Ooh, feel the anger: Fake Steve disses Lotus Notes
Yeah, I know Jack has covered this on the Guardian Tech blog, but seeing how I have form on this, it seemed worth noting. Fake Steve Jobs - aka Daniel Lyons - did a number on the possibility of Notes coming to the iPhone (the iPhone? Uh??).
The bit in the FSJ post that made me laff though is:
Have you ever seen Notes? It’s not software, it’s a form of punishment. Companies that use Notes have to staff not only a help desk but also a suicide prevention center — it’s that bad.
But he also dissed Ed Brill, one of the lead people in Notes.. er.. talking-upping. Who points back to an article from 1998 written by Lyons about how
Predictably, pretty much all the quotes on the FSJ blog go in the same direction.. like this:
It’s true. I worked at IBM a while back and everyone in my section (all 100 of us) hated Notes. For some reason, before my arrival, they had been allowed to not use Notes. But then the big man laid down the smack.
Or this from “IBMer”:
Best FSJ post ever! I am forced to use Lotus Notes and it’s got to be the most user unfriendly pile of crap I’ve ever seen. Of course the IT guys tell me that it’s “powerful under the hood”. So what? I use it as an e-mail client and hate the people who force me to do it more every day.
Meanwhile on the Ed Brill blog the comments are mostly one-way traffic… though I do like this one:
I’ve been a Notes Dev for 6 years and in that time I can’t recall once having an end user tell me how much they loved using it. In fact, the vast majority treat it like a burden they are required to bear.
And this one:
I’ve been a Notes dev for 9 years, and my users have never once complained about the UI of any Notes app. The overwhelming array of toolbar buttons and the crazy layout of menus, yes, but they’ve never complained about Notes APPS (other than mail.. a little).
But the one which clinches it, absolutely nails it, is this one on the FSJ blog:
This is the approved standard Notes reply, and seems to have been in use since the first version. “As for your comments on Notes x, I suggest you take a look at Notes x+1.” Well, maybe it’s a bit less crappy, but it’s still crap. Gimme a call when you’ve finished Notes 20….
Yeah. At work, everyone’s still on Notes x. Everyone who tells us how much better it is using Notes x+1. And no, I can’t be bothered to find out which version of Notes we’re using at work. It’s x, OK?
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- In The Guardian: Lotus Notes vs the end user (9 February 2006; score: 82.72%)
- In today's Guardian: a Lotus Notes followup (16 February 2006; score: 71.08%)
- The Lotus Notes hating just goes on... and on: it's the Marmite of the IT world (21 July 2008; score: 55.55%)
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January 25th, 2008 at 2:14 am
Hi, Charles!
Guess you already knew who’d be first to respond to this one, didn’t you! Having already lost my rag on Jack’s post (hungover from seeing The Police concert last night - I did apologise to him though), I’ll try to be a bit more considered here.
>> And no, I can’t be bothered to find out …
Well, you said it; not me. And I find that a rather odd thing for a respected journalist to say. As I understand it, the Guardian (not to mention its readers) is paying you to *be* bothered. Is it really too much trouble to check the latest version of something before wading in with your opinions? And if it’s not, then why, for example, go to the trouble of installing Leopard before opining on Apple operating systems? Surely, an old review of System 7 would do just as well.
>> “I’ve been a Notes Dev for 6 years and in that time
>> I can’t recall once having an end user tell me how
>> much they loved using it.”
Me neither (although some of my apps have been complimented). But why would they say that? It’s a tool that one uses to do a job. It makes about as much sense as saying how much they love the bus trip into work or the swipe key to get into their office or even the work toilet where they take your morning dump (go on, make a joke about Notes and toilets; you know you want to!!) But take those things away from users….
Yes, believe it or not, users do swamp the helpdesk when Notes servers go down (a rare event, by the way). And it’s not to say, “thank God that piece of shit is down, so I don’t have to use it” either, much as you might think/wish that to be true. They actually clamour to have it back because they can’t do their work without it.
The key word here is “work”, Charles. Do you understand what I’m saying? Major clue coming up; reading and sending emails isn’t work.
All the best, as always.
- Mike
January 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
@Mike - Well, I suppose the Police will have to do while Arctic Monkeys haven’t got to Oz.
As to not being bothered (or possibly bovvered) - I didn’t post this at work, so (a) I couldn’t check (though from memory it’s Notes 6.5) and (b) the Gdn isn’t paying for me to be bothered here. I apply different rules.
The point about Notes is the x/x+1 thing, which I think nails it. Throughout my use of Notes I’ve been hearing from the IT folk that “the next version is much better”. Then it arrives, and the mail interface - which remains the primary use, because for journalists these days email is a vital function - still isn’t much use. Five years after OSX had automatic scroll wheel support, Notes is the *only* app on the Gdn standard install where the scroll wheel does nothing. Adobe can cope with the cross-platform hassle. IBM/Lotus can’t?
And the comparison with swipe cards and bus rides is apposite. The Gdn swipe cards are far less good than the ones the Indie had, which were contactless; it’s a minor annoyance I feel each day. (Maybe that’ll change with Gdn Offices v.x+1, later this year.) If your bus ride lets you sit down all the way, that’s a lot different from having to stand beside someone who hasn’t washed, isn’t it? If the work toilets are filthy and stink, that’s very different from gleaming, clean ones.
The point is that the little things add up. Yes, they’re a tool, but it’s not only the bad workman who quarrels with his tools. After all, that saying arose from the time when workmen made their own tools, honed them, perfected them. Users nowadays don’t get the same choice about their email. Which is why I say a prayer of thanks to you every day for enabling IMAP and Mail. I might be able to get my work done using Mail for my Gmail, and Notes for Gdn email, but it would be like trying to sew with a hammer, or ride a bicycle that had rubber bands instead of a chain: you’d get there, but awfully slowly.
I think that calling Lotus Notes the asbestos of IT sums it up very well.
And the reason all those people ring up when Notes goes down? Because they can’t get their email. And I can tell you from a position of authority that in a modern newspaper, sending and reading emails is a big part of many writers’ and editors’ work: it coordinates and it produces. If the email goes down and I can’t get the copy that has to go onto the page right away, we have a problem. Happily, of course, we can now interpret such damage as.. damage, and route around it: hence webmail, Facebook email, and so on.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
> why would they say [how much they loved using it]? It’s a tool that one uses to do a job
You haven’t read a lot of Apple-related blogs, have you Mike? I suspect it’s that kind of attitude that’s kept Notes the loathed little piece of crap it’s described as.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
>>As to not being bothered (or possibly bovvered)
>> - I didn’t post this at work,
Point taken. However, you did refererence here *that article*, which was very much printed in the dead tree paper that employs you. So I think that my comments about software versions are relevant, whether you agree with them or not.
>> And I can tell you from a position of authority that in a modern newspaper
>> sending and reading emails is a big part of many writers’ and editors’ work
Point taken with nobs on. Yes, I see that from your “position of authority” journalism is one of those jobs where email is more important than most (e.g. gbrown@inchargeofthingsnowbutforhowlong.gov to arusbridger@guardian.co.uk). And there are tons of companies that have external helpdesk/customer relations/complaints type email boxes. To those kind of people, email *is* the real deal. I was thinking more of that day-to-day kind of “normal” job people (like me) where people spend an inordinate abount of time thinking about, then composing that perfect email to somebody that actually sits about five desks away.
>> that’s a lot different from having
>> to stand beside someone who hasn’t washed
You *did* do the Note and toliets joke, after all! Nice disguise on it though.
>> the Police will have to do while Arctic Monkeys haven’t got to Oz.
I think we’re still waiting for the original Monkeys (Monkees) to make it out here, mate! Don’t know about any “Arctic” versions.
The Police were effing brilliant, by the way. I so expected them to just stand up there and take the money, like all these reformed-20-years-later groups do, but Sting sang his heart out.
Cheers,
- Mike
January 26th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
@Mike: “I was thinking more of that day-to-day kind of “normal” job people (like me) where people spend an inordinate abount of time thinking about, then composing that perfect email to somebody that actually sits about five desks away.”
Even for them, an email client where the shortcut for “new item” that is cross-application throughout the OS doesn’t try to create a new database is probably helpful. Actually, an email client where you have a keyboard shortcut for a new mail would be good.
But if you go to the original thread on the Gdn, Ed Brill has offered to come and see us. Jolly good..
>>Sting sang his heart out.
Literally? Even so the Arctic Monkeys would do better. Or Muse. Or Queens fo the Stone Age. They paid a visit?
January 28th, 2008 at 10:50 am
>>an email client where you have a keyboard shortcut
>> for a new mail would be good
The keystroke for “new mail” in Notes, is Ctrl->M (Command->M on a Mac). This is the same keystroke that Mozilla Thunderbird (also cross-platform) employs, by the way. (Thunderbird may use Command->Shift->M on a Mac though).
Yes, I saw Ed’s offer on Jack’s thread. You may want to get somebody from IT involved; to keep score if nothing else! Just a thought.
>> Even so the Arctic Monkeys would do better.
Do better at what? Singing Sting’s songs? Filling Telstra Stadium? (40,000 capacity) Appealing to old farts like me?
I think not.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
@6: Wow, yes it is! They kept that well hidden under a bushel. In “File->New-> Memo” it doesn’t offer a shortcut. In “Create->Memo” it does - Cmd-M as you say. Perhaps they didn’t realise that the two are equivalent.
Still no shortcut (that I can find) for “Reply” in this product that’s only, well, five years old now (it is 6.5, just looked). Then again, in 2003, did anyone want to create a reply via a keystroke? That’s only started happening in the past, er, well. (And they have already taken Cmd-R for that much more intuitive and important function, enabling the ruler.)
I’ve never used Outlook so someone passing will have to tell me what Outlook/OExpress use for their “new” and “reply” shortcuts. But this sort of thing is just perverse - it’s like putting the handbrake on the steering wheel and the brake pedal on the dashboard.
As to Arctic Monkeys - they’d do better at persuading you not to be an old fart and listen to some new music. Give their first album a listen and remember what it was like hearing the Police’s first. (I assume you did at the time.) What was it called? Lambetta Bruschetta or something?