RE: Is IBM on the right track with IBM Community Tools?

I have to say that I would (will) NOT be using ICT. In my case it's not a
technology reason, I could open the ports if I wanted to, but rather a
usability reason.

I'm subscribed to several (many?) iSeries related mailing lists -- C400,
Ignite, Interug, Java, Java101, Linux400, Linux5250, MC Press Online,
OSS400, RPG400, Security400, WDSCI and Web400 at quick glance -- so my first
concern is that we're already rather fragmented, another avenue of
communication fragments us even more. 

However my biggest problem with ICT isn't that of fragmentation, it's one of
online vs. offline. In the case of e-mail I can read it (laptop) whenever
and whereever I want to. Disconnected browsing is great! Trains, planes,
automobiles (usually when someone else is driving) are all great places to
read and reply-to mailing lists. With ICT if it's not now, it's never.

Also, the ability for me to archive and search e-mails have helped me on
more than one occasion. I didn't see this facility in ICT at all, although I
didn't explore too much either.

Maybe IM just hasn't hit me as the killer app yet, but I think I'll stick to
the phone and e-mail.

-Walden

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President
Tech Software
(516) 627-3800 x11
(208) 692-3308 eFax
WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.TechSoftInc.com 

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Landess [mailto:steve_landess@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 12:34 PM
To: Midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Is IBM on the right track with IBM Community Tools?


{cross-posted to IBM Community Tools newsgroup}

All -

I subscribed to IBM Community Tools (ICT) when I heard about it last month.


My question is:
If you could get to ICT while at work, would you use it?    I would also use
an ICT PollCast for this, but since I'm at _work_, I can't use ICT right
now.

I don't plan to leave Midrange-L, but I like to utilize as many tools as I
can to make my job easier.  

ICT looks like a promising tool, but because of issues regarding ports that
ICT needs to use I can only use it from HOME, I CANNOT use ICT from work.
I'll never get the ports needed by ICT opened up on our network because of
security exposures that opening these ports could reveal.  ICT support Socks
4/5, which we do not have available.  If ICT supported HTTP proxy, which we
DO have available, then I could probably use ICT at work.  

Along with several others, I posted messages on the ICT newsgroup
(community.ngi.ibm.com) about this issue, but apparently it is of low
importance to the WebAhead team and it is apparently on the back burner.

Here is an article that confirms this problem:

http://www.the400group.com/aiw/free/03-1003.html


I would just like to know how many of you are currently using ICT, and how
many of you WOULD use it if you could while at work (where you most need
it!).  You would think, given the recent press about Malcom Haines coming
back to the iSeries, that new ways of connecting iSeries users as a
community would be a priority for the whole iSeries team...

Quote from yesterday's iSeries Nework News Wire Daily:

<quote>
The best marketing campaigns, Haines said, have nothing whatsoever to do
with the technology being sold, "but everything to do with connecting with
human beings." For example, in 1995 for the launch of Windows 95, Microsoft,
among other stunts, took a group of Polish journalists out on a submarine to
show them what it would be like to live life without windows.
</quote>

See full article at:
http://www.iseriesnetwork.com/news/nwn/story.cfm?ID=16189&channel=home

Just my opinion,

Steve Landess
Austin, Texas
(512) 423-0935
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