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"Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

computerworlduk.com

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Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#131

Post by Uchikoma »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #116
Uchikoma wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It isn't a matter of comparing like for like; that isn't the problem." Never heard that in a discussion. I thought it was all about comparing like to like. The OP didn't say "for reading emails". Especially as he gave the example of 100% Office compatibility (Office 2011?). Or you could compare live time value. I've broken several Thinkpads in a small amount of time, my wife uses a MacBook for more than 5 years with…

Is your premise that you need a Core i5 to use Office? That seems like a stretch. You can get Core i3 or AMD A-series laptops in the $500 range which are more than fast enough for Office and still half the price of any Mac laptop, e.g. this one: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bqct14...

I only can repeat myself. "If you don't need it, don't buy it - no argument there."

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#132

Post by Xylakant »

flomo wrote: post #126
Xylakant wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some misunderstanding here. The migration did not take 9 years. The project itself started in 2003 but was put on hold in 2004 or 2005 due to the legal worries surrounding Linux and software patents. It was resumed after some decision of the European high court. Still, the first years up to 2006 were spent on evaluation and planning and political board games. Measuring the success of an IT project in years is…

In 2003, Munich publicly gave the finger to Steve Ballmer himself and declared they were moving to Linux. If they really needed 3 years to think about it, perhaps their PR was all wrong, because all eyes were now on them as the Linux test case. And perhaps you would work through this sort of multiyear migration plan, but I certainly wouldn't. From what I can tell the project was driven by feel-goodisms and not at all…

The original decision was made in 2003, however if you know how german administrations work its not surprising that things took another year until the final go was given. This is in no way an uncommon time if you're dealing with any (german) administration - vendors need to be selected by a certain prescribed process, then vetted, contracts need to be made and approved. Then came legal issues which took more than a year to resolve. So all in all I'm not much surprised by the timeframe.

Added to that is the fact that the migration happened department by department in multiple steps, one done, next started. So yes, it's a multiyear plan and I do agree, I would not have planned and gone through that plan but calling it a failure because someone actually had the guts and vision and pulled it off is a bit far fetched.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#133

Post by Retric »

excerionsforte wrote: post #63
rbanffy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to neglect the fact Office users routinely experience problems with their own documents and programs. Who never had a Word document that, after some heavy editing, refused to load? I have, many times, since the first version of Word for Windows. I've abandoned Office between 2002 and 2008 and, to my surprise, I still had those problems with Word, Project and Outlook (when I had to clean PST files more than o…

When speaking from your experience its easy to say 'many' users have had problems, just like how I can say I've never had a problem with a word document therefore 'many' users have never had a problem with a word document. :) Not sure what kind of editing you do. haha

In 2008 I was creating a lot of PowerPoint presentations with embedded Excel spreed sheets, and either PowerPoint or Excel crashed on average about every 2 hours. Everyone else in the office had the same problem so it was a huge productivity black hole.

It's not that you could not get it to work, just there was a vary small 'happy path' and doing just about anything else caused something to crash. EX: Open Excel, if Excel is not opened PowerPoint will crash when you try and edit one of these slides.

PS: I suggested just using images and attaching the originals, but the client wanted to be able to resize things / change the graphs titles etc.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#134

Post by nknight »

hikarudo wrote: post #109
efuquen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For example: in the K-12 sector, I heard schools are getting 90% discounts. Ninety percent discounts....." That makes plenty of a sense. If you force people to use Microsoft products while they're young they are much less liable to switch to another platform while they're older. They're use to their tools and people are lazy. So heavily subsidizing educational uses of software makes plenty of sense. God forbid we ev…

"Forcing kids to learn how to code" is a sure way to make them hate coding. But I'm sure you meant "encouraged" instead of "forced".

Just like forcing them to learn how to read is a sure way to make them hate reading? Forcing them to learn history is a sure way to make them hate history?

Would forcing them to learn how to drive be a sure way to make them hate driving?

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#135

Post by nknight »

Xylakant wrote: post #124
VMG wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a random thought: as a German I have the impression that people here would be much too paranoid to do something like that over the internet, even with SSL.

The German variant is aptly called "Elster" and while it uses ssl it lacks authentication. I could file a bogus tax return for you if I know your tax number. It's also mandatory for businesses when you need to file a VAT statement. Oh, and last time I checked, the client software required windows - there's a less comfortable online version though.

You can file a bogus tax return for someone in the US just as easily. I'd be surprised if that weren't the case in most countries. I believe there have been occasional incidents of people doing so to collect other peoples' tax refunds, but I don't hear about it very often.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#136

Post by Xylakant »

nknight wrote: post #135
Xylakant wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German variant is aptly called "Elster" and while it uses ssl it lacks authentication. I could file a bogus tax return for you if I know your tax number. It's also mandatory for businesses when you need to file a VAT statement. Oh, and last time I checked, the client software required windows - there's a less comfortable online version though.

You can file a bogus tax return for someone in the US just as easily. I'd be surprised if that weren't the case in most countries. I believe there have been occasional incidents of people doing so to collect other peoples' tax refunds, but I don't hear about it very often.

While tangential to the issue discussed here, one example of siphoning tax refunds http://www.cringely.com/2012/03/the-30-billion-hack/ (i think that was linked on HN last week)

VAT statements in Germany are a bit riskier though: If you give the Revenue Service permission to withdraw money and I file a VAT statement for you which shows a large income they'll just go and collect 20%. It's a bit an edge case but that's the reason I manually send the VAT collected each month. I'd feel much safer if the interface was authenticated in some way.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#137

Post by excerionsforte »

Retric wrote: post #133
excerionsforte wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When speaking from your experience its easy to say 'many' users have had problems, just like how I can say I've never had a problem with a word document therefore 'many' users have never had a problem with a word document. :) Not sure what kind of editing you do. haha

In 2008 I was creating a lot of PowerPoint presentations with embedded Excel spreed sheets, and either PowerPoint or Excel crashed on average about every 2 hours. Everyone else in the office had the same problem so it was a huge productivity black hole. It's not that you could not get it to work, just there was a vary small 'happy path' and doing just about anything else caused something to crash. EX: Open Excel, if…

Hmm, i don't use many images for Microsoft Word. It's unfortunate that you had problems with it. Word crashing for me is very very rare, but most of what I do is typing and little bits of graphic art, but I think Office has gotten better lately. Just contact that Splines guy with your issues if they still persist.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#138

Post by bdunbar »

ams6110 wrote: post #76
wccrawford wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your boss had a good point. At some point, users become savvy to the whole thing and stop complaining and start trying to fix it on their own. It starts with 'Bobby in accounting told me to X when Y happens' and snowballs from there. It's horrible on productivity and when IT finally does try to fix it, it's often much, much worse. (Though, when the user gets it right, IT doesn't have to fix it after all.) It's also h…

Or they will stop using the system altogether and that's when you start having these unofficial shadow systems spring up, developed by someone who read Access For Dummies in 7 Days, and next thing you know you've got 250,000 credit card numbers posted on pastebin.

that's when you start having these unofficial shadow systems spring up

Exactly what happened to me today.

An engineer [1] opened up a ticket because some java code he was developing to insert attachments to our BOM system was returning funny errors.

Which is fine except he'd somehow gotten credentials for my production system and was testing his code against live bits.

Hooray for initiative, but good lord, fella: how would you feel if I ran out on the floor and started testing new widgets on equipment we're building for customers?

[1] Not software but electrical.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#139

Post by edwinnathaniel »

viandante wrote: post #127
edwinnathaniel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on... WAT?! SharePoint is a CMS mixed with Document Management Systems with a sprinkle of Workflows plus a platform for small (but limited features) web-apps. Some companies chose SharePoint because of the features and the idea of avoiding "NIH" or writing web-apps from scratch. I think this is where the "hackers" (or geeks, whatever, hackers aren't hackers anymore these days) mindset don't jelled well with inte…

What features of excel? I work with Excel everyday (I'm a finance, not a hacker) and I can't really see what features, besides filters and pivots, you may want to implement in an app. The best piece of software I worked with is "Hyperion", which great just because limits the "Excel power" so that nobody feels entitled to creativity every time there is report to do. Didn't know of the web apps in SP, would like to see…

Here's an example of a web-app (web-parts) built in SharePoint:

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/project_management_suite.as...

Sharepoint also does Workflow, good for companies that have red-tapes.

Not everybody have red-tapes but for some that do have them, Sharepoint is there to red-taped-taped you :D

Oh and excel in the browser: filters, pivots, formula, sorting, etc.

Also, Excel for data entry! (Excel to Sharepoint List).

Don't forget InfoPath forms to fill out expenses!

SharePoint also solves the problem (depending on how you look at it) with business people not wanting to use Subversion or version control system. It has "Check in" and "Check out" features.

At the end of the day, you can't replicate Sharepoint features with scrappy web-apps. I know it's enticing, but it's a very very super hard sell because the numbers don't add up.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#140

Post by viandante »

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #139
viandante wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What features of excel? I work with Excel everyday (I'm a finance, not a hacker) and I can't really see what features, besides filters and pivots, you may want to implement in an app. The best piece of software I worked with is "Hyperion", which great just because limits the "Excel power" so that nobody feels entitled to creativity every time there is report to do. Didn't know of the web apps in SP, would like to see…

Here's an example of a web-app (web-parts) built in SharePoint: http://store.bamboosolutions.com/project_management_suite.as... Sharepoint also does Workflow, good for companies that have red-tapes. Not everybody have red-tapes but for some that do have them, Sharepoint is there to red-taped-taped you :D Oh and excel in the browser: filters, pivots, formula, sorting, etc. Also, Excel for data entry! (Excel to Sharepo…

I hear you and nice web app too, but basically you are telling me that Excel and SP are more cost effective than a good app made for the specifics of your needs.

I don't know, in finance at my company with put huge ammounts of man hours in crafting, correcting, dealing, with tons of excel files. There are analysts that spend most of the time putting data in Excel sheets from the data warehouse system and shipping in outlook or uploading on SP. Is this cost effective? I doubt it. It is also an horrible way of working, you have no programmatic/easy way of comparing data: start trying to understand where a certain variation from the forecast, from a certain account, came from out of 30+ entities. It just drives people mad.

I think that some way in the middle is the solution...

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