[ShadowAce]

have never used lotus notes is it any good?

It's got its plusses and minuses. Personally, if I was making a software decision, Notes would be at the bottom of the list.

[Echo Talon]

I just got back from visiting my parents and upgraded their computer to retail WinXP Home SP2 and put a ton of free software on it.

OpenOffice.org
paint.net
CDBurnerXP
Google Earth
Picasa 2

[LTCJ]

IBM today announced the availability of IBM Lotus Notes on Linux, the industry's first business-grade collaboration software to support Linux on the desktop.

< Harrison Ford > "Snakes! Why'd it have to be snakes?" < \ HF >

[zeugma]

It's got its plusses and minuses. Personally, if I was making a software decision, Notes would be at the bottom of the list.

Agreed. Like most software it definitely has good and bad aspects.

Unfortunately, a sucessful Notes implementation appears to be largely dependent upon how it is configured. If the entire project is well thought out with lots of buy-in from all levels of management, it can pretty much rock. OTOH, if it is thrown together by someone thumbing through an installation guide over a weekend or two, it's likely to suck so bad you'll want to shoot yourself just to be put out of your misery.

My favorite program in the Lotus suite was always Organizer. I know that some folks really hated it, but to me it was elegant and did exactly what you expected it to, in exactly the way you expected it to. I've yet to find a good replacement for it. (Though I'm pretty much a paper-based organizer myself these days).

Has anyone here used Organizer in the past couple of years?

It's been quite a while since I was involved in a Lotus operation, so all of my above comments should be taken with a small mountain of salt.