The Outlook is circular

Remember the start of this epic voyage of email and PIM updating started with a desire to move away from Outlook. Where has it ended up? Back with Outlook, that’s where.

A few reasons:

• Try as I might, it’s hard to escape Microsoft’s marketing muscle – in this case translated into compatibility with the portable devices I use (IPAQ and Nokia phone/PIM) and others that I might consider using in future. The sheer market weight of Outlook means that manufacturers are compelled to provide at least some level of data interchange with Outlook and, while I did discover products and add-ons to programs such as Thunderbird that aim to do the same thing, they are all affected by the problems that surround Open Source “products” (which I will get round to discussing some time soon, I promise).
• Office 2007 appeared and is a substantial step forward for Outlook. While still some way from my ideal (that I can’t find elsewhere in any case) it is better at organising tasks and calendar and, even in beta form, proved more reliable than the alternatives (Thunderbird, The Bat, Eudora, Pocomail) that I tried – several of which lost data (or would have, had I not been strict about keeping backups.

Catchup

Hmmm … three months since I last posted here … where were we? Ah yes – the new network at the house. And the search for replacements for Outlook/Exchange Server.

Lots to catch up on so I’ll break it down into several posts. Network first …

The network is running splendidly. All the machines that have wired connections (that’s all the servers in the garage and my office and recording PCs) have gigabit connections to each other and file transfers now take place at speeds limited by disk transfer rates rather than network bandwidth. The wireless segment runs flawlessly too. The Linksys WRT54GS (with replacement firmware – something I’d definitely recommend) is sitting inside the loft at the top of the house providing a strong, 54Mbps link to each of the laptops and a solid 11Mbps to my IPAQ handheld. As for range, it’s great for what I want.

I have SJphone (http://www.sjlabs.com/sjp.html) installed on the IPAQ so that when I’m away from home I can still receive and make calls using the Asterisk VOIP exchange in the garage at free/cheap network rates rather than the ludicrous rates charged by mobile (cell) phone companies, especially for international calls. This works extremely well – when away from home I just login to a WiFi access point and make calls while checking email and browsing the web. When at home, the IPAQ naturally connects up to the wireless network in the house so, if I wanted to, I can make and receive calls using it. Usually I don’t as I have a better phone on my desk (an Aastra 480i) but – here’s the good bit about the new network – the wireless extends to the garage and to the bottom of the garden. Which means that I don’t have to remember to carry one of the house mobile phones round with me – I just carry the IPAQ as normal – it already handles both cellular and VOIP calls.

The search for a garage-friendly Outlook replacement

This quest started innocently enough - a desire to ditch Exchange Server and increasing frustration with Outlook. Managing an Exchange Server environment is a big enough job inside an enterprise - even when you can employ someone to do it. Now that I no longer own an international software business, I no longer have someone to run the servers for me - which shouldn't be a problem as theory suggests that life should have become somewhat simpler.

Not so ...

... I have developed multiple personalities - not in the hearing-voices sense but in my professional and personal activities. I'm out of touch with "consultant-speak" but I'd probably be described as a "multi-presenced" individual these days, what with the (now doubled) Maserati role, my music recording and my personal and business roles. Outlook had served me well for many years while I ran my company so, when I became "company-less" it was going to be a big drag to move to a less functional environment.

So, my garage became home to a small Exchange Server environment, initially on NT then a couple of years ago migrated to Windows Server 2003. Running it - especially keeping on top of the patches needed to keep it safe - became what felt like a full time job. It became increasingly obvious that Exchange was not a garage-friendly product. I don't mind if you ask why it took me so long to realise - I'd like to know myself!

What really killed Exchange Server for me was the number of bugs and open exploit holes and the ever increasing cost of upgrading. When it came to a decision about upgrading to Exchange 2003 the cost was prohibitive for my (relatively) humble needs.

The trouble is, if Exchange gets dropped, what happens to Outlook? The answer is that a lot of its functionality disappears. Let me look at what I do and don't like about Outlook:

Things I like about Outlook:

1. It brings most of the info I need daily into one place: Email, Contacts, Calendar, ToDo and Notes
2. Synchronisation between desktop PC, laptop and PocketPC are (suppposed to be) simple
3. It's reliable - even when it doesn't do what it's supposed to it does so consistently!

Things I didn't/don't like about Outlook

1. It really needs an Exchange Server back-end to work as advertised
2. It doesn't handle multiple identities - I need to originate and respond to emails acording to the 'hat' I'm wearing - eg, people who contact me via the Maserati Resource Centre should get messages from my MRC address.
3. I never did get it to integrate all its functions properly - not within itself let alone the rest of the MS Office suite. Even simple tasks (such as dragging an email to a ToDo list or calendar entry) never worked and as for being able to click on a contact to write a letter in Word with the address already copied across ... I gave up writing and editing the macros and VBA to do that after about the fifth change-of-mind within Microsoft.
4. It has no way to easily group tasks and ToDos into projects or sub-headings to cope with the way I work

Without Exchange Server, Outlook loses most of its - increasingly slender -appeal. While email can be stored on just about any server these days using IMAP to leave copies on the server and handle filing and archiving for later use, the same isn't true of contacts, calendar/diary, notes etc. In a non-Exchange environment, Outlook still offers these facilities but stores the data locally on the host workstation PC. Synchronising this data to a laptop and a Pocket PC becomes a royal PITA if you travel as often as I do.

Especially after having been used to it all just sort of happening.