Ideas For a Server Based Calendar

[Ns1]

All the big cloud providers are fine if you don't have the time or know-how to do it yourself, but you are left wringing your hands or dealing with support the second something goes wrong

I call that a plus. They're getting paid to fix that shit, therefore they fix it while I sleep.

 

[Crono]

I call that a plus. They're getting paid to fix that shit, therefore they fix it while I sleep.

It can be, but what happens if they take days or weeks to fix an issue? Or they decide to kill the service? It can potentially be a bigger pain to get things working again, or cost (more) money.

I'm not arguing that you shouldn't go with Google or anyone else, I'm saying not everyone wants or needs to. It's the same argument whether we are talking about car maintenance, home improvement, computer repair, personal finance, etc. You can always pay someone to manage or fix things for you, but many people prefer to do things themselves where and when they can.

 

[mxnerd]

Teamup?

http://www.teamup.com/how-different/

No user accounts nor logins are required. All you need to access a Teamup Calendar is a calendar link.

 

[lxskllr]

I call that a plus. They're getting paid to fix that shit, therefore they fix it while I sleep.

What happens when the internet goes down(which it frequently does at our office), and the nifty calendar I made gets outdone by the retarded paper I was trying to get away from? for base work, all we need is electricity, and I personally don't even need that. Everything important for my work is backed up in a couple places, including my phone(which becomes the internet hub since I'm the only one that knows how to maximize a smartphone). All this is to say, for this particular use, the internet is a detriment. It only provides downsides with the one benefit being I don't have to exercise my brain cells. If you don't practice, you forget how to think, and companies like google take advantage of you.

 

[sdifox]

What happens when the internet goes down(which it frequently does at our office), and the nifty calendar I made gets outdone by the retarded paper I was trying to get away from? for base work, all we need is electricity, and I personally don't even need that. Everything important for my work is backed up in a couple places, including my phone(which becomes the internet hub since I'm the only one that knows how to maximize a smartphone). All this is to say, for this particular use, the internet is a detriment. It only provides downsides with the one benefit being I don't have to exercise my brain cells. If you don't practice, you forget how to think, and companies like google take advantage of you.

Whiteboard it is.

 

[lxskllr]

Whiteboard it is.

A whiteboard isn't a terrible idea, but our draftsman's retarded, and we'd end up with permanent sharpie marks on it :^D

This is a 'because I can' project. I use rain days for interesting work of my own, and sometimes use the time for everyone's benefit, instead of just me. What /I'd/ like to see is an electronic memo pad for phone messages, along with a calendar everyone can view/edit so everyone knows wtf is going on. It might not work though, cause the boss is a spaz, the draftsman's retarded, and the engineer is old. The engineer is easiest to work with. Once you get him past his tech fear, he gets it. The draftsman still hasn't grasped yyyy-mm-dd suffixes, and the boss won't settle down for a second to learn something new :shrugs: At least I can make myself better with a new project, and it might help a future need I haven't even considered.

 

[sdifox]

So you really want a crm

 

[mxnerd]

Yeah, if OP doesn't want an internet solution, then open source CRM probably a choice. But usually they are quite large.

 

[lxskllr]

So you really want a crm

I don't think so. A calendar is the primary thing. That way everyone can see what jobs are on schedule, who's holding what up, and which client is bitching. The memo pad is just cause I think it would be better. Instead of a stack of papers with call logs, a central time stamped location could be accessed. I'm not as sold on the memo pad, cause of who I work with, but it's not conceptually far from a calendar, so it could be easily integrated. This is a small company, and everyone's old. Just winging everything kinda sorta works, but it gets irritating sometimes.

Things could be better, but we're too small for "official" policies, and trying to teach simple computing concepts is frustrating. So... I just want to create something, say "check it out", and hope for the best. You wouldn't believe the shit I have to deal with. The draftsman's my personal albatross.

 

[sdifox]

I don't think so. A calendar is the primary thing. That way everyone can see what jobs are on schedule, who's holding what up, and which client is bitching. The memo pad is just cause I think it would be better. Instead of a stack of papers with call logs, a central time stamped location could be accessed. I'm not as sold on the memo pad, cause of who I work with, but it's not conceptually far from a calendar, so it could be easily integrated. This is a small company, and everyone's old. Just winging everything kinda sorta works, but it gets irritating sometimes.

Things could be better, but we're too small for "official" policies, and trying to teach simple computing concepts is frustrating. So... I just want to create something, say "check it out", and hope for the best. You wouldn't believe the shit I have to deal with. The draftsman's my personal albatross.

Call log is like the main function of a crm. Or use a project management package.

 

[mxnerd]

CodeTwo NetCalendars looks interesting. Free.

https://www.codetwo.com/freeware/netcalendars/

 

[lxskllr]

Call log is like the main function of a crm.

I'll look into it, but I think that might be too "professional" for us. I'm actually pretty stoked on nextcloud, and I think I'll run it from my desktop. I was fixated on running whatever solution from the winserver, but that isn't even necessary. I'd prefer doing it on gnu/linux, and the particular machine isn't important, especially for the light use of something that isn't critically important.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm still liking Google Calendar and Google Docs for this, mostly because it's dead simple to use (even your draftsman should be able to figure it out) and it has good multi platform and smartphone integration.

Yeah, it's not "Libre", but neither is that Windows server you were thinking about hosting it on. Don't let your loyalty to open source products blind you from better/simpler alternatives.

Considering the size of your team, it also doesn't seem to make sense to host your own servers at this point.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Why not just create a google calendar and share it with everyone....

There are lots of free php calendars, but when it comes to hosting this kind of stuff, you become a target for php exploits and have to maintain security...especially since the site will be available for writing. Having it on the internet (not just the intranet) is pretty valuable...especially when you can get it to work with mobile apps. Go with what's free and what's available through the bigger companies. You'll be better off.

 

[Ns1]

OP is obviously not basing his build or buy decision on logic.

 

[mxnerd]

Also think Google Calendar is best solution if you have such a small group.

You can even set Google Calendar offline.

https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/1340696?hl=en

 

[lxskllr]

Why not just create a google calendar and share it with everyone....

There are lots of free php calendars, but when it comes to hosting this kind of stuff, you become a target for php exploits and have to maintain security...especially since the site will be available for writing. Having it on the internet (not just the intranet) is pretty valuable...especially when you can get it to work with mobile apps. Go with what's free and what's available through the bigger companies. You'll be better off.

It won't be available outside the office. There's zero chance any web software I use will be exploitable from the web.

 

[lxskllr]

OP is obviously not basing his build or buy decision on logic.

The logic is trivially easy. I don't use proprietary software when there's other solutions. Believe it or not, some people don't pick things(software or otherwise) based on being the easiest to use. I'm typing this on my work machine, and here's a list of the proprietary software I use...

tuxx@tuxx-AO722:~$ vrms
             Non-free packages installed on tuxx-AO722

spideroakone                        SpiderOak Secure File Backup, Sync, and Sharing Client

             Contrib packages installed on tuxx-AO722

flashplugin-installer               Adobe Flash Player plugin installer
ttf-mscorefonts-installer           Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts
virtualbox                          x86 virtualization solution - base binaries
virtualbox-dkms                     x86 virtualization solution - kernel module sources fo
virtualbox-qt                       x86 virtualization solution - Qt based user interface
winetricks                          Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer (winetricks)

  1 non-free packages, 0.0% of 3805 installed packages.
  6 contrib packages, 0.2% of 3805 installed packages.

That doesn't include my 2kpro vm that's used for two pieces of antique proprietary software, one of which I could do without, but it makes things slower since the company went out of business, and wasn't courteous enough to disclose their secret sauce for extracting data from an hp48 faster than typical.

 

[mxnerd]

nextcloud server won't run on WIndows.

https://nextcloud.com/install/#instructions-server

Needs to run in a Linux VM.

https://www.techandme.se/nextcloud-vm/

So VirtualBox or at least a VMware Player needs to be installed on your WIndows Server. Or Hyper-V.

 

[lxskllr]

nextcloud server won't run on WIndows.

https://nextcloud.com/install/#instructions-server

Needs to run in a Linux VM.

https://www.techandme.se/nextcloud-vm/

So VirtualBox or at least a VMware Player needs to be installed on your WIndows Server.

I saw that. That's one reason I amended my plans in an earlier post. There's no reason I can't run run whatever I do from my workstation, and I'd prefer it anyway. I'd rather work in gnu/linux, and recovery from mistakes is easier. I have resources to spare, especially for something like nextcloud. It's supposed to rain friday, so I can get everything setup and tested.

 

[mxnerd]

So your internet always become unstable on rainy days? Have you asked the ISP to check the connection?

I used to have this problem with Charter at least 10 years ago, I bugged them enough and they came over to seal the box on the sidewalk.

 

[lxskllr]

So your internet always become unstable on rainy days? Have you asked the ISP to check the connection?

I used to have this problem with Charter at least 10 years ago, I bugged them enough and they came over to seal the box on the sidewalk.

Not every time it rains, but a good storm frequently takes it down. We're in a fairly rural location with long pole runs. There's a lot of places for things to go wrong. The company(Armstrong) fixes the current problem, but never the overall issue. It might be unfixable with a reasonable amount of money. I dunno

edit:
I mentioned rain in the previous post cause I work in the field. If I don't have a bunch of paperwork, rain days are quality fuckoff time. I work on stuff interesting to me that may or may not be work related. I still need to work on a raid recovery, but that's more complicated thsn I want to tackle presently. I've been thinking about that off and on for two years now :^D

 

[ultimatebob]

OP is obviously not basing his build or buy decision on logic.

That's not always a bad thing. Sometimes you just want an excuse to learn a new tool.

 

[Ns1]

That's not always a bad thing. Sometimes you just want an excuse to learn a new tool.

and after you learned it, you've created a tool that isn't as good as the off-the-shelf product.

'grats!


sorry OP, I got my hater pants on and I've been drinking the haterade all day. don't hate me bro.