Looking for some neat Server Build Projects
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@stacksofplates said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@tim_g said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
That looks really nice. But I still think I'd rather stick to WordPress... I just can't stand writing and maintaining markdown articles and wikis. That's the biggest reason we moved from Mediawiki.
Now, if they had plugins that did WYSIWYG editing, screenshot from clipboard pasting, etc... then I'd be all in.
I'd rather use Markdown. I'm much faster at that than I am with clicking toolbar buttons and I find it less prone to weird formatting issues like you get with some WYSIWYG editors.
I agree, I like markdown a lot as well.
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@stacksofplates said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@tim_g said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
That looks really nice. But I still think I'd rather stick to WordPress... I just can't stand writing and maintaining markdown articles and wikis. That's the biggest reason we moved from Mediawiki.
Now, if they had plugins that did WYSIWYG editing, screenshot from clipboard pasting, etc... then I'd be all in.
I'd rather use Markdown. I'm much faster at that than I am with clicking toolbar buttons and I find it less prone to weird formatting issues like you get with some WYSIWYG editors.
Yup, go with whatever most efficient and works best for you.
In my case, it's WordPress. It takes me a HELL of a lot longer to do everything with Markdown....tables!
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OneDrive is such a terrible product. It's really flaky for me. Every other cloud storage I've used is leaps and bounds better. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is.
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@irj said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
OneDrive is such a terrible product. It's really flaky for me. Every other cloud storage I've used is leaps and bounds better. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is.
I think it's fine but it does have quirks. Folder/file level issues, file names, symbols, etc.
We use Box at work and have had endless issues with it. Some issues as bad as literally seeing files on one computer that never sync to another, and yet the files are seen in the cloud, but they refused to sync down to a device. We are constantly having to delete files from the cloud just so we can try to reupload them to sync. Just lots of issues. Background app suddenly dies and does nothing, even though icon is still in system tray.
OneDrive at least is more keen on stayling alive and reporting sync issues. Box just sort of silently dies and we discover problems later.
For me, since we have Office365 (mainly just to get Office suite), it really sucks that Sharepoint is bad, OneDrive is bad, OneNote is bad, etc etc. I really wish O365 just worked great and I didn't have to also go buy alternate services, ignoring MS ones I'm already buying.
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@irj said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
OneDrive is such a terrible product. It's really flaky for me. Every other cloud storage I've used is leaps and bounds better. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is.
OneDrive for Business, I agree. Absolutely flaky and unreliable. I've tried it in business for a few test users, a couple years ago, and it just caused nothing but issues. I won't use it again.
However, OneDrive for personal use or just "OneDrive" is great. I've been using it for a few years now for all family photos, videos, documents, and some other storage... sitting under 500 GB, but hundreds of thousands of files. At home I have a tiny external USB 1 TB drive to keep it all syncd to. Never had a single issue with it.
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@tim_g said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@irj said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
OneDrive is such a terrible product. It's really flaky for me. Every other cloud storage I've used is leaps and bounds better. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is.
OneDrive for Business, I agree. Absolutely flaky and unreliable. I've tried it in business for a few test users, a couple years ago, and it just caused nothing but issues. I won't use it again.
However, OneDrive for personal use or just "OneDrive" is great. I've been using it for a few years now for all family photos, videos, documents, and some other storage... sitting under 500 GB, but hundreds of thousands of files. At home I have a tiny external USB 1 TB drive to keep it all syncd to. Never had a single issue with it.
I’ve had MS themselves lose data on both. They share components behind the scenes and problems with ODfB can cascade to OD.
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Well I guess I'll just have to buy O365 to get Word and Excel. Then buy Google Apps to get Drive. Then buy some other suite just to get a decent intranet. Then another suite to get some notes. Then another suite just to get the wiki. ffs
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@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
Well I guess I'll just have to buy O365 to get Word and Excel. Then buy Google Apps to get Drive. Then buy some other suite just to get a decent intranet. Then another suite to get some notes. Then another suite just to get the wiki. ffs
Why do you need Word and Excel? I mean lots of people need them but why do you?
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@tim_g said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@irj said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
OneDrive is such a terrible product. It's really flaky for me. Every other cloud storage I've used is leaps and bounds better. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is.
OneDrive for Business, I agree. Absolutely flaky and unreliable. I've tried it in business for a few test users, a couple years ago, and it just caused nothing but issues. I won't use it again.
However, OneDrive for personal use or just "OneDrive" is great. I've been using it for a few years now for all family photos, videos, documents, and some other storage... sitting under 500 GB, but hundreds of thousands of files. At home I have a tiny external USB 1 TB drive to keep it all syncd to. Never had a single issue with it.
I’ve had MS themselves lose data on both. They share components behind the scenes and problems with ODfB can cascade to OD.
Not until recently they did not. ODfB was only recently retooled away from Groove to the OD model.
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
Well I guess I'll just have to buy O365 to get Word and Excel. Then buy Google Apps to get Drive. Then buy some other suite just to get a decent intranet. Then another suite to get some notes. Then another suite just to get the wiki. ffs
Why do you need Word and Excel? I mean lots of people need them but why do you?
Because all the non-techy people are used to Office. I only recently finally got them to stop using old copies of Office 2007. At least now they can use 2016 on O365. They will not use anything else, and threw a hissy fit when MS started pushing Office as a subscription model. They were THIS close to forcing us to keep using 2007 just because we happened to have those licenses and the software still runs fine.
MS's licensing model is such a pain. All I want is updated software, and all the boss wants is to not spend thousands of dollars upgrading when the old stuff "still works". And nothing compares to Word/Excel right now. Don't even bother telling me to try doing spreadsheets in the cloud in a web browser on Google. No chance of ever getting anybody around here to do that.
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@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
Well I guess I'll just have to buy O365 to get Word and Excel. Then buy Google Apps to get Drive. Then buy some other suite just to get a decent intranet. Then another suite to get some notes. Then another suite just to get the wiki. ffs
Why do you need Word and Excel? I mean lots of people need them but why do you?
Because all the non-techy people are used to Office. I only recently finally got them to stop using old copies of Office 2007. At least now they can use 2016 on O365. They will not use anything else, and threw a hissy fit when MS started pushing Office as a subscription model. They were THIS close to forcing us to keep using 2007 just because we happened to have those licenses and the software still runs fine.
MS's licensing model is such a pain. All I want is updated software, and all the boss wants is to not spend thousands of dollars upgrading when the old stuff "still works". And nothing compares to Word/Excel right now. Don't even bother telling me to try doing spreadsheets in the cloud in a web browser on Google. No chance of ever getting anybody around here to do that.
I use LibreOffice on Windows and it runs perfectly. Most users do not know the difference. Power user of course would.
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@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
Well I guess I'll just have to buy O365 to get Word and Excel. Then buy Google Apps to get Drive. Then buy some other suite just to get a decent intranet. Then another suite to get some notes. Then another suite just to get the wiki. ffs
Why do you need Word and Excel? I mean lots of people need them but why do you?
Because all the non-techy people are used to Office. I only recently finally got them to stop using old copies of Office 2007. At least now they can use 2016 on O365. They will not use anything else, and threw a hissy fit when MS started pushing Office as a subscription model. They were THIS close to forcing us to keep using 2007 just because we happened to have those licenses and the software still runs fine.
MS's licensing model is such a pain. All I want is updated software, and all the boss wants is to not spend thousands of dollars upgrading when the old stuff "still works". And nothing compares to Word/Excel right now. Don't even bother telling me to try doing spreadsheets in the cloud in a web browser on Google. No chance of ever getting anybody around here to do that.
Non-techy people really can't tell. LibreOffice is nicer, IMHO, and easier to use. Tell management you have a free option that has been around for decades and is used everywhere and see if "free" and "fully up to date all of the time" don't matter to them. Maybe they don't, but give it a shot.
I've been on non-MS office options since 2003 and can't be happier. And I've never met the elusive non-tech person that only can use Word. Everyone says this, but the less technical people are, the more likely they are to only know Google Sheets from what I've seen. These days, MS Office isn't some kind of universal need like it used to be. So many companies don't have it any more, the "it's the only thing that people know" argument doesn't really apply.
And as Jared said, most users can't even tell when you switch. It's just a "new version" to them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
I've been on non-MS office options since 2003 and can't be happier. And I've never met the elusive non-tech person that only can use Word. Everyone says this, but the less technical people are, the more likely they are to only know Google Sheets from what I've seen. These days, MS Office isn't some kind of universal need like it used to be. So many companies don't have it any more, the "it's the only thing that people know" argument doesn't really apply.
This is true in most cases. But in quite a few no-so-often cases, there are many MS-only office features that are used.
So, as always, you will need to fully evaluate which one you would use. If you can get away with LibreOffice, then great. You're like most people. But my point is that you should shoudl fully evaluate it first in as many production use scenarios as possible. Grab a user in each department and ask them to use it for a while and to let you know if there is something they can't do with it. Then see if they are just doing it wrong, or if it's a functionality that is missing that is only available in MS Office.
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@tim_g said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
I've been on non-MS office options since 2003 and can't be happier. And I've never met the elusive non-tech person that only can use Word. Everyone says this, but the less technical people are, the more likely they are to only know Google Sheets from what I've seen. These days, MS Office isn't some kind of universal need like it used to be. So many companies don't have it any more, the "it's the only thing that people know" argument doesn't really apply.
This is true in most cases. But in quite a few no-so-often cases, there are many MS-only office features that are used.
So, as always, you will need to fully evaluate which one you would use. If you can get away with LibreOffice, then great. You're like most people. But my point is that you should shoudl fully evaluate it first in as many production use scenarios as possible. Grab a user in each department and ask them to use it for a while and to let you know if there is something they can't do with it. Then see if they are just doing it wrong, or if it's a functionality that is missing that is only available in MS Office.
If they need those features, though, they are tech users. Those are very technical features.
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Libre and OpenOffice are ugly as snot, unless you like using programs from Visual Basic 6 era, I dunno.
I've always had trouble opening MS Office stuff within these apps, formatting goes wonky, images, tables, print layouts. Excel scripts, VBA, I use all the time.
We have hundreds of Office documents, and people send us Office documents. I have Excel files connected to data sources, used for reporting, formatting PDF output files.I tried switching once, and over weeks they could never understand the use of save-as to put things in proper formats. If you have to do anything besides ctrl-s or file-save, brains explode. Literally, entrails on the walls, it's messy. Buttons moving around and aren't in the right toolbar locations, panic ensues.
You are definitely right in that 90% of documents are like a few headings and some bold and italic here and there. And most spreadsheets are just naming the headers and entering basic data. But even if that is 90% of documents, the most important documents are the other 10%, the most critical ones, the hard ones, the advanced ones.
I've given up the battle. I bought O365 thinking we'd finally have everything in one, the newest Office, a terabyte of OneDrive. But even that was a fight. Boss though it was useless to buy everyone a license, so I was only allowed to buy 5 licenses and other people in the building are using the same accounts, since they can be used on up to five devices.
I can't win, and I'm not going to try any more. I have to take even the smallest victories as a good thing. -
@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
Libre and OpenOffice are ugly as snot, unless you like using programs from Visual Basic 6 era, I dunno.
I can only assume you've not really used them then. We can't be talking about the same application.
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@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
I've always had trouble opening MS Office stuff within these apps, formatting goes wonky, images, tables, print layouts. Excel scripts, VBA, I use all the time.
That's an issue - you are judging them to a different standard than you judge MS Office.
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@scottalanmiller said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
@guyinpv said in Looking for some neat Server Build Projects:
Well I guess I'll just have to buy O365 to get Word and Excel. Then buy Google Apps to get Drive. Then buy some other suite just to get a decent intranet. Then another suite to get some notes. Then another suite just to get the wiki. ffs
Why do you need Word and Excel? I mean lots of people need them but why do you?
Because all the non-techy people are used to Office. I only recently finally got them to stop using old copies of Office 2007. At least now they can use 2016 on O365. They will not use anything else, and threw a hissy fit when MS started pushing Office as a subscription model. They were THIS close to forcing us to keep using 2007 just because we happened to have those licenses and the software still runs fine.
MS's licensing model is such a pain. All I want is updated software, and all the boss wants is to not spend thousands of dollars upgrading when the old stuff "still works". And nothing compares to Word/Excel right now. Don't even bother telling me to try doing spreadsheets in the cloud in a web browser on Google. No chance of ever getting anybody around here to do that.
Non-techy people really can't tell. LibreOffice is nicer, IMHO, and easier to use. Tell management you have a free option that has been around for decades and is used everywhere and see if "free" and "fully up to date all of the time" don't matter to them. Maybe they don't, but give it a shot.
I've been on non-MS office options since 2003 and can't be happier. And I've never met the elusive non-tech person that only can use Word. Everyone says this, but the less technical people are, the more likely they are to only know Google Sheets from what I've seen. These days, MS Office isn't some kind of universal need like it used to be. So many companies don't have it any more, the "it's the only thing that people know" argument doesn't really apply.
And as Jared said, most users can't even tell when you switch. It's just a "new version" to them.
I just use Zoho for everything. My mail is through it for each of my domains and pretty much all documents are through that. Then again I hardly ever use documents and spreadsheets any more.
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Looks awfully nice to me.
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