Sunday, June 14, 2009

The one where I blast IBM…

image

pony loves lamy safaris and moleskines! :: april 24, 2009 :: saugus, ma

I’ve come to terms with the “downs” of the past two weeks.  It took a while for me to process them to the point where I could join the rest of the world again… Of course, yesterday, my first real day as a human - and a freaking awesome day at that -  I got a phone call that threatened to bring me back down.  A simple declaration on Twitter that I was done with the drama made me feel instantly better.  I know that doesn’t end it, but it’s a temporary fix and it’s working for now.

Speaking of temporary fixes, I gave in and decided to have one email address that all my “less essential” email addresses would get forwarded to. This now, in theory, will allow me to use LotusNotes and eProductivity at home. This is a crappy compromise because I really like having the ability to view and send from the individual email accounts as well as see them all as a whole, but unlike Microsoft, IBM decided that people using Notes didn’t need the ability to use multiple email accounts.  That’s a really good sign that the company doesn’t care for the little users - only the enterprise level end users. No wonder they’re losing ground to Outlook / Exchange. It’s bullshit, plain and simple. I don’t feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of Notes at home and the only reason I’m even putting up with it - despite all the headaches I’ve been having since March - is because I want eProductivity.  Period. I have no interest in using Notes at home - especially now. I just want the add-on. If eProductivity worked in Apple Mail, Entourage, or even Outlook, I’d be all over it and probably much happier than I am today.

I will say this - the support I received from the Lotus Notes users on Twitter and from Eric Mack (eProductivity’s developer) was / is nothing short of amazing. Even though I was forced to face the fact that there is yet to be any amount of hacking that could give me what I wanted, these people tried like mad to do it. If I’m going to have to fight to get the software to do what I want, these are exactly the type of people I would want on my side. They were so generous with their time!!!  Many gave me detailed instructions with screen grabs that rival the best software manuals out there. If any of you are still hanging around, thank you again, and again, for your efforts. The fact that IBM is paying attention and working on adding multiple email address support is HUGE. I can’t thank those people enough either.  (I’m looking at you, @DwightMo and Ed Brill!)

I have one stumbling block left.  I’ve got all 6 of my “less essential” accounts set to forward and they all appear to be working, but now I need to import the old stuff. That’s a battle for another day.  I’ve got a really small to-do list for today… four simple things and I’ve already done three of them.  I know myself well enough to know that if I had planned to do more, I’d only stress myself out and right now, that’s the last thing I need to do. I’ll probably end up going above and beyond (the magic of the Unschedule! Thank you, Neil Fiore!).  That’s not a bad thing.  Of course, I did schedule in more time to play the Sims!  It’s the best way I’ve found to get out of my head and it’s been instrumental in my ability to work through the Ick of the past two weeks.

I think that tomorrow’s main project is to start moving things out of OmniFocus and into eProductivity.  I’m *so* excited by that fact, I’m absolutely twitching.  (In fact, I may find the time to start today!) I was getting so disgusted with my Notes experience that I never thought I’d be able to say that. This is HUGE for me and while I’m not happy with the kludge, it will do for now… but this doesn’t end it, IBM.  Do you hear me?

 

Posted by Matty on 06/14 at 04:11 PM
Permalink