For reference, I use Microsoft Outlook to handle my e-mail.
Sometimes work needs to follow me home for the weekend, and there are times when it would be darn convenient if I could take my e-mail with me. Unfortunately, my computer is not the type you can bring home for the evening.
Is there something I can do to make my inbox portable so I can take it home with me and access it on my home system? Or do I just need to convince them to spring for a laptop?
Microsoft Exchange Server lets you connect to a virtual Outlook program through any web browser, though I think your IT people would need to set that up. Or you could remotely connect to your work station with the native remote desktop in windows or a program like LogMeIn if you wanted to set it up yourself.
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SixCaches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhexRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Ask your IT department. They will be able to tell you if you can use OWA or another method.
In case your work doesn't do OWA (or in case you don't like it) you could install an email client (like Outlook) on your home machine and configure it fetch your email from the work email server. Talk to your IT dept/guy about how to do that an he should give you the particulars (e.g. SMTP server and POP/IMAP server). I think Windows Live Mail is a free desktop email client for Windows OS users, and MAC OSX users should be able to use the built in Mail application.
You could also probably use these setting to configure your personal webmail (e.g. gmail) to fetch mail from your work email server, though I haven't done this so I'm not sure if there are gotchas here (for example, I think all email accounts you configure with Gmail have a shared inbox in Gmail).
There should be a lot of options available to you to do what you want.
You might need to set up a VPN to get to it. You really need to talk to your tech group at work for this. Every aspect of it will depend purely on what they have set up.
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IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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Yeah, we have both VPN and a web-client for our enterprise email (Groupwise); I use the web client because it's just a secure login without extra hoops. But it's entirely based on what your IT staff has set up.
Using the webmail login is way cheaper, has a better interface, and is way less of a pain in the ass if your company has one set up.
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I wish we were big enough to have an IT department, but I'm probably the closest thing there is. I'll give logmein a look. I didn't really think about remote accessing, and that lets me get at other stuff I might find myself wanting to access too.
Please don't just turn on remote access and leave the ports open on the firewall.
It's not a good idea. Especially if you're just enabling the default windows stuff and leaving a box on your internal network exposed to the Internet. If you've never worked with this stuff before, you might want to hire a consultant.
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IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Does your company host their own email, or use a 3rd party service?
If you host your own email server then it may be as simple as publishing the IMAP/POP3, as SMTP must already be published.
Do other employees access email from home, if so how?
Depending upon your technical knowhow and how much you can change policy, it may be easier to convince them to buy you a lptop if all you want is access to your emails. You could configure your work machine to save your inbox to a local .pst and then at the end of the day use a USB stick to ferry the file between your home machine and your work machine, but that sounds like a lot of bother to me.
You could just set your POP client to leave messages on the server on the remote client if getting them to open the firewall for IMAP is too troublesome.
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not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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You could also probably use these setting to configure your personal webmail (e.g. gmail) to fetch mail from your work email server, though I haven't done this so I'm not sure if there are gotchas here (for example, I think all email accounts you configure with Gmail have a shared inbox in Gmail).
There should be a lot of options available to you to do what you want.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
VPN is a pain IMO
Please don't just turn on remote access and leave the ports open on the firewall.
It's not a good idea. Especially if you're just enabling the default windows stuff and leaving a box on your internal network exposed to the Internet. If you've never worked with this stuff before, you might want to hire a consultant.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
If you host your own email server then it may be as simple as publishing the IMAP/POP3, as SMTP must already be published.
Do other employees access email from home, if so how?
Depending upon your technical knowhow and how much you can change policy, it may be easier to convince them to buy you a lptop if all you want is access to your emails. You could configure your work machine to save your inbox to a local .pst and then at the end of the day use a USB stick to ferry the file between your home machine and your work machine, but that sounds like a lot of bother to me.