[TriLUG] Help with a Linuxworld Article

[Jon Carnes]

On Tue, 2003-11-25 at 19:08, Mark R. Hinkle wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> For our February issue of Linuxworld magazine I am trying to gather four or
> five linux desktop user essays for the issue on Free/Libre Open Source
> Software(FLOSS)for the desktop. If anyone is interested please contact me at
> mrhinkle at linuxworld.com. What I am looking for is some open source desktop
> applications that you find to be very valuable to you personally and two or
> three paragraphs on what you feel to be your favorite applications I have
> one essay on Konqueror and I am looking for something other than mozilla and
> openoffice. You will get credited with your full name and organization if
> you like. For those that don't want to use a organization I will use
> Triangle Linux Users Group as the organization. If you want to see any of my
> last articles they are listed at http://www.sys-con.com/author/?id=2082
> though not all are open to non-subscribers.  Thanks in advance for any
> interest.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark R. Hinkle
> Editor, Desktop Linux Technologies
> LinuxWorld Magazine
> http://www.linuxworld.com/magazine/

My favorite Desktop application is without a doubt, Evolution, by the
folks at Ximian (now a part of Novell).  Evolution is one of those
killer apps that integrates a lot of basic applications:
 - email client,
 - contact manager,
 - news gatherer, and
 - scheduler.
It was written with the idea of replacing Outlook.  In fact, with the
addition of a (non-free) connection utility, it will connect to an
Exchange server as if it were an Outlook client.

Evolution is Open Source software (it's free) and it runs in many
different environments including Linux and Windows, and it runs superbly
(at least for me). I download all my mail from various servers around
the world using wildly varying protocols - including some fairly obscure
secure ones - and it handles the mail perfectly, sorting it into folders
based on the rules and filters that I've setup within it.

I can easily add contacts from an incoming email with the click of my
mouse. Another click and I'm looking at the summary page with a view of
my mail stats plus any news headlines that I've told it to gather, plus
an overview of all my appointments for that day. Another click and I'm
looking at my complete schedule or my To-do list.

My favorite feature of evolution is that it is immune to all those
viruses that prey on Microsoft clients. I never fear to open a note that
says "I love you."  I also have Evolution set to NOT load remote images
from the internet; no spammer will ever know that I ever looked at their
message... but if I *want* to see the image I simply have to click once
and it's there.

Now for the downside.  Every now and then (less than once a month)
Evolution locks up on me and I have to run "killev", an application that
gracefully knocks Evolution out of your computers RAM and resets the
files. I don't mind it too much, that's a lot better than Outlook used
to do for me, and with Evolution I never have any corrupt mailboxes, and
if I'm in the middle of writing an email it *always* recovers the new
message as soon as I start Evolution back up and tell it to open a new
message. That's a great recovery.

So there you have it, a testimony on my favorite Desktop application:
Evolution.

Jon Carnes
Network Guru for FeatureTel