Today's poll: How do you sync email?

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

drebin — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 20:08:00 GMT

I have my work laptop (that I take home) as well as my main workstation at home. I have them both set up with the same configuration and don't have a single complaint..

I have Outlook Express set up with all of my accounts as IMAP. It is a little quirky for some servers but is by FAR the best approach for Internet mail. When something is marked as 'read' on one machine, it's reflected on the other. When you send an email, it goes into the Sent Items on the server.. you can't beat it...

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Grant — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 20:20:00 GMT

Until I got wireless working at work, I didn't sync my email. It was jsut too slow and painful. Now I do direct server sync for my email.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Barry Dorrans — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 20:29:00 GMT

IMAP, which MS treats as the red headed step child of email protocols, probably because it's the closest to competing with Exchange.

OE's IMAP support is OK, Outlook's IMAP support is bad but WindowsMobile support for IMAP is dire.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 21:58:00 GMT

>> OE's IMAP support is OK, Outlook's IMAP support is bad but WindowsMobile support for IMAP is dire.

Interesting delineation ;-) ... can you describe in more detail exactly what it is you feel is lacking on Windows Mobile that would at least promote us to "bad" or "OK" if not "GREAT!!!"?

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Sushant Bhatia — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:41:00 GMT

hey dave...did u get my contact message about the vote :-)

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:51:00 GMT

Yes, thanks! Sushant's comments were basically that the voting system allows you to make multiple votes pretty easily.

FYI, the polls are just something I threw together for fun and to encourage the discussions we see here, not to do marketing research or anything -- so yes, it is pretty easy to screw around with them and vote multiple times if you really want.

But it doesn't really help, since we're not going to look at it and say, "Wow, 200 people use IMAP" ... instead, we say, "Wow, this topic got a lot of attention and some great comments we could use for our planning."

Nonetheless, I do plan to "fix" that little problem ;-)

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:56:00 GMT

At the request of some folks at on the team, I've changed the wording of the poll and added another option ... Instead of Exchange via desktop sync, the choice is now Outlook via desktop sync (the thought being that your Outlook profile might be connected to something other than Exchange). I also added "Other (please leave a comment)" as a choice, in case you're using a 3rd Party plugin or standalone app.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 06:35:00 GMT

Oh, and I did update the software, so at least now if you hit "back" and try to vote again, the vote won't get counted -- this bug was easy to track down, as I had put a "todo" comment about it in the code already ;-) ... of course, there are other well-known ways around voting systems like this, but as I said above, that's not really the point.

Thanks!!!

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Barry Dorrans — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 15:21:00 GMT

Dave,

Well there's the folder support for a start, which has one of the worst UIs I've seen, and doesn't actually work anyway. When I check mail I'd expect it to get an unread count for every folder.

Then there's the speed. If you don't download the unread count for folders (and you don't) why the heck is there a 2 minute process of "updating folders" between retrieving headers and getting the body every time I try to check my email.

(And then there's the WM S/SMTP bug, but that's another matter <g>)

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 18:05:00 GMT

Thanks! It stings a little, but that's how we get better, right? ;-)

Funny, we were just talking about the "updating folders" speed issue at a party yesterday (we sure do have fun parties, talking about bugs). That's actually a UI bug -- the status of "updating folders" sticks around way too long -- the process is actually not taking as long as it looks! I guess I need to dig into this one.

I'm actually not familiar with "the WM S/SMTP" bug, can you elaborate? I know of a few things involving SMTP that we've already addressed in upcoming versions -- I hope this is one of them!

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Barry Dorrans — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 07:01:00 GMT

Well frankly if you're not using folders in any useful way, by not getting the unread count or allowing subscriptions then why are you bringing down the tree again?

S/SMTP is one I brought to Neil's attention. When you start a TLS session (according to the RFCs) all previous commands get binned, so you must send a HELO/EHLO again. You don't.

As for bug fixes, that's all very well, but as you are no doubt aware, the phone companies don't release them within any useful time scale, indeed Orange France are releasing a "final patch" for the E200. So in under a year after handset release (hopefully finally fixing the SDCard power down issue), bug fixes stop arriving and you must upgrade. And that's expensive. Yea, great, you fixed the bugs, but I won't see them until I update my handset, and even then the patches won't make it to the new handset for another 3-6 months.

The lack of MS produced patches is awful. There's no technical reason you can't issue OS patches on their own, or issue patches that don't reset the whole phone, it's just that in order to try to gain market share you're having to kiss operator ass on this, and they want obsolete hand sets as soon as possible, so they can make more money selling the upgrades.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 07:40:00 GMT

OK, thanks ... yeah, the S/SMTP bug is in fact fixed (I believe directly because of you, actually) in a not-yet-released version, but I see your point.

I'm not a business-side person; all I can do is fix the bugs and hope you see the fix someday. I'll make sure some business-side people DO see your post, though!

I'm not sure what you mean about not allowing folder subscriptions in IMAP. Just today, I used IMAP to sync a folder that wasn't my Inbox. Do you mean something else? I do want to get these issues resolved, so please let me know your scenario and how we can address it. Also, which version of the Smartphone software are you using? My phone is Windows Mobile 2003 (released version; not Second Edition or any kind of internal build).

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Barry Dorrans — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 11:23:00 GMT

Well, I can't get syncing working on folders which aren't my inbox, and of course, even if I could, I wouldn't know which folders to sync anyway, because I don't know which ones have new mail in. I have a lot of IMAP folders!

It's a boring E200, so WM2003.

As for S/SMTP, cool. Do I get a rubber ball as a present? I've got one from the SQL team <g>

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 16:26:00 GMT

Right ... the unread count on a folder does show up *after* you sync it, but you can't sync it, so let's start there.

What I'm doing is:

Right SoftKey: Menu

Option 0: Accounts/Folders

Move cursor to my IMAP account

Right SoftKey: Folders

Right SoftKey: Menu

Option 2: Manage folders

Cursor down to the folder I want

Right SoftKey: "Show" (OK, this isn't super-clear, I do admit. At this point, though, a little green "syncing" icon appears on the folder).

Left SoftKey: Done

Back button

Right SoftKey: Menu

Option 9: Send/Receive

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

andrew — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 17:23:00 GMT

Depends on the technology you are referring to but typically I use the desktop sync although now with my Socket WiFi card on my iPaq, I try to let it do the dirty work.

Biggest challenge is when the sync REQUIRES me to use a USB connection. (argh!)

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Barry Dorrans — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 19:34:00 GMT

Holy cow, that's rather complicated, and not in the Orange manual (but then Orange don't support IMAP, and thought SMTP was a way to get mail, not send it).

No wonder I couldn't work out how to do it :D

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 21:04:00 GMT

Yeah, the navigation for getting to the feature is a little ... um ... well, it isn't the best. ;-)

More importantly -- did you get it to work?

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Chris Auld — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 21:51:00 GMT

I use my Smartphone 2003 against Exchange 2003 (SBS). Works a charm.... best thing since tinned beer etc....

Wouldn't mind better attachement support from Smartphone though.... and also (in particular) the ability to 'flag for follow up' from the Smartphone and have that flag sync back to Exchange... that would be my most useful messaging feature that you could do.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Barry Dorrans — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:09:00 GMT

Yup, got it working. Cool. Thanks

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Tiernan O'Toole — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:32:00 GMT

My laptop uses RPC over HTTP on exchange under outlook 2003 so when im at home i get exactly the same mail as i do when im in work. my PDA syncs with exchange over active sync wirelessly (Dell Axim X30) and my phone syncs with exchange when it plugs in (i-Mate Smartphone 2, windows 2003 mobile smartphone edition). i have too much email at home at the moment to sync any of that, but i do use imap on an server somewhere for that.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Dave Stewart — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 21:15:00 GMT

I just looked up the S/SMTP bug, by the way ... turns out it *was* fixed as a direct result of Barry's comments. This stuff works, folks, keep those great comments coming!

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Robert JOAG — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 02:36:07 GMT

Hi Im having an issue with a pocket pc syncing to our pc. after syncing the pocket oc to the pc it shows the e-mail that has already been read on the pocket pc as unread on the pc.
if it helps at all im using activesync.

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Robert JOAG — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 05:38:14 GMT

I am having an issue with our pocket PC. it seems when you open up an e-mail with the ppc and then move it to a different folder it will repopulate as unread on your pc after it syncs up. is there a fix for this or am i out of luck please help!

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

Gary — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:37:41 GMT

Can you sync subfolders from a Mobile5 device using IMAP? I'm only getting the Inbox but can see the other folders. Of course the others don't have any messages in them yet because of my 3 day limitation.

Gary

re: Today's poll: How do you sync email?

mark — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:17:43 GMT

emoze is the best. free download to your desktop. no exchange server needed. syncs emai,taks and calendar and sned youe email from your home account!