Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!dptg!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Low Productivity of Knowledge Workers
Message-ID: <9697@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 28 Sep 89 21:47:04 GMT
References: <9676@venera.isi.edu> <189@crucible.UUCP> <291@voa3.UUCP> <7765@microsoft.UUCP> <6313@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 22

In article <6313@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:

>Even with a network, the individual computers are single-tasking... a user
>has to back out of whatever they're doing to send electronic mail. And users
>have no access to each others' files, either because of network limitations
>(the network will only work in server *or* client mode on a given box), or
>because of administrative ones (no or inadequate security).

It doesn't *have* to be that way.  We use a pop-up mailer that works the
same whether you are on the network or dialing up (in the background)
so you don't have to stop what you are doing on the PC to answer mail.
It can also handle attached files, so there is no problem with sharing,
although on the network a common area on a server is handier.

>An office is inherently a multi-user environment. Grafting the software
>on top of a bunch of single-user systems still leaves every man an island.

No, it just takes a little thought about where the data should be stored.
Most network-aware PC software knows as much or more about protecting
shared files during simultaneous access than most unix programs.

Les Mikesell