MS Outlook for mail server?

MS Outlook for mail server?

[Jack Vinson]

Hello gang;

My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail and calendaring needs.
I am torn between the cool integrated nature of Outlook and our favorite
News/Mail reader.  What method does Outlook (with an Exchange server) use
to store mail?  Is this the imap issue that I have been ignoring because I
didn't think it applies to me?

How easy is it to make the transition?  Are there general comments on the
difference in ease of use between Outlook and Gnus?  (Should I even ask
that question?)

-- 
Jack Vinson <jvinson@chevax.ecs.umass.edu>    http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~vinson/
Zippy: Are we on STRIKE yet?

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Well, there's at least a chance that your company has an IMAP server
installed, so you can use nnimap.  www.extundo.com/nnimap
kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[William M. Perry]

Jack Vinson <jvinson@chevax.ecs.umass.edu> writes:

> Hello gang;
> 
> My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail and calendaring needs.
> I am torn between the cool integrated nature of Outlook and our favorite
> News/Mail reader.  What method does Outlook (with an Exchange server) use
> to store mail?  Is this the imap issue that I have been ignoring because I
> didn't think it applies to me?
> 
> How easy is it to make the transition?  Are there general comments on the
> difference in ease of use between Outlook and Gnus?  (Should I even ask
> that question?)

You can use POP3 or IMAP to get your mail off of there.  This is what I do
every day.

-bp

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Toby Speight]

Bill> William M. Perry <URL:mailto:wmperry@aventail.com>

0> In <URL:news:86r9msebee.fsf@kramer.bp.aventail.com>, Bill wrote:

Bill> Jack Vinson <jvinson@chevax.ecs.umass.edu> writes:

>> My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail and calendaring
>> needs.

Me too.

>> I am torn between the cool integrated nature of Outlook and our
>> favorite News/Mail reader.

I couldn't manage without Gnus - AFAICT, Outlook can't even do
threading!  And it seems to force you to use its own editor (it
ignores $EDITOR, at least).


>> How easy is it to make the transition?

Bill> You can use POP3 or IMAP to get your mail off of there.

Only if the admin agrees to turn on Exchange's POP3/IMAP support.  I'm
still working on this :-(

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Rui-Tao Dong ~{6-HpLN~}]

>>>>> "toby" == Toby Speight <Toby.Speight@streapadair.freeserve.co.uk> writes:

 Bill> William M. Perry <URL:mailto:wmperry@aventail.com>
	........................................

 Bill> You can use POP3 or IMAP to get your mail off of there.

 toby> Only if the admin agrees to turn on Exchange's POP3/IMAP support.  I'm
 toby> still working on this :-(

I just forward (rule wizard?) a copy of the mail to a Linux box (or
you can try CYGWIN's sendmail, if you insist on NT) on the LAN and
just read it from there.

-- 

Rui-Tao Dong ~{6-HpLN~}	<ruitao@home.com>, Mission Viejo, California

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren]

[ Jack Vinson

| My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail and calendaring needs.
| I am torn between the cool integrated nature of Outlook and our favorite
| News/Mail reader.  What method does Outlook (with an Exchange server) use
| to store mail?  Is this the imap issue that I have been ignoring because I
| didn't think it applies to me?

you know, I just _think_ I'd be able to kill for the possibility to 
use Gnus for reading MS Outlook mail.  has anybody, er, actually hacked
the Lisp needed for an interface?

-- 
Rolf Lindgren                                        http://www.uio.no/~roffe/
roffe@tag.uio.no

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Danny Siu]

Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren writes:

  Rolf> [ Jack Vinson | My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail
  Rolf> and calendaring needs.  | I am torn between the cool integrated
  Rolf> nature of Outlook and our favorite | News/Mail reader.  What method
  Rolf> does Outlook (with an Exchange server) use | to store mail?  Is this
  Rolf> the imap issue that I have been ignoring because I | didn't think it
  Rolf> applies to me?

  Rolf> you know, I just _think_ I'd be able to kill for the possibility to
  Rolf> use Gnus for reading MS Outlook mail.  has anybody, er, actually
  Rolf> hacked the Lisp needed for an interface?

I thought MS Exchange Server always have POP3 and SMTP enabled.  No?

If that is the case, setting up Gnus is easy.

-- 
Danny Dick-Fung Siu        mailto:dsiu@adobe.com
Acrobat Engineering @ Adobe Systems Incorporated

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren]

[ Danny Siu

| I thought MS Exchange Server always have POP3 and SMTP enabled.  No?
|
| If that is the case, setting up Gnus is easy.

that's not my experience - at the very least, it seems easy to turn them
off. 

-- 
Rolf Lindgren                                        http://www.uio.no/~roffe/
roffe@tag.uio.no

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[William M. Perry]

"Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren" <roffe@morgoth.uio.no> writes:

> [ Danny Siu
> 
> | I thought MS Exchange Server always have POP3 and SMTP enabled.  No?
> |
> | If that is the case, setting up Gnus is easy.
> 
> that's not my experience - at the very least, it seems easy to turn them
> off. 

I grab mail from our exchange server at work using POP3 and IMAP depending
on what OS I'm stuck in at the moment.  What version of exchange are you
running?

Our pop3 banner reads:

+OK Microsoft Exchange POP3 server version 5.5.2448.8 ready


-bp

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Rui-Tao Dong ~{6-HpLN~}]

>>>>> "william" == William M Perry <wmperry@aventail.com> writes:

..................................................

 william> I grab mail from our exchange server at work using POP3 and IMAP depending
 william> on what OS I'm stuck in at the moment.  What version of exchange are you
 william> running?

 william> Our pop3 banner reads:

 william> +OK Microsoft Exchange POP3 server version 5.5.2448.8 ready

I do get pop3 and imap banners, but haven't been able to login.
Either becuase my account hasn't been enabled or I need special login
name.  I tried domain_name/user_name and variations w/o any luck.

My trick is to use rule wizard to forward a copy to a linux machine on
the LAN and read mail from it.  The only problem is that most of the
messages show up as from myself, although once in a while some
messages show up as from the original sender.  I suppose I can hack up
some lisp code to re-write the message, but I haven't really bother
with it yet.

-- 

Rui-Tao Dong ~{6-HpLN~}	<ruitao@home.com>, Mission Viejo, California

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Rupa Schomaker (list)]

Rolf Marvin BXe Lindgren <roffe@morgoth.uio.no> writes:

> [ Jack Vinson
> 
> | My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail and calendaring needs.
> | I am torn between the cool integrated nature of Outlook and our favorite
> | News/Mail reader.  What method does Outlook (with an Exchange server) use
> | to store mail?  Is this the imap issue that I have been ignoring because I
> | didn't think it applies to me?
> 
> you know, I just _think_ I'd be able to kill for the possibility to 
> use Gnus for reading MS Outlook mail.  has anybody, er, actually hacked
> the Lisp needed for an interface?

Outlook is a mail interface, and like gnus, supports multiple
backends.  It supports POP (and stored in a local DB), IMAP (stored in 
an IMAP server) and MAPI (corporate mode) which is what it uses to tie 
into Exchange (and potentially others).

Exchange is a mail/discussion server that has it's own proprietary
interface.  It also has an IMAP interface which can be used to get at
both your mail and the discussion groups (think of them as newsgroups).

I think you *could* use the nnimap backend for gnus to talk to
Exchange.  The problem is that Exchange (at least by default) has lots 
of group names with spaces in them (eg: Public Messages/sometopic)
which gnus simply cannot handle.  There was a thread going in the
nnimap list (with some patches) to munge the space into something else 
so that gnus could use them.

I don't use Exchange as my backend, but I do use an IMAP backend
(Cyrus's imap server).  I had to move a bunch of my old folders that
had spaces in them to be gnus friendly -- that is not very nice.
ALso, I can create folders in other email clients that simply won't be 
noticed by gnus -- also not a very nice thing.

Even with some of the performance "issues" in nnimap pgnus+nnimap is
the "best" imap client I can find.  It *could* be better though...

-- 
Rupa (rupa@rupa.com for normal email)
Please don't email duplicate replies.

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Nathan Williams]

"Rupa Schomaker (list)" <rupa-list@rupa.com> writes:

> I think you *could* use the nnimap backend for gnus to talk to
> Exchange.  The problem is that Exchange (at least by default) has lots 
> of group names with spaces in them (eg: Public Messages/sometopic)
> which gnus simply cannot handle.  There was a thread going in the
> nnimap list (with some patches) to munge the space into something else 
> so that gnus could use them.

        Yeah, I'm currently using the Exchange IMAP backend with the
space-replacing patches I've slapped together. See the nnimap archive
or mail me for the latest and not-so-great version. It's "okay". 

        - Nathan

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

"Rupa Schomaker (list)" <rupa-list@rupa.com> writes:

> The problem is that Exchange (at least by default) has lots of group
> names with spaces in them (eg: Public Messages/sometopic) which gnus
> simply cannot handle.

Why is that?  I mean, why can't Gnus handle it?  Elisp strings and
symbols are very clean -- as far as Emacs is concerned, you can well
have NUL characters in them, let alone spaces.

If Gnus refuses to handle spaces in groups because they are forbidden
on Usenet, maybe Gnus should be fixed to be more lenient for other
backends?

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Simon Josefsson]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> Why is that?  I mean, why can't Gnus handle it?  Elisp strings and
> symbols are very clean -- as far as Emacs is concerned, you can well
> have NUL characters in them, let alone spaces.

Gnus uses some constructs from NNTP when talking to backends, and it
uses SPC as a separator.

> If Gnus refuses to handle spaces in groups because they are forbidden
> on Usenet, maybe Gnus should be fixed to be more lenient for other
> backends?

Yes.

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

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Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> If Gnus refuses to handle spaces in groups because they are forbidden
> on Usenet, maybe Gnus should be fixed to be more lenient for other
> backends?

That would require redoing the interface Gnus uses to talk to the
backends, which I don't think is worth doing.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the backends just
pretended that the name of the groups was «"group name"» instead of
«group name» (that is, slapped quote marks around the names before
giving them to Gnus).  Gnus uses `read' to read in the group names,
most of the time.  I think.  Perhaps.  Possibly.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: MS Outlook for mail server?

[Soeren Laursen]

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Jack Vinson <jvinson@chevax.ecs.umass.edu> writes:

> Hello gang;
> 
> My company is moving to Outlook for all their mail and calendaring
> needs.  I am torn between the cool integrated nature of Outlook and
> our favorite News/Mail reader.  What method does Outlook (with an
> Exchange server) use to store mail?  Is this the imap issue that I
> have been ignoring because I didn't think it applies to me?

Don't worry about your doubt.  After you start using Outlook you will
certainly wish you were back to Gnus!

> How easy is it to make the transition?  Are there general comments
> on the difference in ease of use between Outlook and Gnus?  (Should
> I even ask that question?)

There is a "Use Word as your editor" menu item in Outlook.  Pretty
much says it all, I should say.

-- 
Søren Laursen http://www.tele.auc.dk/~slau/