little margin.   My needs are very similar to yours though I would prefer a more robust budgeting system.  I'd also like to be able to manage some out of the way accounts that don't fit the banking mold (like CDs and such).

[Limey]

I agree, Quicken on Windows is good but they aren't yet great which leaves a little margin.   My needs are very similar to yours though I would prefer a more robust budgeting system.  I'd also like to be able to manage some out of the way accounts that don't fit the banking mold (like CDs and such).

I'm just impressed that you know what a 4019k0 fund is.  I haven't a clue.

[subnuclear]

I'm just impressed that you know what a 4019k0 fund is.  I haven't a clue.

No shift keys on the mac phone?

[austro]

No shift keys on the mac phone?

They're part of the more expensive plan.

[Nate in IA]

I'm just impressed that you know what a 4019k0 fund is.  I haven't a clue.

Been around computing for a long long time....

[Limey]

Right click -> "Copy Shortcut"

FWIW, this doesn't work with pictures.  If you want to link to a pic, you have to right click and go to Properties, because the "Copy Shortcut" option is greyed out.  Typical consistency with MS products.

[Waldo]

FWIW, this doesn't work with pictures.  If you want to link to a pic, you have to right click and go to Properties, because the "Copy Shortcut" option is greyed out.  Typical consistency with MS products.

If MS gave you all the features you wanted, you wouldn't need to wait around to get their next product.

[Limey]

If MS gave you all the features you wanted, you wouldn't need to wait around to get their next product.

See Ple, Ap.

[MusicMan]

"Limey Time" will now become "Limey's Airing of Technology Grievances".

[tophfar]

"Limey Time" will now become "Limey's Airing of Technology Grievances".

Do "Feats of Strength" follow?

[Limey]

Do "Feats of Strength" follow?

How about "Feats of Drinking"?

[tophfar]

How about "Feats of Drinking"?

The celebration ends when the head of household falls down drunk?  Works for me.

[kevwun]

The biggest problem people in IT face is that no else in the company understands what they do.  Yet when it comes time to make important decisions about big hardware and software purchases, higher ups who have zero understanding of what they are discussing, make those decisions.  One of my bosses can't find the icon on his desktop to start a remote session so I can fix his pc, but he's one of the people who decide if we upgrade our company wide software system.

[S.P. Rodriguez]

The biggest problem people in IT face is that no else in the company understands what they do.  Yet when it comes times to make important decisions about big hardware and software purchases, higher ups who have zero understanding of what they are discussing, make those decisions.  One of my bosses can't find the icon on his desktop to start a remote session so I can fix his pc, but he's one of the people who decide if we upgrade our company wide software system.

Well obviously he can rely on the IT Consultant/Sales Rep to give him an un-biased view of what products they can sell to him to suit his needs! 

[Limey]

The biggest problem people in IT face is that no else in the company understands what they do.  Yet when it comes times to make important decisions about big hardware and software purchases, higher ups who have zero understanding of what they are discussing, make those decisions.  One of my bosses can't find the icon on his desktop to start a remote session so I can fix his pc, but he's one of the people who decide if we upgrade our company wide software system.

Recently indicted Senator Ted Stevens once famously dropped this golden nugget of understanding on the world:

The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes.

It sounds crazier than it reads.

It is funny until you realise that, at the time he said it, he was Chairman of the Senate committee responsible for oversight and legislation of the internet.

[kevwun]

He's a smart man.  Everyone knows that internet outages are caused by clogged tubes.

[Nate in IA]

He's a smart man.  Everyone knows that internet outages are caused by clogged tubes.

"Nuh uh, it's dem square electrons what get all clogged up in dose router-thingys."
    -- your average technologically ignorant middle manager

[Ty in Tampa]

The Intertubes!

[Andyzipp]

The biggest problem people in IT face is that no else in the company understands what they do.  Yet when it comes time to make important decisions about big hardware and software purchases, higher ups who have zero understanding of what they are discussing, make those decisions.  One of my bosses can't find the icon on his desktop to start a remote session so I can fix his pc, but he's one of the people who decide if we upgrade our company wide software system.

Ironically, the biggest problem we outside of IT face it IT's total lack of understanding of the businesses they support.

Compound that with their extreme arrogance and the circle the wagons mentality when you call into question the competency of even the lowest member in their department and it's a pretty sorry situation.

So you find the one person who does know what they're doing in IT, and you beg them for their favor.  Which works fine until the word gets out that there's a competent person in IT, and then they get overworked.  They don't get promoted, because the chimps that manage them are too insecure to allow that to happen.  So they quit.  And then the search starts all over.

[kevwun]

Don't get mad at your crappy IT department, get mad at the management that doesn't do anything about it.

[Gizzmonic]

Yup, there's bad guys on both sides.  It ultimately comes down to trust issues, and professionalism.

When I was in college, the IT guys gutted our media lab.  They took out all the working video editing workstations (Macs) because they had signed an exclusive contract with Dell.  The Dell kit was expensive, and riddled with problems...and you couldn't talk to Dell about it, because a different company supplied the video capture boards, and a third company supplied the software.  Later, we weren't allowed to buy radio station automation hardware (Windows-based) so we attempted to shoehorn the radio station software into working with Dell hardware.  It never quite worked right.

Now that I am in the position to make those types of decisions, I am always wary about ripping out someone's system to replace it with new, untested kit.  I always get plenty of input from my people before I make any big decisions.  I trust them to know what tools can best help them accomplish their goals, and they trust me to figure out the technical details to make everything work properly together.

Ironically, the biggest problem we outside of IT face it IT's total lack of understanding of the businesses they support.

Compound that with their extreme arrogance and the circle the wagons mentality when you call into question the competency of even the lowest member in their department and it's a pretty sorry situation.

So you find the one person who does know what they're doing in IT, and you beg them for their favor.  Which works fine until the word gets out that there's a competent person in IT, and then they get overworked.  They don't get promoted, because the chimps that manage them are too insecure to allow that to happen.  So they quit.  And then the search starts all over.

[MusicMan]

Stevens wouldn't have been that stupid if he had been referring to something like Net Neutrality.  But I'm guessing he was too busy getting his house fixed indicated to make the differentiation.

[JackAstro]

Recently indicted Senator Ted Stevens once famously dropped this golden nugget of understanding on the world:

It sounds crazier than it reads.

It is funny until you realise that, at the time he said it, he was Chairman of the Senate committee responsible for oversight and legislation of the internet.

Series of Tubes
Clearing the Tubes
Net Neutrality