annoying Kolab things

Well.... It's the umpteen time I try to deal with Groupware
on Linux. The 
Experience goes from "Ok, give it a try..." to
"Oh my god....".
It's the 3th time I give Kolab it's try and it's the 3th
time I'm getting 
annoyed and going to give up!

But before I do this I want to let you know what I think:


- Mailinglist
	As I think, today Mailinglists are obsolete because of
these reasons:
	1. 	Today the biggest part of all email traffic is spam.
Therefor many ISP's
		have installed own Spamfilters. Because of this you can't
tell if a mail
		sent to a mailing list will arrive to every member.

	2.	Mailinglists are bad references. I know it is possible
to brows the
		Mailinglist archive on your page, but hey..... Month by
month by hand ?!!!
		This means Users have to ask the same question again and
again 'cause
		nobody wants to search in the archives.

	3.	Mail programs are adding characters to the beginning of
every line
		when you reply to an email. This makes it impossible to
read a whole 
		conversation thread	if it there where many participators.

	In my opinion a web forum would be a much bether solution.

- Documentation
	I think it would be much easier to setup and work with
Kolab if there would
	be one document which explains everything. From the Basic
setup of the Server
	and the Clients 'til the "special features" like
group folders and stuff....

	At this point let me highlight that (at least in my
experience) there is a
	mistake in the Documentation. The Outlook 2003 Document
says I should 
	create a new POP3 account. As I see, this is wrong. Since
if I do so I can't
	select this account in the Toltec connector....

	Another point is the order. The Outlook 2003 Document First
explains the
	creation of the new email account and then things like
Free/Busy, Delegation
	working in groups and so on.... The Configuration of the
Toltec connector is
	explained at the end of the section....

	I would really like to participate and write a better
Documentation but to do
	this, I need to look through the whole stuff. And at the
moment I'm giving up
	the 3th time to configuring Kolab.

I'm fearing the day on which I have to Migrate my server
hardware and therefor 
caring the data from the old server to the new one......
Nightmare


			Thanks for your hearing

--
Diese Nachricht wurde auf Viren und andere gefährliche
Inhalte untersucht
und ist - aktuelle Virenscanner vorausgesetzt - sauber.
For all your IT requirements visit: http://www.transtec.co.uk


_______________________________________________
Kolab-users mailing list
Kolab-userskolab.org
https:
//kolab.org/mailman/listinfo/kolab-users

On Tuesday 20 March 2007 16:52, Marco wrote:
[...]
> - Mailinglist
> 	As I think, today Mailinglists are obsolete because of
these reasons:
> 	1. 	Today the biggest part of all email traffic is
spam. Therefor many
> ISP's have installed own Spamfilters. Because of this
you can't tell if a
> mail sent to a mailing list will arrive to every
member.

I never had ISPs filter our mailing lists - if the list is
configured 
properly, mails will usually pass the filters, unless they
are especially 
braindead.


> 	2.	Mailinglists are bad references. I know it is
possible to brows the
> 		Mailinglist archive on your page, but hey..... Month
by month by hand
> ?!!! This means Users have to ask the same question
again and again 'cause
> nobody wants to search in the archives.

Firstly, the lists are also searched using the
"Search" box on the home page, 
thought this is apparently little known and the results are
still difficult 
to read.
However, there are excellent archives available at MARC:
http:
//marc.info/?l=kolab-users&r=1&w=2 - maybe this
could be made a bit more 
public?

BTW: IMO, this very point applies equally to web forums -
folks who are too 
lazy to search will always be too lazy to search, no matter
the medium.


> 	3.	Mail programs are adding characters to the
beginning of every line
> 		when you reply to an email. This makes it impossible
to read a whole
> 		conversation thread	if it there where many
participators.

Only if you have a bad mail client. Good ones can deal with
this.


> 	In my opinion a web forum would be a much bether
solution.

A web forum requires me to either go there to check for new
entries frequently 
(which requires more of my resources to do so) or works with
reminder mails 
whenever new content has arrived - which is nonsense,
because in that case 
receiving the actual mail with the actual content (like with
a mailing list) 
would have been much more useful and faster. In my
experience, mailing lists 
are *much* faster, as all content arrives right at my door.
Add some filters 
and let me choose my own client with my own favourite editor
and therefore my 
own favourite interface - as opposed to some fixed web forum
interface - and 
they are also easier to use. In addition, as I can choose
the client, mailing 
lists always work, even in a text-only environment. So, my
vote (if there 
ever is one needed) is for mailing lists.

Cheerio,

Thomas

_______________________________________________
Kolab-users mailing list
Kolab-userskolab.org
https:
//kolab.org/mailman/listinfo/kolab-users

ITSEF Admin <itsef-adminitsef.com> writes:

> A web forum requires me to either go there to check for
new entries frequently 
> (which requires more of my resources to do so) or works
with reminder mails 
> whenever new content has arrived - which is nonsense,
because in that case 
> receiving the actual mail with the actual content (like
with a mailing list) 
> would have been much more useful and faster. In my
experience, mailing lists 
> are *much* faster, as all content arrives right at my
door. Add some filters 
> and let me choose my own client with my own favourite
editor and therefore my 
> own favourite interface - as opposed to some fixed web
forum interface - and 
> they are also easier to use. In addition, as I can
choose the client, mailing 
> lists always work, even in a text-only environment. So,
my vote (if there 
> ever is one needed) is for mailing lists.

+1

-- 
____ http://www.pardus.de
_________________ http://gunnarwrobel.de _

    >> Mail at ease - Rent a kolab groupware server at
prdus <<

prdus Kolab work is funded in part by KDAB and the
Kolab Konsortium

_______________________________________________
Kolab-users mailing list
Kolab-userskolab.org
https:
//kolab.org/mailman/listinfo/kolab-users

Hi Marco,

On Tuesday 20 March 2007 16:52, Marco wrote:
> It's the 3th time I give Kolab it's try and it's the
3th time I'm getting
> annoyed and going to give up!

sorry to hear this. Unfortunately reasonaly setting up 
an email/groupware solution is rather complex, though some
vendors claim 
differently, if you get down to a practical setup it usually
is not easy.

> But before I do this I want to let you know what I
think:

Thanks for your feedback.
I have some comments which help to explain why things are
like they are.

> - Mailinglist
> 	As I think, today Mailinglists are obsolete because of
these reasons:
> 	1. 	Today the biggest part of all email traffic is
spam. Therefor many
> ISP's have installed own Spamfilters. Because of this
you can't tell if a
> mail sent to a mailing list will arrive to every
member.

Yes, it got more unreliably, still it works fairly well.
Any member has a chance to check the archive and ask again
if they really
feel like the email did not go through. We do have some
moderators
for the public kolab lists and they keep a lot of spam off
the list while
still letting some posts throuhg, which get haltet for
inspection.

Note that the forum we have had, we need to close because of
the spam
and we did not find enough moderators for it.

> 	In my opinion a web forum would be a much bether
solution.

We have tried this, and we will open one again if there are
enough people
that would particiate in this and help to run and moderate
it. This is a 
considerable effort.

Note that we do have a wiki and a lot of reference
information
gets added in there.

> - Documentation
> 	I think it would be much easier to setup and work with
Kolab if there
> would be one document which explains everything. From
the Basic setup of
> the Server and the Clients 'til the "special
features" like group folders
> and stuff....

We have tried to do this, but "everything" would
make the documentation so 
big, that in fact you would not find what you need either,
so there is no
golden solution to the size problem of the documentation.
The Kolab-Konsortium team plans to overhaul the server
documentation in the 
near future. Help is always appreciated of course.

> 	At this point let me highlight that (at least in my
experience) there is a
> 	mistake in the Documentation. The Outlook 2003
Document says I should
> 	create a new POP3 account. As I see, this is wrong.
Since if I do so I
> can't select this account in the Toltec connector....

The document is correct in that a POP3 account need to be
created
within Outlook. If you find out what missled you to think
this would be
within Toltec, please create an issue in your tracker with a
detailed 
description.


> 	Another point is the order. The Outlook 2003 Document
First explains the
> 	creation of the new email account and then things like
Free/Busy,
> Delegation working in groups and so on.... The
Configuration of the Toltec
> connector is explained at the end of the section....

This is of course debatable. I usually actually do configure
the email account 
things first, because if this does not work, you would not
need to progress
with the more involved funcations. Also you can be sure that
Toltec is not
involved in the problems you are seeing.

> 	I would really like to participate and write a better
Documentation but to
> do this, I need to look through the whole stuff. And at
the moment I'm
> giving up the 3th time to configuring Kolab.

This is one reason we are offering professional services for
Kolab Server,
those things just take time, even when they are documented
properly.

> I'm fearing the day on which I have to Migrate my
server hardware and
> therefor caring the data from the old server to the new
one...... Nightmare

It just needs careful planning, I guess.

Bernhard


-- 
Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net       (Free
Software Company)
Germany Coordinator: fsfeurope.org. Coordinator:
www.Kolab-Konsortium.com.
Intevation GmbH, Osnabrück, DE; Amtsgericht Osnabrück, HRB
18998
Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr.
Jan-Oliver Wagner

_______________________________________________
Kolab-users mailing list
Kolab-userskolab.org
https:
//kolab.org/mailman/listinfo/kolab-users