Since my goal in creating this blog was to share hints, tips, and ideas with small business owners and home office users, I have to try to remember that the jargon that I and my fellow geeks take for granted might still be a mystery to those who have too much on their plate to keep up with the latest developments in tech. I would assume, in 2008, that instant or "push" e-mail would be a commonly understood technology, but just in case it isn't, I'll give you the 25-cent tour. Those who are familiar with all of the concepts I attempt to explain can talk amongst yourselves for a minute.
Push e-mail, popularized by the RIM Blackberry, is essentially e-mail sent or "pushed" to a device as soon as it's received by your provider, rather than typical e-mail, which is "pulled" to your computer or device at predefined intervals (every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, every hour, etc.) It's sort of a cell phone text message on steroids, since it's a full e-mail with attachments, pictures, etc. rather than a short text-only message.
In my humble opinion, for the vast majority of us, push e-mail, while "cool," is completely unnecessary. Few e-mails I've ever received in my entire life couldn't have waited 10 or 20 minutes until my PC or phone "pulled" them at it's usual scheduled interval. For quick e-mail "volleys" like the Crackberry addicts engage in, I prefer the old fashioned method of "verbal instant messaging," first popularized by Alexander Graham Bell, known as the "phone call"!
The exception to this rule, at least for me personally, is in the case of Visual Voicemail (covered in part one of this series), where voicemail messages or missed call notifications are pushed to the phone instantly when received. I don't want to wait an hour for a voicemail!
Windows Mobile devices can receive push e-mail from a Microsoft Exchange Server, like a large business uses for e-mail. We little guys probably aren't going to set up a dedicated Exchange server for an e-mail account or three, so the alternative is something called "Hosted Exchange," which is essentially an Exchange Server for hire. Companies set up large Exchange Servers to resell accounts on, and we subscribe to them for $7-20/month/e-mail inbox.
("Um, Todd," you're thinking, "didn't you say 'free' in the subject?") For those of us that don't need a full-featured Exchange Server, an outfit called Mail2Web (http://www.mail2web.com/) offers a free hosted Exchange account, with a few limitations. First, it's web interface has ad banners, and second, it lacks "MAPI support," which means your mail2web e-mail can't be retrieved by your desktop PC's copy of Outlook. It will be pushed to your Windows mobile device(s) only. To read or respond on a PC with your free mail2web e-mail account, you'll be doing it in a web browser, using what's called "OWA" or "Outlook Web Access," which is essentially a web page set up to look like Outlook. In my case, this is no hardship- my mail2web account is almost exclusively used for my phone's Visual Voicemail, plus a few services I use for "alerts" (the stuff I formerly used text messaging for, but in my infinite cheapness see no need to get whacked $0.15/message when push e-mail does it for free - i.e. notification that the stock I'm watching hit a certain price, I've been outbid on eBay, or alerted by the local TV station that weather has cancelled school for the kids, etc.)
A side benefit of Exchange is the ability to sync your Outlook PIM data to the Exchange server. So, in addition to syncing your Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks with your PC, they can also sync with the Exchange server. With a "real" (read "paid") hosted Exchange account with MAPI, your desktop PCs, laptops and mobiles with Outlook will stay constantly in sync over the Internet, eliminating the need to "dock" your phone with a PC to update your PIM data. The free mail2web.com account will NOT sync with your desktop, so you'd need to upgrade to their paid account for that. (Having said that, there are free non-Exchange alternatives for that as well, like Funambol or SyncML, which I'll cover in an upcoming post in this series, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!)
Even without over-the-net PIM synching with your PC, having your PIM data backed up on a server somewhere has practical uses. For starters, using OWA, you can access that data from any internet-connected PC on the planet- like the PC in hotel lobby on those trips you didn't bring the laptop, or as a backup to restore from when some glitch wipes out the data on your phone. You simply enter the Exchange settings on the "empty" phone, and the PIM data comes streaming in over the Internet. That ability alone can restart a stopped heart when it happens 2000 miles from your office, believe me!
Push e-mail, popularized by the RIM Blackberry, is essentially e-mail sent or "pushed" to a device as soon as it's received by your provider, rather than typical e-mail, which is "pulled" to your computer or device at predefined intervals (every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, every hour, etc.) It's sort of a cell phone text message on steroids, since it's a full e-mail with attachments, pictures, etc. rather than a short text-only message.
In my humble opinion, for the vast majority of us, push e-mail, while "cool," is completely unnecessary. Few e-mails I've ever received in my entire life couldn't have waited 10 or 20 minutes until my PC or phone "pulled" them at it's usual scheduled interval. For quick e-mail "volleys" like the Crackberry addicts engage in, I prefer the old fashioned method of "verbal instant messaging," first popularized by Alexander Graham Bell, known as the "phone call"!
The exception to this rule, at least for me personally, is in the case of Visual Voicemail (covered in part one of this series), where voicemail messages or missed call notifications are pushed to the phone instantly when received. I don't want to wait an hour for a voicemail!
Windows Mobile devices can receive push e-mail from a Microsoft Exchange Server, like a large business uses for e-mail. We little guys probably aren't going to set up a dedicated Exchange server for an e-mail account or three, so the alternative is something called "Hosted Exchange," which is essentially an Exchange Server for hire. Companies set up large Exchange Servers to resell accounts on, and we subscribe to them for $7-20/month/e-mail inbox.
("Um, Todd," you're thinking, "didn't you say 'free' in the subject?") For those of us that don't need a full-featured Exchange Server, an outfit called Mail2Web (http://www.mail2web.com/) offers a free hosted Exchange account, with a few limitations. First, it's web interface has ad banners, and second, it lacks "MAPI support," which means your mail2web e-mail can't be retrieved by your desktop PC's copy of Outlook. It will be pushed to your Windows mobile device(s) only. To read or respond on a PC with your free mail2web e-mail account, you'll be doing it in a web browser, using what's called "OWA" or "Outlook Web Access," which is essentially a web page set up to look like Outlook. In my case, this is no hardship- my mail2web account is almost exclusively used for my phone's Visual Voicemail, plus a few services I use for "alerts" (the stuff I formerly used text messaging for, but in my infinite cheapness see no need to get whacked $0.15/message when push e-mail does it for free - i.e. notification that the stock I'm watching hit a certain price, I've been outbid on eBay, or alerted by the local TV station that weather has cancelled school for the kids, etc.)
A side benefit of Exchange is the ability to sync your Outlook PIM data to the Exchange server. So, in addition to syncing your Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks with your PC, they can also sync with the Exchange server. With a "real" (read "paid") hosted Exchange account with MAPI, your desktop PCs, laptops and mobiles with Outlook will stay constantly in sync over the Internet, eliminating the need to "dock" your phone with a PC to update your PIM data. The free mail2web.com account will NOT sync with your desktop, so you'd need to upgrade to their paid account for that. (Having said that, there are free non-Exchange alternatives for that as well, like Funambol or SyncML, which I'll cover in an upcoming post in this series, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!)
Even without over-the-net PIM synching with your PC, having your PIM data backed up on a server somewhere has practical uses. For starters, using OWA, you can access that data from any internet-connected PC on the planet- like the PC in hotel lobby on those trips you didn't bring the laptop, or as a backup to restore from when some glitch wipes out the data on your phone. You simply enter the Exchange settings on the "empty" phone, and the PIM data comes streaming in over the Internet. That ability alone can restart a stopped heart when it happens 2000 miles from your office, believe me!
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