RANT! No more faith in Microsoft
After being on an iPhone for a year, I don’t think I could ever go back to a Windows Mobile phone. I used the Windows Mobile platform for probably 11 years (including the original Windows CE non-phone devices) and it always seemed like the NEXT generation would solve all my problems. The next generation never did come and by the time I gave up, I was in the habit of restarting the phone every morning.
I recently tried to install the desktop search tool from Microsoft. After several tries and lots of reading online, I couldn’t get the add-on installed that would allow this tool to search my Outlook 2003 files (let alone my Thunderbird personal email). I gave up and installed Google desktop and was completely indexed on everything in one overnight session.
I have no faith in Microsoft anymore. I have had to go back to Windows on my laptop rather than Ubuntu but that is just because my 2G RAM laptop was struggling with Ubuntu and a virtual machine with Windows so that I could use Outlook and Office. If I didn’t have to be completely compatible with the rest of my company then I would likely not have a single Microsoft product on my computer or in my life.
I could survive without MS Office. OpenOffice does everything that I ever need it to do. I don’t need the extra functionality that overloads the MS Office product line.
The only product that Microsoft makes that I really like is Windows Live Writer (which I use for blog posts). But when I was on Ubuntu, I found that Scribe on Firefox was perfectly adequate for my needs.
If I could get Evolution to really work well with our company Exchange server, I would be off of Windows. I always struggle with the Calendar syncing, calendar invites, and the Global Address Book. If someone could create a smooth interface to Exchange then it would be goodbye to Microsoft for me!
RANT! WHY CAN’T A DEVELOPER MAKE EVOLUTION WORK OFF OF EXCHANGE SO THAT I CAN DROP MICROSOFT!
I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.