sync outlook on 2 PCs, also on the road

[groundbum]

I have my office PC (XP) and there are also other computers here, also on XP and on our LAN. Since we run a B&B and have a lot of bookings etc via email then frequently there are 2 or sometimes 3 of us all trying to read our email at the same time! I figured, why not also use the outlook installed on the other desktop look at the same emails as my office pc, so if somebody else wants to read/send emails they can do so at the same time as I'm on the office pc.

Any ideas? I don't want to use a different client than outlook, and I don't mind renting/buying a hosted exchange mailbox if that's the solution. The two (or more) copies of outlook should be identical, ie if a person sends an email from one pc and it's filed in the sent folder, then it should be visible in the other outlooks's sent folder. Also if one PC isn't used for a week and outlook is booted up, then the inbox shouldn't fill with all the emails that have come in the past week and been deleted/filed/replied to on the other PC. Ie, the sync should be total and seamless.

Also, but this is a B list, if I go away for a week and plug in my laptop via wifi, it would be great to sync up so the laptops outlook is identical to the office PCs where my wife has been holding the fort.

Not asking for much really...... ! If anybody has suggestions that would be mega. It's like wanting to work like in a big office, but sat at home.

G

[Bruce Wayne]

i use a program called "SynchPST"

[Mike-Bracknell]

I sell hosted Exchange mailboxes at £7 per mailbox per month. Doubt you'll get cheaper than that as the majority of that goes to MS for their CAL.

It's the only sensible way of achieving what you want to do, without risking corrupting a PST. PSTs are a dodgy legacy and the sooner they die the better IMHO. (and no i'm not saying this purely because of the first sentence above - you can buy from who you want)

[groundbum]

hi mike, a hosted exchange mailbox sounds quite ideal. My domain has about 6email addresses, but I would only want one to go via exchange as the other's are for my kids etc so don't justify the spend.

Is there a way to configure mx/whatever so just the email destined for this one user (eg groundbum@myb&B.com) goes to exchange and the rest stay as they are - waiting for POP3 to download?

Cheers,

Simon

[Mike-Bracknell]

MX only works on the domain as a whole, hence anything to the left of the @ gets delivered to the receiving mailserver. I can always create a few forwarders to other mail services for them if you can't justify their use of an Exchange service. I wish I could accommodate them all on my server for that price, but to be legal i'd need to buy 6 x CALs which would put me at a loss immediately.

Either that or you forward your mail to my service and use my service as your primary service - it'd mean you'd send out with my standard domain as a right hand side of the address though (otherwise you'd fall foul of antispam rules).

[Shunter]

A little off topic, but Mike - have you ever looked at PostPath (recently acquired by Cisco)?

The last implementation I did involved 4 standard Microsoft DC's, but all the mailboxes were stored on PP servers. The organisation had 50,000+ users and slashed their CAL bill by 65%. None of the clients know any different, and mailbox backup was simplified enormously.

Just a thought if you wanted to double your profit margin.

[Keef]

I suspect there may be another way to do this.

I have several domains, and some of them get spammed rotten. I used the ISP's "mail control panel" to set up that the spammed addresses get forwarded to Gmail, which filters them and then sends them to my "secret" address.

Could you not set up your present primary ISP to forward mail to the "Business" address to Mike-Bracknell's server, while anything else goes to your normal POP-server?

You would then have the multi-access thing working fine. Mike would only see mail for your Business address, and all would work as you require.

I do something vaguely similar with one of my accounts, which is set up as an Imap address on Gmail. That works for my purposes, but may not for yours.

I'm very much with him on not messing with PST files - they are a nightmare. I don't use Outlook for mail (Thunderbird does what I want far better), but I've had all sorts of problems with calendars and address books in PST files.

[Mike-Bracknell]

A little off topic, but Mike - have you ever looked at PostPath (recently acquired by Cisco)?

The last implementation I did involved 4 standard Microsoft DC's, but all the mailboxes were stored on PP servers. The organisation had 50,000+ users and slashed their CAL bill by 65%. None of the clients know any different, and mailbox backup was simplified enormously.

Just a thought if you wanted to double your profit margin.

Interesting - cheers for that!

Currently we virtualise our Exchange servers anyway, so backup is done per VM rather than per mailbox, but if it behaves in a mailbox-transparent way as Exchange then i'd be interested, as there's a few quirks that make Exchange not 100% ideal for a hosted platform (but we get around them and it's stable and reliable). I just hope Cisco haven't ripped the heart out of the package (or the licensing) already!

[Mike-Bracknell]

I suspect there may be another way to do this.

I have several domains, and some of them get spammed rotten. I used the ISP's "mail control panel" to set up that the spammed addresses get forwarded to Gmail, which filters them and then sends them to my "secret" address.

Could you not set up your present primary ISP to forward mail to the "Business" address to Mike-Bracknell's server, while anything else goes to your normal POP-server?

You would then have the multi-access thing working fine. Mike would only see mail for your Business address, and all would work as you require.

I do something vaguely similar with one of my accounts, which is set up as an Imap address on Gmail. That works for my purposes, but may not for yours.

I'm very much with him on not messing with PST files - they are a nightmare. I don't use Outlook for mail (Thunderbird does what I want far better), but I've had all sorts of problems with calendars and address books in PST files.

Hi Keef, that's roughly what I alluded to in my second paragraph before your message. However, some antispam will barf a bit if they work out that the outbound mail didn't come from the same address the mail receipt came from. It's daft and not really joined-up-thinking that created a scenario like that (as it doesn't allow for scaling multinationals) but one or two antispam products will bounce or mark on this eventuality.

Still, as it's probably the easiest way of doing things, you might be able to live without the morons with dodgy antispam :)

oh btw, groundbum, chuck me a private message about setting things up once you're happy you want to go with us. :ok:

[groundbum]

the exchange solution sounds excellent, the only big caveat is not to get any of my outbound email tagged as spam. We've had this in the past and we either lose the booking (say 2 nights = £120ish) as the person doesn't look in theiir junk folder for my email reply, or we decline a booking since we're full etc and people arrive anyway, thinking they have a firm booking! So email really is the lifeblood of our B&B.

Also important to have some decent spam filters on the inbound email that would now be handled by exchange. I get probably 100 spam emails a day but only see 2 or 3 of them, the rest get filtered successfully. And only a few times a year does a proper email get tagged as spam, so that's important too.

Just checked, and we have just one "username" that sends/receives email that is important, one that sends/receives that isn't important so ideally would stay on pop3, and about 6 aliases that received email that feed into the main username.

G

[Mike-Bracknell]

Because i'm feeling generous, and because you've just mentioned that you only need one POP3 separate account, and the rest are basically a distribution list, how's about the following:

1) You set your MX records to my spam server
2) I spam filter your entire domain (I normally charge £15 per domain per month to spam filter) and deliver to my Exchange service
3) I set up an Exchange distribution list for your other 6 addresses to feed into the first address (assuming all the other aliases are on the same domain)
4) I forward on the one account you need separate to a POP3 mailbox of your choice

...all for £10/mo, payable via standing order.

send me a PM about it all anyway.:ok:

[itwasme]

How about Google Apps sync:

Google Apps Outlook Sync for Microsoft Outlook (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/outlook_sync.html)

The calendar sync, which is free, works a treat. The full package (ie inc email and contacts) is pay for.