KDE suite falling short for professional users

love Linux. Running several versions of SuSE and currently on 10.0,
I've become a real Linux advocate and would love to see the "masses"
convert to this superior system. However, as a former power user of MS
Outlook, KDE is still falling short of offering an integrated mail,
contact and calendar system that suits the needs of most professional
users.

There appears no way to cleanly convert Outlook addresses to CSV to
Kontact. KDE provides the utility and functionality but it just plain
doesn't work. Small, but important tasks such as adding calendar
entries from services like EBAY to the KDE calendar do not work. These
small glitches and inconveniences create frustrations that cause users
to 'settle' for MS.

Though to developers and hackers, these may seem like small and
unimportant issues, to folks who depend on the desktop for general
business and organizational functions, convenience, functionality and
ease of use can make or entirely break an application.

I want to see KDE and other environments developed for open
environments succeed. However, we're not there now.

__/ [ [email]jabrooksr@gmail.com[/email] ] on Wednesday 29 March 2006 04:42 \__
[color=blue]
> love Linux. Running several versions of SuSE and currently on 10.0,
> I've become a real Linux advocate and would love to see the "masses"
> convert to this superior system. However, as a former power user of MS
> Outlook, KDE is still falling short of offering an integrated mail,
> contact and calendar system that suits the needs of most professional
> users.
>
> There appears no way to cleanly convert Outlook addresses to CSV to
> Kontact. KDE provides the utility and functionality but it just plain
> doesn't work. Small, but important tasks such as adding calendar
> entries from services like EBAY to the KDE calendar do not work. These
> small glitches and inconveniences create frustrations that cause users
> to 'settle' for MS.
>
> Though to developers and hackers, these may seem like small and
> unimportant issues, to folks who depend on the desktop for general
> business and organizational functions, convenience, functionality and
> ease of use can make or entirely break an application.
>
> I want to see KDE and other environments developed for open
> environments succeed. However, we're not there now.[/color]

Have you considered the products from Mozilla (it's now a foundation so I can
probably say "products")? Personally. I moved from that KDE 'umbrella' to
Thunderbird a year ago. Thunderbird with extensions offers merely
everything that Outlook offers, and beyond. Still, you have access to one of
the best browsers, which when preloaded with plug-ins, can surpass Opera and
others. Think of Konqueror as work in progress that has not been recognised
by prejudiced Web developers. KDE continues to grow. Grow with it, or mature
on its side.

As regards development, one can always use Eclipse or other development
suites if KDevelop/QT is insufficient or does not deliver the required
toolset. In general, if KDE does not handle your workload, consider
alternative Open Source projects.

Hope it helps,

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | YaSTall SuSE to figure out the magic
[url]http://Schestowitz.com[/url] | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
7:15am up 20 days 21:00, 9 users, load average: 1.73, 0.91, 0.79
[url]http://iuron.com[/url] - help build a non-profit search engine

[email]jabrooksr@gmail.com[/email] wrote:
[color=blue]
> love Linux. Running several versions of SuSE and currently on 10.0,
> I've become a real Linux advocate and would love to see the "masses"
> convert to this superior system. However, as a former power user of MS
> Outlook, KDE is still falling short of offering an integrated mail,
> contact and calendar system that suits the needs of most professional
> users.
>
> There appears no way to cleanly convert Outlook addresses to CSV to
> Kontact.[/color]

Use Thunderbird as an intermediary - import Outlook Contacts to Thunderbird
then export as LDIF format

[color=blue]
> KDE provides the utility and functionality but it just plain
> doesn't work. Small, but important tasks such as adding calendar
> entries from services like EBAY to the KDE calendar do not work.[/color]

Umm most "professional" users wouldn't be putting Ebay items in their
Outlook calendar as I suspect that access to Ebay would be blocked by their
IT dept.......

--
Gordon Burgess-Parker
Interim Systems and Management Accounting
[url]www.gbpcomputing.co.uk[/url]

__/ [ Gordon ] on Wednesday 29 March 2006 08:07 \__
[color=blue]
> [email]jabrooksr@gmail.com[/email] wrote:
>[color=green]
>> love Linux. Running several versions of SuSE and currently on 10.0,
>> I've become a real Linux advocate and would love to see the "masses"
>> convert to this superior system. However, as a former power user of MS
>> Outlook, KDE is still falling short of offering an integrated mail,
>> contact and calendar system that suits the needs of most professional
>> users.
>>
>> There appears no way to cleanly convert Outlook addresses to CSV to
>> Kontact.[/color]
>
> Use Thunderbird as an intermediary - import Outlook Contacts to Thunderbird
> then export as LDIF format
>
>[color=green]
>> KDE provides the utility and functionality but it just plain
>> doesn't work. Small, but important tasks such as adding calendar
>> entries from services like EBAY to the KDE calendar do not work.[/color]
>
> Umm most "professional" users wouldn't be putting Ebay items in their
> Outlook calendar as I suspect that access to Ebay would be blocked by their
> IT dept.......[/color]

As far as I'm aware, Thunderbird does both E-mail and RSS.

So, have a look...

[url]http://rssauction.com/[/url]

This site/service has recently returned to life. You can keep track of your
favourite eBay items and be notified when something rare goes on auction.
Outlook, on the other hand, cannot handle feeds. Pretty miserable if you
consider the maturity of feeds...

Best wishes,

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand"
[url]http://Schestowitz.com[/url] | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
8:15am up 20 days 22:00, 11 users, load average: 0.72, 0.81, 0.85
[url]http://iuron.com[/url] - help build a non-profit search engine

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
[color=blue]
> Have you considered the products from Mozilla (it's now a foundation so I
> can probably say "products")?[/color]

Mozilla Suite (not all versions) has support for QT-toolbox, which makes it
fit a lot better into a KDE environment than what gtk+/xlib/gtk2 tollbox
versions does.

[color=blue]
> Think of Konqueror as work in progress that has not been recognised
> by prejudiced Web developers.[/color]

You have websphere based on kHTML.


//Aho

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
[color=blue]
> This site/service has recently returned to life. You can keep track of your
> favourite eBay items and be notified when something rare goes on auction.
> Outlook, on the other hand, cannot handle feeds. Pretty miserable if you
> consider the maturity of feeds...[/color]

No matter, a proper IT-department would still block the ebay site and a lot
more that would cause the workers to surfe there during work hours when it's
not work related.


//Aho

__/ [ J.O. Aho ] on Wednesday 29 March 2006 15:43 \__
[color=blue]
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>[color=green]
> > Have you considered the products from Mozilla (it's now a foundation so
> > I can probably say "products")?[/color]
>
> Mozilla Suite (not all versions) has support for QT-toolbox, which makes it
> fit a lot better into a KDE environment than what gtk+/xlib/gtk2 tollbox
> versions does.[/color]


I haven't noticed that when working with GNOME. Then again, I still use
Firefox 1.0.x, Thunderbird 1.0.x and KDE 3.1. I use GNOME elsewhere and I
saw some signs of GUI integration in Firefox. Then again, it came
pre-installed with the distro (ubuntu).

[color=blue][color=green]
>> Think of Konqueror as work in progress that has not been recognised
>> by prejudiced Web developers.[/color]
>
> You have websphere based on kHTML .[/color]


And there's Safari too.


Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Seeing bad movies only encourages them"
[url]http://Schestowitz.com[/url] | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
4:00pm up 21 days 5:45, 9 users, load average: 0.37, 0.71, 0.58
[url]http://iuron.com[/url] - help build a non-profit search engine

__/ [ J.O. Aho ] on Wednesday 29 March 2006 15:46 \__
[color=blue]
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>[color=green]
>> This site/service has recently returned to life. You can keep track of
>> your favourite eBay items and be notified when something rare goes on
>> auction. Outlook, on the other hand, cannot handle feeds. Pretty miserable
>> if you consider the maturity of feeds...[/color]
>
> No matter, a proper IT-department would still block the ebay site and a lot
> more that would cause the workers to surfe there during work hours when
> it's not work related.[/color]

They could use a proxy as an easy workaround. Easy to install on one's
Webspace, provided it has PHP installed.

Best wishes,

Roy


--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Seeing bad movies only encourages them"
[url]http://Schestowitz.com[/url] | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
4:00pm up 21 days 5:45, 9 users, load average: 0.37, 0.71, 0.58
[url]http://iuron.com[/url] - help build a non-profit search engine

Umm....thanks Gordon, but, "professional" in the sense of dollars &
cents. There are many of us out here that don't rely on an IT
department to faciliate our "profession"

[email]jabrooksr@gmail.com[/email] wrote:[color=blue]
> love Linux. Running several versions of SuSE and currently on 10.0,
> I've become a real Linux advocate and would love to see the "masses"
> convert to this superior system. However, as a former power user of MS
> Outlook, KDE is still falling short of offering an integrated mail,
> contact and calendar system that suits the needs of most professional
> users.
>
> There appears no way to cleanly convert Outlook addresses to CSV to
> Kontact. KDE provides the utility and functionality but it just plain
> doesn't work. Small, but important tasks such as adding calendar
> entries from services like EBAY to the KDE calendar do not work. These
> small glitches and inconveniences create frustrations that cause users
> to 'settle' for MS.
>
> Though to developers and hackers, these may seem like small and
> unimportant issues, to folks who depend on the desktop for general
> business and organizational functions, convenience, functionality and
> ease of use can make or entirely break an application.
>
> I want to see KDE and other environments developed for open
> environments succeed. However, we're not there now.
>[/color]

On SuSE, open YaST Install Remove Software and search for "evolution".
Evolution and the companion Ximian-Connector are the Novell supplied
replacements for Outlook. Connector allows you to connect to an
Exchange server backend. We successfully use these where I work to
participate in the corporate-wide Exchange environment (shared
calendars, meeting requests, corporate email address lookup, etc,
etc, etc).

Regards,
Larry