Email adventures

I recently upgraded to Office 2008 on the Mac in my office, with mixed results.

Firstly, I also have a Dell Axim X30 PocketPC, which I synchronise with Entourage, or at least I did until Entourage 08 was installed. Admittedly, Entourage is not completely at fault, the blame is shared with PocketMac software that I use to synchronise between the Mac and the PocketPC. According to their webpage, they have been aggressively testing the update. Unfortunately they still haven't released the fix!

Secondly, I was persuaded by the department IT Technician to move from the Novell Netmail (IMAP) account to an Exchange server account. Whilst I'm aware of all the really clever facilities Exchange offers, these are slightly limited because I access it through Entourage rather than Outlook. However that's not fair on Entourage as it could be argued that Entourage offers facilities that aren't implemented on Exchange.

The first fix for the synchronise problem was to set Entourage to link to iCal and the Address Book on the mac and then use PocketMac to sync with those applications as an interim stage. The solution I'm using is to use Entourage04 on my mac at home to sync with the Entourage and the Exchange account - result!

I am however considering another solution which involves setting up my PocketPC to synchronise directly with the exchange server. This would avoid using the Mac as the go-between for Exchange. The question now revolves around the question of whether the University will allow me to access the Exchange Server from my PocketPC. Stay tuned.

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