Pah, done it again!!

----- Forwarded message from Paul Tansom paul@whaletales.co.uk -----

From: Paul Tansom paul@whaletales.co.uk To: Wayne Stallwood wayne.stallwood@btinternet.com Subject: Re: [Alug] Link: Debian Users are Beatniks [OT]

** Wayne Stallwood wayne.stallwood@btinternet.com [2003-01-29 00:22]:

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 00:08, Paul Tansom wrote:

...

My favourite was from when I was forced to use MDaemon (a Windows mail server if you've not come across it, and the version I used was a nightmare to use), that kept getting replaced by my spelling checker with "Madmen", which I took to refer to anyone who had administered it for a significant length of time :-)

Yes, been there done that even the later versions are a complete nighmare, makes Exchange look like binary bliss.

** end quote [Wayne Stallwood]

It was all the more painful for me because I was switching from using Netscape Messaging server running on an AIX box - a nice setup that stored mail account information in on an LDAP server so that each mail server was aware of accounts on other servers within the same mail domain and could route accordingly. It also shared account information with the Calendar server, web server, and proxy server (as well as the NT domain if you wanted it to). All in all a nice setup.

By contrast I was forced to use MDaemon running on a Windows 95 box in Holland connected to an ISDN line and hourly dial up (we had just had the half of our company that I worked for sold off to another company - we were an ex-IBM location, they had started life repairing TVs in a warehouse and the company was now a global company and this was the company mail server!!!!). I had to hook into this via an internationally dialed 33.6k modem and use remote control software - which screwed the fact that I had administered the AIX boxes and NT domain from my Linux boot :-( Entering the aliases we had was a nightmare because you couldn't list all the aliases for a given account - euch. When I emailed their technical support I got a reply from the MD saying that they were aware of the limitations and that they planned to address them in the next but one relase - hopfully.

To put this new IT infrastructure into context I will add that the IT director we now had wanted us to ditch our Token Ring network and put Ethernet in so that we could use TCP/IP (doh!) and he also received a fax of a hoax virus email, which he then typed out and emailed to me with the request that I emailed it to managers company wide. When I queried it I was told to go ahead and do it and only managed not to (it would have originated from my email for petes sake!) because I couldn't get a list of all the managers emails because nobody new them!

I left soon after this funnily enough because I was labelled as 'at risk' in a company trim down (i.e. if I hadn't jumped and not enough people had jumped I may have been pushed). I was one of two domain admins, and the only mail and calendar server admin (no backup) and the Internet and Intranet webmaster (no backup) and had designed the in house call logging system (not yet finished or documented) - so you can see there would be no significant hole if I dissapeared. Hidden agendas included getting rid of the calendar and Intranet functions and the IT director regaining control of the web site (which he did in Word) and mail server (which he did when he was in Holland!) - so I guess I was definately expendable!

How did I get on to this? Somebody shut me up for goodness sake!!!!