Category: bitching

Microsoft Exchange vs. Unix Sendmail – Rant and Comparison

September 25, 2006 / / 0 Comments

[Microsoft Exchange and Sendmail are server programs for sending email. You have almost certainly sent mail to one or the other before, and there’s a pretty good chance that your email service is using one and you don’t know it. They operate behind the scenes, so most people don’t even notice them.]

I absolutely loathe Microsoft’s server software. There has yet to be a single occasion where I have said, “Wow, that was way easier than doing the same thing in Unix.”

This is not to say that I believe that all Unix systems are superior to all Microsoft systems. That would be a broad generalization, and a stupid one at that. I’m sure there are applications where Microsoft server products outperform equivalent open source and Unix offerings.

I just haven’t found any.

Case in point: minor changes, the focus of this rant, are far easier to deal with in Unix. Tonight, I had to change the address that some guy’s email was being forwarded to. Sounds simple enough, right?

This is a link to how to change someone’s forwarding address in Microsoft Exchange. Look at it. Don’t bother to read it, that’s not really important. Just take a look at the number of steps necessary to do something this simple.

Go ahead, I’ll still be here when you get back.

You didn’t read it, did you? Is it really so much work to click the link, and then click “Back?”

Fine, here’s the synopsis: you need five printed pages of explanation.

Now, here’s how you do the same thing in Sendmail, a Unix email server program. (You don’t really need to read these either, but I’ll write it out for the sake of completeness.)

  1. Open /etc/mail/virtusers in a text editor.
  2. Find the email address for the guy that wants to change his forwarding address. It will be in the format
    someguy@here.com forwarded@somewhereelse.com
    .
  3. Replace forwarded@somewhereelse.com with the new forwarding address.
  4. Save and exit the text editor.
  5. Restart Sendmail so it knows about the change.

Seriously, that’s it. Five steps as opposed to five pages. I don’t think I’m wrong here.

I’m sure some Microsoft fanboys will say, “But Exchange has so many more features than Sendmail! It has to be more complex.” Let me take that argument apart here.

  • I really don’t think that complexity is an excuse for really, really terrible user experience.
  • Simple tasks are the tasks most likely to be performed on a regular basis. If you know that a task is a pain in the ass to do, find a way to make it easier. Add a wizard, find a way to obfuscate the complexity, do something that doesn’t make your admins want to cut your throat.
  • Most Exchange users don’t use the extended features offered. (The server I was using today did email for three people. It’s in a closet behind the receptionist’s desk.) If they’re not in use, disable them until they are. It will not only speed up the system, it will eliminate the painful need for five pages of text to do a simple task.

I’m well aware of the fact that a good user interface is difficult to write, and that the more complex something is, the harder it becomes… but come on, Microsoft. You are the premiere software developer in the world. Is this actually the best you can do?

I kicked a large dent in my car…

August 23, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Added to my list of businesses never to patronize again: Meineke Car Care Center.

I brought my car in to be repaired today, due to the fact that something had gotten lodged in the left front disk brake a few weeks ago.  (It nearly started on fire, and  I was in Milwaukee.  I ended up having to burden my friends with my car problems in order to get to Madison and back.  Thanks, Danulai!)  In the process of removing the smoking chunk of debris, I accidentally stripped one of the lug studs.  This left me with only three lug nuts holding the wheel on.  As you may imagine this (in addition to the smoking wheel) doesn’t make for the most terror-free driving experience.

So, today, I finally brought my car to the Meineke down the street from my apartment.  I knew that it would be more expensive than taking it to a small non-chain store shop, but it was close enough to my place that I could drive there and walk home  while it was being worked on.  Plus, I don’t know of any small, non-chain shops on my side of town.  Around here, it’s corporate chain stores or nothing.

Predictably, they found $700 worth of recommended repairs, far more than the actual value of the car.  I had them evaluate the brakes, do an oil change, and replace the lug stud and lug nuts.  That was it.  They didn’t even touch the brakes.

Yet, somehow, they managed to fuck them up so completely that I was afraid to drive it a half mile back to my apartment.

As I left the Meineke parking lot, I was surprised and terrified to learn that my formerly squishy brakes were now my very-nearly nonexistent brakes.  I went across the street to Taco Bell for some drive-through and pumped on the brakes while in line.  It was possible, but unlikely, that the grease monkey hadn’t pumped up the pressure before returning it to me.  Predictably, this didn’t work.  I drove it back across the street and walked back to complain and make them fix it.

A mechanic took the key, and I munched my burritos and read The Onion while they pulled it in to take another look at it.  Fifteen minutes later, a man with “James” embroidered on a blue work shirt slouched into the waiting room.

“Black Tempo?” he said, dangling the key in front of him.

“That’s me.”  I reached out and took the key from him.

“We couldn’t find anything wrong with it.  That’s the way it was when you brought it in.”

“Oh, no it wasn’t,” I replied angrily.  “My brakes weren’t great when I brought it in, but they worked a lot better than that.”

We continued in this vein for a few minutes–I, insisting that my brakes had been serviceable as recently as the moment I left it in their care; and he, falling back on that old chestnut, “It was like that when you brought it in.”

Eventually, he just shrugged and made it clear that he had nothing to say other than his new mantra.  I gave up and left, and called my dad from my car.  He’s on his way with $75 in parts to do about half the recommended repairs.  The rest can wait.  Probably until Armageddon.  If it’s not immediately life threatening, I’m not fixing it.

I can understand if someone accidentally screws something up in the process of working on something; I do it on a regular basis.  But the incompetence required to trash something as critical as my brakes, have no idea how, then refuse to admit a problem is staggering.

I have no intention of ever going back to Meineke.  Keep this in mind next time your car needs work done.  I know I will.

Journalism

August 13, 2006 / / 0 Comments

I was just watching 60 Minutes.  Mike Wallace was interviewing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I saw something there completely foreign to American politics.  Wallace asked questions of a sitting head of state, and Ahmadinejad predictably attempted to dodge the questions.

However, Wallace refused the evasions as par for the course and persisted in his line of questioning, asking questions three and four times until he got some sort of answer from Ahmadinejad.

Can you imagine a reporter having this sort of tact interviewing President Bush?  For that matter, can you imagine Bush answering a difficult question posed to him?

It’s a sad reflection on the state of American politics and journalism when the idea of forcing an elected official to answer a question with any degree of honesty is a surprising event.