The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Outlook question

To all you Microsoft experts out there, maybe someone can answer this question or point me in the right direction. I have a friend who works by himself and uses Outlook for email and calendar and contacts. He wants to be able to access this from home as well. Is there a way to do this without getting Exchange? If not, does anyone know how much a single Exchange license would cost and would he have to upgrade from Microsoft's client OS (He runs XP currently)

name withheld out of cowardice
Monday, April 12, 2004

I don't know much about outlook, and this would depend on his ISP, but maybe he could just use imap?

Mike Swieton
Monday, April 12, 2004

Check out the "Outlook Web Access" (OWA) feature of Microsoft Exchange.

Assuming he already has an Exchange instance at work, all he needs to do is to enable OWA.

Or maybe I don't understand your question.

Ryan Seacrest
Monday, April 12, 2004

If he's not running Exchange at either location and just has a pst file that he wants access to in both places, I'd recommend one of the little lighter-sized flash drives. Put the .pst file on there and move it from one machine to the other.

(Of course, this only works for people who aren't absentminded -- getting to work only to discover that all of your contacts are sitting on the bureau at home isn't so good.

Boofus McGoofus
Monday, April 12, 2004

Get a flash drive where the ring is on the drive (not the cap) then put it on your car keys. Can't drive home without it. :)

As for his account - there are Exchange Hosting providers; you can get an Exchange account for $10/month - would that solve his problem?

Philo

Philo
Monday, April 12, 2004

To solve the USB key issue... automate syncing between his hosts and an FTP server on the web. Even better, there might be PHP or Perl scripts that can read/write Outlook files, and let you put the file on a web server and access it through such scripts.

Fred
Monday, April 12, 2004

I accomplish essentially the same thing with gotomypc installed on the computer in the office. I then leave my office computer logged onto the network (and locked) with outlook open.

Wayne Earl
Monday, April 12, 2004

>> Get a flash drive where the ring is on the drive (not the cap) then put it on your car keys. Can't drive home without it. :)

Only works if you don't take public transit. We've had more than one conversation in our office that has been along the lines of:

"Hey, that sounds like a nasty cold."

"Yeah -- I had to sit in the rain on the porch for an hour last night."

"Oh geez -- what happened?"

"Left my keys here."

"Bwahahahahaha. No, seriously, that's a shame. Hahahahah. Dumbass. [smirk]"

Boofus McGoofus
Monday, April 12, 2004

Try

http://www.pocketwatchsystems.com/pockethub/overview.
html
I works with web browser as well as mobile phones

Martyn Sloss
Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Thanks everyone. He does not have exchange nor would I recommend he try administering it. The moving of .pst files is an idea because I am going to set him up with winSCP. My concern is that .pst files can become very very large so the upload and download times might be irritating.

I think Philo has the winning suggestion here. If he can get exchange hosting for 10$/month and have web access to his email contacts and calendar, I think he would go for it.

I will do a google search for providers of course. Does anyone have any recommendations?

name withheld out of cowardice
Tuesday, April 13, 2004