Small office networking

[CrAz3D]

Come May I'll be moving up in the office that I work at (secretary leaving, I'll be doing that for a few months).

The way the computers are set up hurts.  Running Corel WordPerfect, Quatro Pro, and Lotus Organizer all screws with me (I hate the interface).

Also, the way the network is running, for some reason, is screwy.

The two PCs are Dells w/P4 and like 512mb RAM, WinXP.  Both are wired to a DSL router.


Do y'all have any suggestions for office suites (I like open office), networking methods, and virus software?  Cheap is ALWAYS better.





p.s. FYI, the office is a law office.

[Newby]

Microsoft Office 2007 or OpenOffice. There's really nothing else out there that competes as a whole suite.

Uhm, virus scanners? ClamWin is a good free one that rates highly, and Avast! is supposed to be good, too.

I don't know what you mean by "networking methods" so just don't touch it. You're not the net admin, .

[rabbit]

UGH!  2007?  Newby, you suck.  2007 is evil.

[CrAz3D]

Methods, err, just join a Network Group and then share whatever folders?  Is that the best way to do things on such a small network?  (The organizers need to sync, they both read one file from one computer right now ... as they should)

They'll let me do whatever I want, so long as it is free.  My boss doesn't really know how to use a computer and the other secretary is cool as hell (and pretty old) and is open to me doing anything to make things run smoother.  I wish I could talk my boss into getting a laptop and then having the organizer show up for him, too.



*sigh*
I wish we hadn't bought new computers like last Dec., they're WAY outdated already .



I should get an external hard drive and back up everything and spend a weekend organizing everything.

[Sidoh]

UGH!  2007?  Newby, you suck.  2007 is evil.

Heh, why?  The only thing I found annoying is they changed the interface, but I'm of the opinion it was actually for the better.  It would be harder getting used to, but I think it's a better design anyway.

I really dislike open office as well.  I LaTeX anything I can that's not super simple.

[rabbit]

It's expensive and nobody has it, for one.  I wrote a lot of my assignments in docx and submitted them, and then the TAs and professors were all like "Can you send that again in doc format?  Nobody has 2007".  BAH!  Plus the interface, is annoying.  I LIKED the menus.

[CrAz3D]

I really hate the Lotus Organizer, what, if anything, is better?

[Sidoh]

It's expensive and nobody has it, for one.  I wrote a lot of my assignments in docx and submitted them, and then the TAs and professors were all like "Can you send that again in doc format?  Nobody has 2007".  BAH!  Plus the interface, is annoying.  I LIKED the menus.

That's fine, but it's so easy to save it in earlier formats that this point is pretty much irrelevant.

In addition, .docx is supposed to be an office format standard or something now, isn't it?  Open Office announced that their new version fully supports it just yesterday, I think.

I sympathize with your distaste for the new interface, since it's not what I'm used to either, but after messing around with it for a little bit, I'm of the opinion that everything is accessible in a much more intuitive manner than with menus.  Menus usually require a much more "brute force" search for what I'm looking for.  In fact, if I'm looking for a feature that I know exists but haven't used it in a while (or at all), I almost always have to go online to see where it is.  I'll grant you that the same is probably true with their new interface, it'd at least be easier to find if you didn't know where it was.

Crazed, if you have access to a server with PHP/MySQL (meaning you or your company owns it; I wouldn't recommend using it on a shared account like dark-wire or something), check out Horde.  Also, if you have to do any sort of collaborative work, MediaWiki is great.

[CrAz3D]

We have two PC's in the office, that's all.  I'd really like something central, but could never justify spending money on it.  Although, there is a clanky old POS in a back office that I might be able to use


Any thoughts on organizers?

[Sidoh]

Any thoughts on organizers?

Horde does a bunch of things, but a few of the features it's shipped with are a calendar and to-do list.  Is that what you mean by "organizer"?

Does the company have a website?

[CrAz3D]

We pay(paid?) for one, something like $120/month I think, it hurt me when I saw that bill.  Not sure if it still exists, I can't find it via Google.  I know we had one within the last couple of years, though.  Really, there is very little need.  My boss is 60+ and could/should retire.  He doesn't really take new cases unless it's an awesomely quick and easy one.

[CrAz3D]

Is Sunbird pretty decent?

[iago]

Google Docs?

(A lot of companies in Canada refuse to use it because of the PATRIOT Act (although I seem to recall seeing a Slashdot story where Google defended themselves this week? I forget now), but since you're already in the US that shouldn't be a concern. )

Google Docs is free, you can access it from anywhere, you get a professional company handling the security, and did I mention it's free?

Is Sunbird pretty decent?

It's nice for a single user, but I don't think it's "there" yet for offices. Maybe when 1.0 rolls around.

[CrAz3D]

Oooh, Google Docs looks interesting.  I don't think that's something we'd be all about, though.

It would be a nice way to make sure things are backed up (hard drive[s?] went down 2 years ago, shit went CRAZY at that time).

[iago]

Yeah, backups are important.

Do they handle any kind of money there, like, point-of-sale or anything like that? If so, you might want to look into PCI requirements, anybody who deals with money electronically is going to get bitten hard in the next few years, if they don't find another solution.