h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, maybe not totally web developer stuff but -

OUr Outlook 2000 Net Folders hvae broken, and despite doing everything in the relevant MS KB article (which worked last time) I can't repair themm (will try full deinstall/reinstall at the weekend)

But there must be a better way.

We don't use Exchange, just a P2P network. We need to share calendars and contacts and stuff.

Does anyone know a way of getting a web page sitting on my PC (called the "server" through it isn't) which run IIS to access the PST files of everyone and therefore display calendars via an intranetty type thing?

Any free (or cheap) software you may know that replicates Exchange - spent most of yesterday seraching, came close with one, didn't do calendars

Any other ideas?

Cheers

Chris

I only have limited experance with Outlook I mostly do linux networks... woun't it be better to share an SMB drive and get all the clients to point to it? although I can see the flaws in this myself, It just seems beter to organise

good luck anyway.

-- DoctorMO --

SMB drive? wibble.

CH

sorry, it's a linux term, a windows share like a hard drive somewere running any version of windows sharing a drive.

-- DoctorMO --

http://www.samba.org/ but it won't do what you want - it's not a calendar tool, just file sharing and it's already built into windows.

I have long desired an exchange alternative, but there don't seem to be any. The closest I have seen (it's not free) is Now Up-to-Date (also known as "Eudora Planner" or "Now Planner") but the Windows version has languished. There was also an open-source thing using PHP but I forget the name and url (I might still have it in my office, I'll check later) but its problem was that it tried to do too much.

Right now I'm putting a lot of hope into the Mozilla calendar project http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ which will be cross-platform and based on open standards and free. I'm hoping to test it out soon if I can get WebDAV working (the main problem there is having time to read the documentation).

Sorry, I don't - but I'd like to...

Yes I've looked at Eudora and these calenda tools, I much prefare a simple XLS. but it's what you want it for I supose.

-- DoctorMO --

Mmmm shame. The closest I have found is 4team for Outlook 2002 (a comercial package so URL may get zapped) not too expensive, and we have licences for Outlook XP (AKA 2002) but use 2000 as it had the Netfolders. And WorgroupMail Server from Softalk - that basically set up a mail server on my PC that the others in the office used and relayed messages to and from our "real" e-mail servers, and allowed shared address book, but not calenders.

So nothing really between Outlook 2000 and Full Exchange package (at a cost of about £5000 as we'd need server etc)



Cheers anyway - and if anyone knows anything else......

CH

....but yes, the Mozilla calendar looks good, I may see if I can firstly get the others in the office to move to Mozilla as a browser first, to test the water (I use it by default)

(although it doesn't sync with my EPOC calender on my Psion, but then I have the only Psion in the office)

CH

funny, I've just been put in charge of Email services... We'er thinking about getting a desktop machine and putting SusE on andusing it as a basic email server for both inter email and exta. £5k sound s a bit heavy for a com's package even if it's bloated.

-- DoctorMO --

The £5K is for a server and all the M$ software to use it all - Thats if we stick to the MS Outlook solution.

Just testing the Mozilla mail now, crashed PC twice and not working at all well Calendar looks like it could be OK, but email lacks loads we use.

CH

Can't you still use Outlook on the client machines? using Pop3 or IMAP??

I'll be looking for a HTML based solution anyway and have a lovly AntiVirus program scanning everything from the server.

-- DoctorMO --

My problem is I don't fully understand what I need to achieve what I want.

We NEED shared folders, contacts, diaries
Would like auto responders, forwarders

and have limited buget - Exchange seems the only package that can do all that and it needs a server.

Or am I wrong

CH

DoctorMO, before you commit yourself to "SusE Linux", can I just check that you are aware that their is an alternative available that is even more security proof than Linux? I am talking about BSD, any of the three main distributions offer significant improvements over Linux.
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.netbsd.org/
http://www.openbsd.org/
and for the security nutters
http://www.microbsd.net/

you forgot the most popular distribution of BSD - http://www.darwin.org/ (otherwise known as "Mac OS X" )

hmm, BSD looks good. but Linux is already here and I know how to use it. I know there developed from the same thing, but for a simple mail server and file sharing, it's got it covered.

-- DoctorMO --

It's certainly not worth reformatting your hard drive and switching, unless you like that sort of thing.

just making sure you ere aware of the options, although do find it hard t understand why people use Linux when the could have BSD

but that's another conversation...

Start her up then... I can't see a good conversation go un talked about... so I'll do it...

[rest of post in other thread]

-- DoctorMO --