mail2web.com Blog » Microsoft Exchange

Apple is Target Practise for mail2web Mobile Email

Jeremy Adams — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:05:24 +0000

When it comes to competing with heavy weights like Apple, you’ve got to have a real ringer at your back. Luck aside, mail2web Mobile Email is more than your average competitor boasting Microsoft Exchange in its corner. Guzzling electrolyte infused features such as multi-platform mobility, server side inbound rules, meeting request and invitation support as well as the ability to change your From Address to match your existing mailbox, mail2web.com is hydrated with more than just H₂O.
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On the mound…
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Apple of course has its star pitcher, the iPhone, but what happens when the iPhone’s arm goes out? Or the franchise goes “all business” and decides starting Blackberry would boost game attendance? What about all those other teams with equally great pitchers?
While MobileMe works well on your iPhone or iPod Touch, there are literally hundreds of other smartphone devices out there; many with popularity infringing on Apple’s hipster regime. Leveraging Microsoft Exchange, mail2web Mobile Email works with any ActiveSync compatible mobile device out of the box. We’re talking Windows Phone, Palm Pre and Android devices to start.
This doesn’t leave the iPhone out either. The Exchange option is built right into your Mail, Contacts & Calendar configuration pages and provides the same full featured push functionality for all three of those items to and from your Mobile Email mailbox wirelessly.
Last but certainly not least, our business savvy friends at RIM and the all business Blackberry models can be privy to your push data needs. With Blackberry Enterprise Server support, business is pleasure and mail2web Mobile Email brings you the features you need, no matter what Mobile Smartphone you decide to use and with no worry about changing your mind in the future!

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Meeeee.com! Not you!!!
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While perhaps somewhat unassuming, being limited to sending out mail as “me@me.com” is limiting when you want to have a more distinct or customized online persona. Like a tattoos and the NBA, your email address defines expectations of you. As with many things in our lives it can’t be me, me, me all the time, sometimes it’s all about all of you.
Not only can you receive mail from your third party mailbox to your mail2web Mobile Email account, but you can reply to that email as if you were using that mailbox. Bring your mail 2 Mobile Email, this game allows double dribbling.
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mail2web.com gets the serve
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It’s more than easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of email one receives on a day to day basis. It’s time to stop smacking away at a hundred balls a minute from your Tennis Ball feeder and move up to the big leagues. If you still need the practice, then you can continue marking things as junk or not junk, but with mail2web.com and Exchange, there’s so much more.
Manage all address within your safe senders, blocked senders and safe recipients list. Automatically trust messages from people listed in your contacts, or trust no one unless they are listed as safe!
If that’s not enough, pinpoint the exact location you want to put the ball after you hit it. With server side inbound rules, you can define what happens to mail after you receive it. Move it to a sub-folder to be checked later, mark it as read or important automatically, or even forward messages to another account. These are just the actions! You could forward messages based on words in the subject line or mark it as important if your boss is listed in the ‘To’ or ‘Cc’ fields. Drop the machine and start serving!
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Jack of all trades
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In case you have concerns that a Microsoft product won’t be compatible with your Mac system, let us reassure you one further. Exchange is now compatible with Mac Mail, iCal and Address Book with the introduction of Web Services for Mac. Built right into Mac OS X Snow Leopard out of the box, you can connect and sync all of your important data to and from Exchange with every bit as much ease as MobileMe. Over and above, you have compatibility with Windows PCs in case you work in an office that doesn’t allow you to have a Mac. All of this makes mail2web Mobile Email a champ in every department!
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…oh, did I mention you’re saving $40 USD per year with mail2web Mobile Email over MobileMe?

For lack of yet another sports metaphor, teaming up with mail2web Mobile Email is more than just me, it’s all you. Get your fill of me.com and throw in some of you too.

mail2web.com in the ‘Palm’ of your hand!

Jeremy Adams — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:57:45 +0000

While I’m sure Palm Inc. has grown tired of such puns, they work all too well when describing the capabilities of their ever expanding repertoire of devices and software. With the release of the latest Palm webOS, support for Activesync push email for Exchange based email accounts is now as integrated as this article’s title pun is to the Palm brand.

Touted on their Palm Pre and Palm Pixi devices, webOS boasts a simplified mailbox configuration tool and an environment that allows you to run multiple applications simultaneously. You can easily switch between your Exchange calendar, contacts, email and even Facebook without worrying you might loose changes while you do.

Also, we’ve launched a new Palm section within our Mobile Email services page! And, in case it hasn’t been stressed enough, with the simple configuration tool on your new Palm device the setup is as simple as described here.

Microsoft Exchange & the Great Smartphone Boom

Kevin Richard — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:49:46 +0000

The IBM Simon first shown in 1992 was the world’s first smartphone. It had all the basics like smartphones have today including a calendar, contacts, clock, and notepad and most important to every person on the go, email. But the smartphone actually didn’t reach large public sales till the 1996 release of the Nokia Communicator line of phones. Seen as a take-with-you-anywhere device within the enterprise segment, this communications tool did not become popular until the larger expansion of Microsoft Exchange and Activesync products.

IBM Simon in Charging Station

Microsoft Exchange, first released with the Windows 95 operating system was Microsoft’s first module in charge of handling email. This would later become an important tool for companies to manage emails and other collaborative tools within their company network and would grow in popularity as an industry standard overtaking the former industry leader Lotus Notes in 1997.

Microsoft Exchange would later introduce a mobile option called Activesync which was released in 1996. Used in its line of pocket PC’s and mobile devices it was the beginning of mobile email that we see today. Primarily distributed on Pocket PC’s and other mobile devices using the Window’s Mobile OS it would be sold by manufacturers such as HP, HTC and Dell.

It wasn’t until 2004 that Microsoft’s Exchange Activesync system would be open for use on other platforms and become an increasingly popular mobile communications tool. Seeking to make it easier for users to connect their mobile devices to corporate email servers, Palm One bought licensing to the Activesync protocol where it would first debut on its Treo smartphone. To not be outdone, Symbian LTD would also become a license holder in 2005, allowing major manufacturers such as Sony Ericson, Samsung and Siemens use of the Exchange Activesync platform. This may have been the turning point for Microsoft as a major player in the smartphone segment.

By 2005 Microsoft had Activesync and Exchange in use on over 100 million mobile computing devices but was then facing larger competition in the smartphone market. Recent entrant Research in Motion (RIM) and their Blackberry where offering customers push email and messaging and was quickly beginning to be known for their smartphones made for business. In reaction to this Microsoft began offering what they called Direct Push service (based in Activesync) looking to compete as a lower cost alternative.

According to RBC Capital Markets, while smartphones were still widely considered a niche in the cell phone market, during the period from 2007-2009 was when this phone really began to see mass market appeal. Said to have occurred as a result of larger demand for mobile email and wider enterprise adoption, RBC estimated that while in 2007 there were 19 million enterprise smartphone users, it is expected to grow to 74 Million by 2011. A large driver in this growth would be due to the larger expansion of the Microsoft Exchange platform (RBC Capital Markets,2008).

In February of 2007 the Microsoft Exchange server system through Activesync was opened to third party licensing for all smartphone manufacturers providing a broader base for enterprise users to choose from for their mobile communications. The smartphone was now beginning to be seen as not only a tool to surf the web and make phone calls but for secure enterprise messaging; something that was limited to only a select group of mobile devices prior.

After opening up to the market in 2007, makers like Nokia began using the system in the fall of that year. Apple and Google would follow in 2008. While Microsoft already had wide distribution with its Window’s mobile platform on phones from manufacturers such as HTC, LG and Motorola, making Microsoft Exchange and Activesync available on all major platforms made these phones more relevant to business and gave them a wider choice of handhelds. Phones such as the Apple iPhone which has mass consumer appeal were often disregarded as not suitable for business. As a result of adding Activesync and the Microsoft Exchange system, phones like this were now made viable for the business market.

What’s next for the Exchange platform and Activesync?

While 2009 was a major year for Microsoft with the introduction of its Window’s Mobile Market Place and of Window’s Mobile 6.5, 2010 will be looking like a year of major growth in the smartphone market. With the introduction of Windows Mobile 7 and its branded ‘Project Pink’ smartphones Microsoft’s smartphone offerings will be made to be easier to use and more visually appealing to attract a larger consumer audience who will begin to have mobile email and web communications more widely available to them.

Some highly anticipated phones are also expected to support the Microsoft Exchange system as well. In November the Motorola Droid running the Android OS and the Palm Pixie running Palm’s Web OS will be released to the public. Expect to see the Microsoft Exchange and Activesync systems to continue to be a major push in the adoption of the smartphone. With wider availability these communications devices will continue to be a draw to enterprise owners and the general public for secure mobile communications.

If POP is 3 and IMAP is 4, does that make Microsoft Exchange a High 5?

Anthony Naimo — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:06:42 +0000

Today, an increasing number of people are accessing the web and email via their cell or smart phones not only to maintain constant contact with their friends, family and colleagues, but also to minimize downtime and remain productive and efficient within the workplace, outside of the workplace and throughout their daily lives.

It is well known that email has quickly become the most commonly used form of communication for business and personal usage, leading to a search for new and effective ways to retrieve it. The continuous advances in cell and smart phone technology have helped us progress in the development of business and productivity. Naturally, with such advances, the way we access the information we need changes.

Most everyday users accessing their email via their cell or smart phone, will usually access their web-based email applications via a webpage such as Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo Mail. These email applications are known to utilize a standard known as Post Office Protocol (POP3) which retrieves the users email from a remote server. Bear in mind, however, that POP3 technology is not exclusive to the aforementioned web-based email applications as it can be used with tools such as Outlook Express.

POP3 essentially supports users who have a temporary connection to the Internet. That is, they connect to retrieve their awaiting email and store them on their device as a new message, which in turn deletes them from the server and then disconnects them. The

Alongside POP3 technology, it is common to access email via Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP4). IMAP4 has the ability to support both online (connected) and offline (disconnected) operation, allowing the user to keep their emails synchronized on multiple clients until they purposely delete them. It is common for organizations who give employees remote access to their work email inboxes to utilize IMAP4 technology.

Both POP3 and IMAP4 are today’s widespread standard for email retrieval on the Internet and as such, modern email clients and mail servers are fully capable of supporting both of these protocols.

Webmail providers such as mail2web.com, offer POP3 and IMAP4 webmail services, enabling users to access their email from anywhere in the world whether it is Toronto, Beijing or London and allowing those who need to be in contact to remain so.

While both POP3 and IMAP4 protocols are effective and useful, the possibility of accessing your email and being alerted to new items requiring your attention, known as ‘Push Email’, is a reality that astute cell users are already using on their iPhones, Blackberries and other smart phones. Push Email can be achieved with a Microsoft Exchange based mailbox.

Essentially, an Exchange server aims to ensure that you remain in contact and in sync with others within your organization in a safe and secure environment, leaving you and your organization less vulnerable to malicious attacks from external sources.

Push Email allows your connection to be ‘always on’. As one great way businesses can improve in communication, the use of Microsoft Exchange through a Hosted Exchange provider offers the user a rich and efficient way access to your email, contacts, calendar and much more within the palm of your hand.

The real advantage of using Push Email through Exchange is that it can alert you, the user, immediately when a new email, task or calendar item arrives for you. The server will ‘push’ the item to you and in turn your cell or smartphone will notify you that you have a new item that requires an action.

Microsoft Exchange can turn your cell or smart phone into a virtual office, allowing you to access your data from anywhere in the world. Much like a POP3 or IMAP4 webmail service, yet it also makes email, document and contact management simpler and stress free. Its built-in collaboration functionality lets you share vital documents, tasks and calendar dates with your colleagues as well as with friends and family.

A Microsoft Exchange server puts you in control of your communications in a more direct and effective manner, literally putting communication in your hand. Push email, together with a Hosted Exchange mailbox allows you to stay in touch, be connected and productive in your downtime – whether it is riding the train to work or waiting for your flight at the airport or in line at the supermarket, Exchange enables you to access your email where you want it, when you want it.

In the long term, such increased efficiency and productivity leads to financial savings and greater return on investment. As such it can be tremendous for individuals and businesses of any size while personally allowing you more free time to be doing the things you would rather be doing.

Moreover, for businesses, another major advantage of implementing a Hosted Exchange solution is acquiring all of the functionality of the feature rich Microsoft Exchange environment without the uncertainties or problems commonly associated with having to maintaining your own servers and in-house infrastructure.

Web hosting organizations such as myhosting.com, can effectively help implement a Hosted Exchange email service to assist in increasing productivity and help provide the ability for organizations to maintain a focus on their core business.

By implementing a web hosting service like myhosting.com, it eliminates the stress associated with in-house set up, and helps to maintain costs within a set budget. As email continues to grow and develop into the most widespread form of communication, the demand for better usage, increased productivity and improved communication will continue by individuals and businesses alike.

By implementing such an effective tool today, you will leap to the forefront of being an effective, techno-savvy communicator all by simply having the world in your hand. How great is that?

Android 2.0 Eclair… Techno-Junkfood

Birge Basik — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:43:42 +0000

Shots of Android 2.0 Eclair were leaked and we loved it! The bad news is that the due date of Eclair is not yet set but, with so much good news, I had to list it for you below. I took all the pictures from BGR, thanks for the pics!

It has a super fast operating system. It is as good as 3GS, if not better! Further, its new user interface is cleverly designed.
Its browser may not yet support Flash 10 playback but it does support double click zoom and favicon features.
It supports Facebook (it even syncs with your contacts) and Microsoft Exchange, along with a new unified email inbox. Gmail however is still separate.
The new YouTube widget enables you to upload a video directly from your smartphone.
A completely upgraded version of Google Maps lets you mark your maps for important locations. It has a Latitude layer and a Wikipedia layer.
Car home application is built for use while driving. It offers easy access to voice search. It is integrated with Google Maps and shows you the closest search results on the map. By the way, you can use voice control for almost every application.

Configuring Exchange on the Palm Prē

Tim Attwood — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:13:59 +0000

I was finally able to get my hands on a Palm Prē, and overall I’m pretty impressed. The screen is beautiful, the device fits nicely in the hand, and despite looking tiny, the keyboard is relatively easy to get used to with good tactile feedback.

One of the nicest features is application switching, which you don’t have in devices like the iPhone 3G/3Gs. And moving back and forth within an application is easy with the gesture area. I can imagine this smartphone taking off as a popular handbag accessory. It even has a mirrored surface on the back, although I don’t think it was really intended for that purpose.

Unfortunately the Palm Pre doesn’t support AutoDiscover or EWS like the recently released HTC Andriod devices. It’s a shame because it makes setup a breeze. The Palm Pre will attempt to auto-configure your email account by trying to look up your mail server and authenticating you. It should work for most standard POP3/IMAP4 accounts but may not work for your Microsoft Exchange account.

But despite not supporting AutoDiscover, setting up your mail2web Mobile Email or myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email is still easy to do. It only takes a few extra steps to get up and running on your Hosted Exchange account. And best of all, you can add more than 1 Exchange account on your Pre. I was able to set up 3 without any problems. (Most smartphones will limit you to 1 Microsoft Exchange account only.)

Here’s a quick run-through of how to set up your mail2web Mobile Email or myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email account…

You can start by opening the Email application. If you haven’t already added an email account, you will be prompted for your email address and password. If you have already added an account, you can select the “Email” menu in the top-left, then “Preferences & Accounts” and click “Add An Account”.
Your Palm Pre will try to automatically configure your account, but will fail. You will then see an error that says “invalid userid/password”, or “unable to sign in”. Click “OK” to close the error message.
You can then click on “Manual Set-Up” to continue.
Click on the “Mail Type” box and change your setting to Exchange (EAS). Then enter your incoming mail server as https://ex7.mail2web.com. If you are a myhosting.com Hosted Exchange user, you can enter your mail server as https://ex7.myhosting.com or http://ex7.your-domain.com. You will also need to enter your username, which is the same as your email address. When you are done, click on “Sign In”.
Your account setup is now complete and your Palm Prē will now begin syncing your information.
If you go to your Account Settings, you can also set how frequently you want to receive your email. “As items arrive” will allow you to receive your email via Push Email. You can also set how many days worth of email to synchronize.

You can also configure other calendar and contact settings by accessing those applications directly.

Have you tried the Palm Pre yet? What did you like or dislike? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments area.

Thanks,

Tim Attwood
Product Manager
mail2web.com

Google Apologizes for Gmail Outage

Birge Basik — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:45:06 +0000

Google announced last Tuesday evening that Gmail was offline approximately for two hours due to a miscalculation in a routine act of maintenance. Roughly 100 minutes of down time made people crazy. Watching the twitter stream of panic and rage caught in 140 character snapshots demonstrated how important is Gmail for many people.

Google’s VP of engineering and site reliability Czar, in a post to the Gmail blog, said, “I’d like to apologize to all of you — today’s outage was a Big Deal, and we’re treating it as such. We’ve already thoroughly investigated what happened, and we’re currently compiling a list of things we intend to fix or improve as a result of the investigation.” However, the company “underestimated the load which some recent changes placed on the request routers.” He wrote, “I’d like to apologize to all of you — today’s outage was a Big Deal, and we’re treating it as such.”

Not to toot our own horn, but during that time period mail2web.com never let you down! We know how important your emails are for you and mail2web Mobile Email didn’t experience any outages, and full email, contact and calendar synchronization for smartphones continued as normal!

Snow Leopard launches support for Microsoft Exchange

Tim Attwood — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:53:38 +0000

With today’s launch of Snow Leopard, the updated version of Mac OS X, Apple has included a number of improvements, including the highly touted out-of-the-box Exchange support. This includes Exchange support within it’s native applications, including Mail, Address Book and iCal.

Previous versions of Mail have included support for Microsoft Exchange, allowing you to connect to your mail2web Mobile Email Pro account or myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email using WebDAV integration. This release provides improved Exchange support within Mail by using Exchange Web Services (EWS) integration. This allows for full Email, Notes and Task support within Mail, Contact List and Global Address List support within Address Book, and and Calendar synchronization within iCal.

This raises the bar for Mac OS X, matching a number of the improvements recently released with the Entourage Web Services Edition upgrade and taking it one step further. This now gives Hosted Exchange users a choice to use the tools they are most familiar, be it the built in Mac applications, or the Microsoft Office suite which includes Entourage.

And best of all, setup is a breeze. Using AutoDiscover, you can enter your mail2web Mobile Email Pro or myhosting.com Hosted Exchange email address and password…

And AutoDiscover does the rest for you… You can even set up Address Book and iCal at the same time.

Since it uses EWS, you may need to edit your account preferences to set your Address Book or iCal to refresh “Automatically” or at some other interval.

Microsoft Exchange account setup has never been easier.

After setting up your account you can access your email, notes and tasks from Mail, you can view your Contacts Lists and even search the Global Address list, and access your Calendar items, appointments and events from iCal.

How has your Snow Leopard experience been so far? We welcome your feedback on the new Exchange Support in our comments section.

Thanks,

Tim Attwood
Product Manager
mail2web.com

Does Palm Pre really support multiple Exchange accounts?

Birge Basik — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:13:31 +0000

The Palm Pre was released in June by Sprint, but its launch guide was leaked long before. It’s a 23 page booklet prepared for Sprint sales personnel, and includes launch accessories and their prices, service plan options, FAQs and Palm Pre functionality. Palm Pre is the first touch screen phone by Palm. Its new WebOS and Synergy data integration system are making this smart-phone one of the future devices for the next decade. It wins approval and achieved the Best of CES 2009 and the People’s Voice Award. Palm Pre rivals the iPhone in many ways including Web browser and multimedia capabilities.

However, there is an ongoing discussion about the Palm Pre; Does it really support multipe Microsoft Exchange accounts using ActiveSync, or is it just a rumor or urban myth? Here is how this rumor all got started: Check out the 19^th page of the User guide. If you are interested, you can read the manual by clicking here.

However we still haven’t seen any solid evidence that the Palm Pre supports multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts. Some say it is possible via 3^rd party software. The upcoming Office 2010 release may allow multiple accounts with ActiveSync. Maybe the Palm Pre has only set the groundwork for this future update. I am curious about your comments too. Write us and share your experiences and thoughts. You can get broader information about our Hosted Exchange services from here.

Finger-friendly Windows Mobile 6.5

Birge Basik — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:37:33 +0000

Windows Mobile 6.5 is expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2009. This latest mobile platform from Microsoft has an ambitious, finger-friendly honeycomb-style main menu, fingerable home and contact screens, and more. It will be easier to use it than the traditional grid layout. People still think that Windows Mobile is actually a Palm, which is trying to look like a phone. They are arguing that Microsoft needs to throw everything they already have out the door and start from scratch just like Palm did with their Web OS.

I gathered some screen shots from different sources. You can have a look and get an idea about the new touch-friendly Windows Mobile 6.5. Decide for yourself!