Re: [PLUG] Netraverse LUG Sponsorship Program

["Arthur S. Alexion" <arthur@alexion.com>]

On Mon, 2002-12-16 at 07:48, Tobias DiPasquale wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-12-15 at 21:23, Arthur S. Alexion wrote:
> > 
> > C'mon, isn't there some windows program that you would rather not do
> > without on a regular basis, but have gotten to the point where you can
> > do most of your work in Linux?  Win4Lin and VMWare are a nice way to
> > spend your day in Linux while using that one vertical market windows app
> > that you really need to use.
> 
> Which would be??? What is it that you need to use every day that you
> can't find a suitable replacement that is native Linux? Let me know and
> we'll see if we can find something for you.

Time Matters legal case management software.  It's like a super
PIM/Document Management System/MailMerge/Billing System/MUA (I don't use
this component) and probably more (http://www.timematters.com/).  Under
pressure from some active Linux supporting customers, and a joint
venture with Toshiba to market a server appliance, there is now a Linux
server, i.e. the back end can run on RedHat 7.2 with Postgres or mySQL,
but the clients are still all windows based.

As my practice has moved from civil litigation to criminal trials, I
have found that I could do with less desktop power and more
portability.  I duplicated the stuff I need the most on my Palm Pilot. 
The Palm already handles the contacts, the calendaring, and the
deadlines, and I have created a pretty respectable case management
database for everything else I need (including billing) using a
commercial PalmOS RDBMS formerly called thinkDB.  Though thinkDB was
just sold by its developer, ThinkingBytes to Dataviz (ThinkingBytes
wanted to go totally MS.NET/PocketPC) and renamed "Smart Lists to Go",
the Desktop component and synching conduits are still limited to
Windows, meaning that, if I want to print, report on, or manipulate my
data, I need windows.  I have an ongoing quest to find a Palm based DBMS
that will sync with a Linux based desktop, and so far, have failed.

The other Windows program that I find indispensable is QuickBooks. 
GNUCash may or may not be a replacement for Quicken, but even Quicken is
not a replacement for QuickBooks.

There is no Acrobat for Linux, just a reader and basic, featureless
creator.  No support for forms creation (or form data saving even),
annotations, digital signatures, navigations, etc.

Other than that, my QuattroPro spreadsheet templates (fine tuned for 10
years) run fine in Corel's Linux version, and some day, I will be able
to translate my automated Word templates into either StarBasic
(documented only in German for now) or in the new (and exciting
OpenOffice Framework.

I will be very grateful if you could fill any of these needs with an
Open Source, Linux replacement (or improvement)
-- 
Arthur S. Alexion <arthur@alexion.com>
Arthur S. Alexion LLC

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