Converting Email to iPhone/iPad

December 12th, 2011

A customer wrote today to ask, “How would I get my email onto an iPad?” This is a great question because the answer is not obvious.

The short answer is that you don’t. You get your email onto whatever the iPad syncs with, and then the email will magically appear on your iPad (or at least some of it will, depending on how far back you sync.)

The iPad has three different ways to sync email.

POP3. If you use POP3 to access your email, then you are out of luck because POP3 doesn’t “synchronize” with the server. Instead, POP3 downloads the messages and deletes them from the server. Also, POP3 has no folder management.

IMAP: If your iPad connects to your email with IMAP, then your ipPhone or iPad will automatically sync with the IMAP server. If you need to get your mail from your current email client to an IMAP server, you can use Address Magic Personal PLUS to convert from numerous different email clients directly to IMAP.

ActiveSync: ActiveSync is like IMAP. Your iPhone or iPad will automatically sync with an ActiveSync server, you just need to get your email onto the server.

There is one special case and that’s Gmail. You can connect your iPad/iPhone to Gmail using POP3, IMAP, or ActiveSync. The best choice is to use ActiveSync because it will also sync your contacts and calendar. If you are using Gmail, then configure your iPhone or iPad to connect to Gmail with ActiveSync and your messages will automatically appear. If you are not using Gmail and you want to switch to Gmail, you can use Address Magic Personal PLUS to convert from numerous different email clients directly to Gmail.

 

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Migrating to the Exchange 2010 Personal Archive

August 25th, 2011

Many of our customers migrating to Outlook and Exchange want to migrate the data from the old mailbox, but don’t want to fill up the Exchange mailbox with old email. Historically, the only alternative was to put the data in a PST file on the user’s computer and then open the PST file as a second message store in Outlook.

However, PST files have numerous deficiencies. They have no retention policies, they cannot be searched, they are difficult to gather for litigation support, and they are subject to total loss if they aren’t backed up. In short, their only advantage is that they are cheap to create since most users have disk space to spare.

Address Magic Enterprise PLUS added support for converting to the Exchange Personal Archive. For example, the command line to convert Thunderbird message to the Personal Archive is as follows:

addrload -m tb pst:@PA

The downsides to Personal Archives are as follows.

  • They are not available through ActiveSync or BES, so cannot be viewed on smartphones.
  • They do not appear to work with Hosted Exchange. (So far, we have not been able to make this work at Connected Software.)
  • They cannot be opened in Outlook 2000 or Outlook 2003.

However, unlike PST files, Personal Archives can be viewed from Outlook Web Access (OWA.)

More information from Microsoft about the Exchange Personal Archive can be found at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979795.aspx.

 

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iPhone Tethering Alternative

May 28th, 2010

Tired of not being able to tether your iPhone? There’s now a solution on the market that’s legal and won’t cost an arm and a leg. Last year Verizon introduced the MiFi Mobile Broadband device. It’s a Wireless Access Point that connects to the Internet via a cell data connection instead of a wired connection. It’s about half the size of a cell phone and runs on batteries.

Functionally, this means that you can leave the MiFi in your briefcase, connect to it from your laptop via WiFi, and get an Internet connection anywhere that Verizon offers data service. And you’ll be running on Verizon’s data network instead of AT&T’s much smaller network.

The game changer is that Verizon now offers Prepaid Mobile Service. When the MiFi was introduced, you had to sign up for two years of service at $60 per month, making the final bill well over $1500.  Now you can buy a MiFi off of eBay for $125 and pay for service by the day, week, or month.

A week of service costs $30 and a month of service costs $50. Starting this week, the monthly plan has been upgraded from 500MB to 1GB. These rates are very attractive for the person who travels rarely. The only downside is that you have to sign up for the service from an existing internet connection. Note that you can’t use the MiFi to buy more prepaid service unless you already have an active service plan.

I bought one for myself this week with a month of prepaid for our vacation this summer. The first time you configure it, you have to connect it to your PC or Mac via a USB cable and you have to install Verizon’s VZAccess software. The installation process was a little time consuming but not complicated. Once you’ve activated your prepaid service via the USB connection, you can do everything via WiFi.

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Epicenter FAQ – Outlook

April 6th, 2010

The following Frequently Asked Questions help explain how end users work with Outlook when receiving updates from Epicenter Server.

Do my users have to run Outlook for Epicenter to work?

Most users do not need to run Outlook. All update are done server-side in Microsoft Exchange and do not require involvement from the Outlook client. The only exception is if you are distributing updates via attachments, in which case the users must be running Outlook on their computer.

We use Outlook Web Access (OWA). Our users don’t use the Outlook client. Will Epicenter still work?

Yes. The only exception is if you are distributing updates via attachments, in which case the users must be running Outlook on their computer.

Is there a  way to prevent users from adding or removing contacts in the Epicenter folder?

In short, no. However, if a user deletes any contacts, Epicenter will recreate them the next time during the next update. (Note that Epicenter only updates the address book when changes are detected in the source address book.)  To force deletion of any contacts that users may have created in a folder managed by Epicenter, select the task, open the Task menu, select Strict Updates, then click Send Now.

Why are my phone numbers being changed by Epicenter?

Epicenter does not change your phone numbers, but Microsoft Outlook reformats all phone numbers to standardize them. If you are having difficulty with part of phone numbers being lost, such as international dialing prefixes, then you need to properly configure your phone number settings on the computer running Epicenter Server. Go to Control Panel / Phone and Modem Options. Edit “My location” and make sure the telephone information is correctly configured.

Why did Epicenter change my display names from First/Last to Last/First, or vice versa?

Epicenter does not reformat display names, but Microsoft Outlook reformats them to standardize them. You will see exactly the same behavior if you manually create a new contact in Outlook. This is is on our issues list and we are investigating solutions for future versions of Epicenter Server.

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Epicenter FAQ – Exchange

April 6th, 2010

The following Frequently Asked Questions help explain how administrators can make the best use of Epicenter Server when used with Exchange Server.

Can I select which items in the GAL get synched to the users?

In Epicenter Server, edit the task, go to the Address Book page, click the Folder button, and select the desired address list. You can create a new static or dynamic address list from the Exchange Console if you have some other subset you wish to distribute.

How can I configure Epicenter to make it easier to manage?

The preferred way to configure Epicenter is to use an Exchange dynamic address list as the source address book and an Exchange distribution list (dynamic or static) as the recipient. With this strategy, Epicenter will automatically send to new recipients who appear in the distribution list, and will automatically include contacts that appear in the address list.

What’s a dynamic address list?

A dynamic address list allows you to define an Exchange address list based on a query instead of a specific list of people. This means that if people are added to or removed from Active Directory, the address list will automatically update.

How do I create an address list in Exchange?

Please see Microsoft TechNet:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124384(EXCHG.80).aspx

Please note that Connected Software cannot provide free support for how to use and configure Microsoft Exchange. This information is provided as a courtesy to our customers.

I use Hosted Exchange and I’m not allowed to create a new address list. What can I do instead?

Use a script for filtering. See the Downloads for Epicenter for an example of filtering by category.

I want to send just the Users in my GAL, not the Contacts. How do I do that?

Create a dynamic address list and set it as the source address book as follows: In Epicenter Server, go to the address book tab, choose Global Address List, click the Folder button, and select the new address list. Also see the next FAQ.

Why doesn’t my new Exchange address list appear in Epicenter?

Epicenter uses the Outlook Offline Address Book (OAB) to resolve names. A new address list will not appear in Outlook until Exchange has updated the OAB on the server and Outlook has downloaded it. To make the address list appear immediately, you can force the OAB to update on the Exchange server, then click Send/Receive in Outlook to download the change.

I’d like to send just part of a Public Folder. How do I filter it?

Epicenter supports using scripts for filtering. See the Downloads for Epicenter for an example of filtering by category.

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Epicenter FAQ – Licensing

April 6th, 2010

The following Frequently Asked Questions help explain how Epicenter Server is licensed.

How many licenses do I need?

Licensing is based on the number of mailboxes that receive updates. The number of Exchange CALs does not matter and the number of BES licenses does not matter.

Does Epicenter track how many licenses I use?

Yes. Epicenter tracks which email addresses are currently assigned a license.

If I have two tasks distributing different address books, and a user is in both lists of recipients, does it count for two licenses or just one

One license.

What happens if I accidentally exceed the license count? Does Epicenter stop working?

Epicenter will send updates to all licensed users. Unlicensed users will not receive an update. A warning message will be written to the log in Epicenter.

Can I add licenses?

Yes, please contact your sales person. Once your purchase is completed, you will be notified that your license has been updated. Go to Epicenter, open the Help menu and select Sync License. You may need to restart Epicenter for the change to take effect.

If I buy Epicenter and I do not renew after a year, does the product still works?

Yes, Epicenter will continue to work. However, you will not be entitled to upgrades or to technical support. If you choose to renew later, you’ll need to pay for all of the intervening time, or buy a new license if it’s been more than three years.

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Slow WiFi 802.11g on the iPhone 3GS

April 3rd, 2010

Recently I downloaded the Speedtest.net application for the iPhone. This app tests your upload and download speeds. I ran it on my iPhone 3GS yesterday and got a speed of 0.5 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream. That’s right – downstream was 10 times SLOWER than upstream. This is on a 50 Mbps connection to the Internet and there was nothing else running.

After seeing this terrible result, we tested an iPhone 3G with the same wireless router. It ran at 2.8 Mbps downstream. Thinking it might be a problem with the Speedtest app, we used the App Store to download the same purchase to each phone. The 3G finished in about 30 seconds. The 3GS took about four minutes. So there was certainly a problem with the newer iPhone. The question was, where?

I spent an hour reading blogs this morning. There were all the normal recommendations about resetting the iPhone (no effect), turning off encryption (not a chance!), resetting the router, resetting the WiFi connection on the phone - all of which were useless.

I finally found the answer at the SupremeTechs blog.  Version 3.0.x of the iPhone has trouble with the default settings on many routers for the Fragmentation Threshold and CTS/RTS Threshold. I dropped those values back to 2305 and 2304 respectively, set the Preamble Mode to Long, and suddenly my iPhone 3GS started working. (This was with a NetGear WNDR3700 router.) Here are the results immediately after the fix – a 5x improvement, making it on par with the iPhone 3G:

You’ll notice that there’s a very high ping time. I’m not sure what’s causing that as the typical ping time to the Tucson server is 100ms. However, I tried later in the day and got substantially better downstream results:

The ping time for this last measurement is down to 120ms, which is about right.

This measure is still 4x slower than the rated performance of the Internet connection. If you look at the reviews for Speedtest.net, you’ll see a lot of low ratings for the app for just this reason. However, there’s a very good reason for this difference. The iPhone is running a relatively slow processor with very limited RAM and is desperately trying to conserve every minute of battery life. So the lower performance is expected .

Posted in iPhone | 1 Comment »

Using Epicenter Server With Hosted Exchange

February 25th, 2010

Outsourcing your Exchange Server to the cloud is becoming increasingly common. We do it ourselves and have been very happy with the result. Because we use Hosted Exchange internally, Epicenter Server has supported Hosted Exchange since version 5.0, released summer of 2009.

Epicenter Server sits on top of Microsoft Outlook. If Outlook works, then Epicenter will work. Epicenter Server does not require any software to be installed on the Exchange Server, so there are no issues with custom protocols, firewalls, or complicated configurations. 

The one thing that does change with Hosted Exchange is the security configuration. With Hosted Exchange, the Exchange Server is usually on a different domain than your workstations. It also means that you don’t have unrestricted administrative control of the Exchange Server. This makes it a little more difficult to set up your permissions so that Epicenter Server can open mailboxes for other users.

For a private Exchange Server, you’d run Epicenter Server under an account with “Receive-As” privileges. This is the same way that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server is configured. In our manual, we call this Technique #1. This can’t be used in a Hosted Exchange Environment.

The best strategy for Hosted Exchange, so-called “Technique #2″ in our manual, is for the administrator to configure the Exchange account used by Epicenter Server to have All-Access permission to each target mailbox. This allows all changes to be performed by your Exchange administrator, so users don’t have to be involved. Our primary hosted testing service is Sherweb. They allow end-user administrators to configure All-Access.

The final fallback, Technique #3, requires end-users to manually share their contacts folder and configure the permissions. This is done by each user from within Outlook.

So Epicenter Server works great with Exchange in the cloud, it just requires a change in how you configure the security.

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BlackBerry or iPhone? The Corporate View

January 5th, 2010

I routinely poll our customers about the question of “BlackBerry versus iPhone.” For most end users, the deciding factor is how much email they send. The keyboard on the BlackBerry wins hands down - the virtual keyboard on the iPhone slows most people down by half.

Today I was talking to Ryan Hawkins at www.pointandclicktulsa.com.  He’s evaluating Epicenter Server for his customers. He had several excellent points about why most companies might want to stick with the BlackBerry:

  • BlackBerries are extremely durable, much more so than the iPhone. They’ll keep working after significant abuse. The iPhone isn’t fragile, but the touch screen is easy to scratch and easy to break.
  • You can pay a few dollars per month and get insurance on BlackBerries, which generously covers theft, loss, damage – most of the common problems. You can’t get this insurance for iPhones. AppleCare doesn’t cover theft or loss.
  • BlackBerries are cheap, so much so that buy one get one free is common. iPhones can cost $600 or more if you buy one outside of the upgrade cycle.

In my own experience, the ability of the BlackBerry to automatically shut off at night and turn on in the morning is a real marriage saver – my wife and I have been woken up many times in the middle of the night by the iPhone when I forgot to shut it off.

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Does Epicenter Server work with BIS?

January 4th, 2010

Our web page that describes how Epicenter Server can update BlackBerry devices shows how updates are distributed using BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), but does not say anything about updates using BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).

It’s not possible to distribute updates wirelessly through BIS, but BIS users can get updates through the USB cradle. Here’s how it works:

  • When you configure Epicenter Server, select “Attachment” updates instead of “Exchange” updates.
  • Updates will be sent via email. Users who receive updates must be running Microsoft Outlook.
  • When users receives an update, they must double click the attachment to update their local address book.
  • Finally, each user synchronizes the BB using the USB cradle.

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