31. Sorting Mail Message
Suck Synopsis:
R5 mail template icons for switching between mail, calendar and to-do do not look like they are clickable and the mouse over text uses the word “frameset” which is confusing to non-technical people.

My Rebuttal:
Notes keeps mail, calendar and to-do documents in a single database, which makes it easy for administrators to keep track of. Users then, need to be able to easily switch between these items within the one database, thus the icons in question. Personally, I think the R5 ones were better than the way the 6 version does it, but it takes up less space in 6… so … whatever. I’m not sure how it can be said that the R5 icons don’t look “clickable” since the active one has a different appearance and there is a mouse-over tip on the messages. Oh, and “framesets,” while technical, is also a fairly easy term for people to intuitively understand.


32. Screw You, Lotus Notes Style
Suck Synopsis:
The author clicked on something somewhere that he wasn’t authorized to and Notes returned a pop-up message, telling him that he was not authorized.

My Rebuttal:
Not sure why I’m going to bother with this one, but… When you click on something (which, btw, it’d be really nice if you’d remember what you clicked on before you complained about it) you don’t have access to, it makes sense that the application would tell you.


33. Deleting an Email Message, Part 2
Suck Synopsis:
R5 required you to hit F9 once you flagged documents for deletion to actually delete them, but once you did that, there was no way to retrieve the document (from the trash).

My Rebuttal:
The author acknowledges that this was fixed in version 6. However, I’m not sure the R5 complaint really makes sense. If you mark something for deletion, and then confirm that you want to delete it, why should Notes make you go into the trash and delete it there as well?! — It was similar to the difference between dragging something to the recycle bin and hitting SHIFT+DEL when getting rid of a message.


34. Attaching a Shortcut
Suck Synopsis:
When attaching a shortcut to a mail message, Notes attaches the file the shortcut points to instead.

My Rebuttal:
Fixed in 6.5.2. (I couldn’t get mine to do it, and didn’t bother to try.)


35. Breaking the Bank
Suck Synopsis:
Lotus Notes is expensive.

My Rebuttal:
Seriously?! Personally, I think Lotus Notes/Domino is a heckuva deal. The licensing (while ever-changing) is flexible based on what you want to buy. There’s options for people who just want to use mail or webmail (which, I’m thinking might be a good fit for this guy) as well as Notes clients, Developer clients, etc. And of course you have to pay for the Domino server. You have to pay for Exchange server or any other inferior mail client. — That’s just a silly comment.

Its also important to point out that not only do you get mail functionality with Notes/Domino, you get an embedded and extendable security structure (often overlooked for how valuable that is), a web server and, oh yeah, an application server that easily integrates with most of the other stuff you have out there! And that’s just the one sentence explanation of Domino.

36. Propaganda: The Total Cost of Ownership
Suck Synopsis:
The article from the Radicati Group about Notes TCO vs. Exchange doesn’t take into account how much time the user wastes figuring out how to do things.

My Rebuttal:
I’d suggest checking out this link. Every last one of the complaints (in the second table of TCO cost break-downs) can be attributed to two failures in the author’s experience that should be addressed:
1. Lack of Notes client training to end-users (any application should have that in a corp. setting!).
2. Lack of a knowledgeable Notes Administrator (in his organization).

Yes, everything he mentions is frustrating, but easily fixable with some time, training and good IT system management. Call me. We’ll fix it.



37. Scroll-bars That Are Not Needed
Suck Synopsis:
Notes displays scroll-bars when it doesn’t need to.

My Rebuttal:
Yeah, I’ve seen that too sometimes. Most of the time, I just refresh or click the “down” scroll bar and it goes away. — I’ll give you that one.


38. You’ve got mail
Suck Synopsis:
When you get new mail, Notes can display a message box with “OK” and “Open Mail…” The problem is that “OK” does nothing and the audible notification is useless if you’re not at your desk.

My Rebuttal:
Yep. See… the “OK” button makes the popup go away as if you’re saying “OK, thanks for letting me know, now go away.” If you wanted to say “Oh, thanks, let’s go ahead and OPEN my MAIL…” then you should press the “Open Mail…” button.

As for the audible notification not doing anything unless you’re at your desk… yeah, that’s right. It doesn’t. Might I suggest a mobile Notes application and a Treo?


39. Copying a Mail Message
Suck Synopsis:
When Notes copies a message from one folder to another, it creates a shortcut to the message, not a copy.

My Rebuttal:
First… the only way I’m aware of copying a message into a folder is using copy/paste functionality. Second… if you do that, it does make an independent and unique copy that isn’t tied to the parent. — Am I missing something? What just happened here?


40. What Just Happened?
Suck Synopsis:
The author clicked the doclink beside the subject line of an email and got an error saying that the document had been deleted and didn’t understand what happened. Another time (clicking the same icon, in a different message) he got a pop-up stating that the doclink database cannot be located.

My Rebuttal:
While I agree that the doclinks beside the subject line are confusing 50% of the time and unhelpful 85% of the time, its not for these reasons.

The message “document has been deleted” is straight-forward: “the … document… has been (as in, in the past) … deleted.” End of story. Whatever it was pointing to isn’t there because it was deleted.

The message “The DocLink database cannot be located” is a bit more vague, but still tells you that the link references a database that can’t be found. It could be because you’re working off-line, or because the database (probably another person’s mail file) doesn’t exist (maybe they were fired), or because it was moved to another server.

So no, the messages aren’t bad, but the functionality does leave something to be desired. I’d suggest looking at some of the early Hannover stuff… it looks like Lotus found a clever way to deal with all that. I hope.