lotsa people hate microsoft exchange… even more hate microsoft outlook (for very valid reasons)… i personally find both annoying, yet at the same time very useful when used together. there really aren’t many other solutions that piece together mail+calendar+contacts well enough for the everyday non-technical user to use.
I was pretty excited when I first heard about the OSAF, a group developing Chandler… essentially an opensource exchange+outlook replacement. Now there’s also OpenGroupware.org… basically targetting exchange as well.
Why can’t we all just get along?
So OSAF is lead by Mitch Kapor, co-founder of Lotus (yeah, Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus notes… those guys). Supposedly they have some serious brain power over there.
As far as I can tell, OpenGroupware.org is a spin off of OpenOffice.org, however is NOT sponsored by Sun (which they are quick to point out).
Really now, wouldn’t it be a great idea for these groups to work together? Maybe they already are and I’m just to lazy to read through everything, but Exchange already has a huge installation base and following. If you really want to gain momentum on a project as huge as this, I would think the open source community would rally together, rather than develop to completely separate projects with the same goal.
Anyway, if you are at all interested, here are some relevant links:
http://www.osafoundation.org/
http://www.opengroupware.org/
http://news.com.com/2100-1012-1024994.html a CNET story on OpenGroupware.org
so gangs of new york is apparently 2 dvds… that is, the movie spans 2 dvds, not just extra “stuff” on the second dvd. so when it shipped from netflix it ate up 2 slots of my 4 slot rental queue. kinda confused…. so i checked my rental terms. ahhhh so my plan says 4 dvds, not 4 movies. crap! thats actually pretty annoying.
so i emailed netflix just for confirmation… ordinarily this would be where i get pissy at Netflix, but they were nice enough to grant me an extra slot for now… just to put me back at 4 movies.
so, as annoyed as i was, i still love netflix… it lets me be a lazy procrastinating bum and never pay late fees.
here’s the email i got back from them:
Hello Shacolby,
Thanks for your message. In the past, we often found both discs in our two-disc sets were not returned together. This caused a delay in sending out the set to the next customer. We also realized that two-disc sets experienced far greater damage in shipping, even with special packaging.
By choosing not to ship out two-disc sets together, we are able to maintain our streamlined shipping process, and continue to offer our low monthly fees. Each disc will be a separate shipment and hold a separate spot in your Rental Queue. We truly apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please keep in mind you may always check if a DVD is part of a multiple disc or two disc set by viewing the “Details” section of the movie display page.
As a courtesy I have issued a bonus disc outside of your plan allotment, in the hope of accommodating you for the trouble you have experienced.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Xxxxxx
Netflix Customer Service