If You Hate Lotus Notes.....
then this is the place to let it be known. I've had to support this pile of shit known as Lotus Notes for the past 6 years for a bank out in New York.
End users are pissed.....tech support is pissed.....the only people who seem to love Notes are the weirdo's who have to code this crap and the people that work for IBM.
Anytime you bring up the competition, Microsoft, the Lotus Notes kool-aid developers at work like to talk about "microsoft has viruses...blah blah blah".
I always ask if they realize that it is 2007 and it would be nice if my out of office agent would turn on everytime (half the time it gets stuck or doesn't turn on at all), if NTASKLDR would refrain from using up 99% of my CPU, and if someone other then Ray Charles can improve the GUI.
The talk about Lotus Hannover and all the great things it is going to bring......we are apparently on the "beta" program and I installed Notes 8 and the only thing that changed were the icons on the left hand shortcut bar......why didn't the actual GUI change?
because my mail file template, person document, blah blah blah hadn't been updated on the server. You literally have to update all this shit on the backside to get it to work. What ever happened to installing a new version of software and the changes happen automatically and not having to contact your damn domino admin (who is clueless as it is) to update your docs on the server.
Stay tuned.....i'll be providing comical error screenshots (for those familiar with "object variable not set") and posting my dealings with end-users......this should be interesting.
End users are pissed.....tech support is pissed.....the only people who seem to love Notes are the weirdo's who have to code this crap and the people that work for IBM.
Anytime you bring up the competition, Microsoft, the Lotus Notes kool-aid developers at work like to talk about "microsoft has viruses...blah blah blah".
I always ask if they realize that it is 2007 and it would be nice if my out of office agent would turn on everytime (half the time it gets stuck or doesn't turn on at all), if NTASKLDR would refrain from using up 99% of my CPU, and if someone other then Ray Charles can improve the GUI.
The talk about Lotus Hannover and all the great things it is going to bring......we are apparently on the "beta" program and I installed Notes 8 and the only thing that changed were the icons on the left hand shortcut bar......why didn't the actual GUI change?
because my mail file template, person document, blah blah blah hadn't been updated on the server. You literally have to update all this shit on the backside to get it to work. What ever happened to installing a new version of software and the changes happen automatically and not having to contact your damn domino admin (who is clueless as it is) to update your docs on the server.
Stay tuned.....i'll be providing comical error screenshots (for those familiar with "object variable not set") and posting my dealings with end-users......this should be interesting.
Labels: i hate lotus notes, lotus hannover, lotus notes
posted by ih8lotusnotes | 4:51 PM
24 Comments:
Well, I, for one, can hardly wait to see what you post!
http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/marybeth
Ed - think you could link me up on edbrill.com?
Would be great pub ;)
Not as long as you remain a coward, no.
I am interested in knowing why it has taken until 2007 in Lotus Notes 8 to get features like in-line spell-check. This feature has been around in other products for 10 years...even in recent web apps. Many of the end users at my company use word or notepad to draft, then paste into Notes. I usually use notepad, because Notes doesn’t understand MS Word formatting anyways and the formatting features are horrible to use. It's pretty bad when you choose notepad over other supposedely "elegant" solutions.
IBM totes this new spell-check feature like its "Amazing" and "Awesome"...I think I would be trying to hide the fact that my product doesn’t currently have it...how embarrassing.
get a life
@whatrtheythinking:
I don't have inline spell checking in Outlook Express... Does Outlook have it? Have not been looking at Outlook in many years, mainly because I don't see much to gain there that I don't have in OE, where I also read usenet newgroups.
I am also frustrated with the lack of inline spell checking in Excel...
But I agree, it is annoying to either have to klick the spell check icon every time I am done with a mail, or (if I set my preferences in Notes to automatically spell-check all mail before saving) to have to click OK to confirm that the spelling really is correct...
"we are apparently on the "beta" program and I installed Notes 8 and the only thing that changed were the icons on the left hand shortcut bar......why didn't the actual GUI change?"
First off, you're probably violating your NDA with IBM by publishing this post, so you'd best hope your Domino administrator doesn't find out. And I'm pretty familiar with the companies on that list, so you'd best hope I don't figure it out either.
Second, the betas that are available TODAY require the full Expeditor release version to get significant GUI enhancements. You probably just upgraded your existing 6 or 7 install, which means you're looking at the native Windows version of Notes 8. Lotus has not made an upgrade installer available yet that takes you to the Expeditor wrapped version.
Third, yes, your Domino administrator has to authorize your move to the new template. That's because you're making an enterprise-level change when you do that. If you installed the new version of Firefox, would you suddenly expect your corporate homepage to look different? You admin CAN allow you to update your template yourself, but from the sound of your writing here, he is wise not to, whether you think he's clueless or not.
Lastly, if you really do believe the people maintaining your environment are incompetent, does it occur to you that they may have some of the blame in your satisfaction level with the product?
The Notes client is just an application framework, the applications that run in it have to be upgraded individually.
I suppose you think that upgrading to IE7 should automagically make every website you use completely Ajaxified, and that upgrading to Vista should upgrade Windows 3.1 apps so they have Aero UI effects.
And if your Domino admins are clueless, that's not the fault of every Domino admin in the world. Some of us are quite good.
Oh FFS, not again.
If you ‘Hate’ Lotus Notes… then I ‘Hate’ you….oh no wait a minute I am not three years old….get a life….
Nathan - I will agree with you that a good portion of our dissatisfaction stems from our domino team...as a company this big it's amazing that we continue to throw money at notes developers who don't have a clue and hardly ever QA their code....
I've been using notes since 6.x and I would have thought that the GUI would have changed at least ONCE up until our latest version 7.0.1 - but I digress.....
I talked to our wonderful domino admin today and she upgraded my notes templets and now i'm rocking the full Notes 8 experience.
I will say that I am impressed...for now. Ran into a couple issues that I will be addressing later.
Richard - thanks for stopping by!
and yes I understand it is "beta"...want to make that clear before all of you lose any sleep....like I said, the GUI is a huge improvement.
Well constructive criticism is always helpful, I post about issues too.
But hating Notes just is odd, I don't hate outlook, although it "just" does email and C/S.
Your admin should know better and help you further, if not, I can recommend an admin I know very well. :-)
Why would you expect a GUI update from 6.x to 7? IBM was quite specific that 7 was a server-focused release.
Further, do other products have significant GUI enhancements from one major release to the next? I don't recall Excel 2000 to Excel 2003 being all that different. Certainly IE 5 to 6 wasn't much of a change. Or to 7, for that matter, where the major UI change was *gasp* TABS!
Firefox 1 to 2? Not a big interface change there. The "X" got moved to the tab. The CSS enhancements allowed for rounded corners on web pages.
Nice to hear you have an updated template now, though. Are you sure you're running the full Expeditor version of 8? The difference between that and the native Windows version is DRASTIC. I should know -- I have both.
You say that you've supported Notes for 6 years. Can I ask what training you've had to support it? Which versions and was it Lotus courseware?
6 years and yet I quote you "I've been using notes since 6.x and I would have thought that the GUI would have changed at least ONCE up until our latest version 7.0.1 - but I digress.....", Has Notes/Domino been around for 6 years.
You are part of the support team for Notes and yet everyone is displeased, is that because you don't do a good job and cannot support the product very well?
Instead of creating a silly website like this, you would be better off spending that same amount of time looking for a new job. Can I also say that two of us support 6000 users, 4.x to 7.x servers, 30 servers over 7 domains and still sleep at night with happy customers. Get a new job !
"Has Notes/Domino been around for 6 years",
Meant to say Has Notes/Domino R6.x been around for 6 years?
At least it only came out then and if you had been with it longer you would have experienced the improvements from R4 and R5.
We could list all the things that have been in Notes and Microsoft are still trying to accomplish but then I'd be here all weekend.
I have to say, that ih8lotusnotes comments seems like he is willing to listen to what we have to say and is open to trying to make his environment better. He isn't flat out disregarding the product. I know some people like this, and it makes life very hard :( (Notes Developer)
Are things really that bad? E-mail: read, reply, compose, delete, move to folder. Applications: ease of use comes from developers, not Notes. If they create a nice user experience, done - if not, the devs blew it and NotesKnocking is a waste of energy.
Is there nothing else to worry about, such as the actual work you are paid to do? Can you let the toolset get in the way to this extreme? What's a "good" gui example for you and why does Notes have to be like that instead?
Ah well, flamers, lamers, gamers.
jim s
I agree that it's taken a while to get real-time spell checking into Notes. But I happen to think that Lotus have spent time on other things that are important. Yeah, security is an easy one to mention, but it's not a cheap snipe at Outlook... they'd kill for Notes' security and the ECL. Policy-based admin with client lock-down and config is another. It's all about where you choose to put the development dollars. Now Notes has the important stuff the UI can be improved. Who's seen any evidence that Microsoft can shoe-horn some decent security into their pretty products? Not me for one.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Took some fast ESCaping in order to get here and read the posts.
I'm not sure David Russell is correct. I don't see much willingness to listen to other people about the benefits of Notes, other than ih8... saying that his R8 is an improvement.
However, I also certainly don't think it's worth someone hacking his site and causing it to redirect to Microsoft. Bah. That's just poor sportsmanship.
I do have to agree with ihn on some points with regards to the UI not really evolving.
if you use the workspace (like most people I know), you haven't really seen much change in the UI since R3/4.
R5 presented us with the 'amazing' bookmark feature, which is still with us today.
One thing that I've missed since R3 (I've worked as admin & developer on the Lotus Notes/Domino platform since R3.3) is the possibility to select an entry in a view, scroll down and do a shift-click to select everything in between, something that you can do in 99.99999999999999999% of all windows applications, but not Notes.
I do agree with some of the people that responded that your 'dislike' of Lotus Notes is most likely due to improper understanding/lack of training within your organisation.
Cheers.
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