Stay in Sync with your Significant Other using free Exchange Server

Not so long ago MUO author Dave posted an article on How to control Windows Mobile Phone from the Desktop, today I want to show you how to synchronize your phone with your loved one.

Due to my career and title as “The Admin”, when I am at home the wife expects nothing less than technology perfection, and being an admin I like to be in control of things. I hate outsourcing anything I can do myself; specifically running my own email server, ftp site and such.

Why use other peoples services when you don’t have to? Good Question!

Things however aren’t always all rosy and sometimes you have to rely on other services to get you through the day. When you are in a bind and you need to get something done, you do whatever you have to do.

The situation came about in a normal conversation on a Saturday afternoon in my living room. This is right after my wife missed her maintenance appointment with the Land Rover dealer. I spoke to the guy on the phone, entered the appointment in my calendar and forgot to beam it over to my wife’s phone! These are the problems with the human meat brain, at least mine. It was a temporary out of memory error!

The conversation went like this:

“This would have never happened to one of your executives Karl! You always say you’re all about the 5 9’s and how you can solve any problem, so what about all the stuff we don’t have?”

“Like what?”

“A shared calendar, to do list, contacts, for one.”

“That’s 3 things.”

“Well one if they are all synced to my phone. Shouldn’t you know that?”

Wifey has an Unlocked T-mobile Dash and I have a Do-pod C730, both on Windows Mobile 6. This just might work. Hmm.. I would need to do some kind of wireless syncing.

But to what?

MS Exchange might work. Not from my work account and I am not buying an exchange server for the house just for this! I need a free exchange solution. Nothing fancy. I looked and looked and there were lots of trials and crap but once the dust settled one of them stuck out - it was mail2web.com.

Now here is the scenario.

Mail2Web live is a free service that gives you a hosted Exchange limited access account. Not limited enough to stop us from having our way with it though. We can selectively sync information to and from any Windows mobile device, palm or desktop email client. You can have it sync on every change (push) or on a schedule to save battery life (recommended). Imagine you put a plumber’s phone number in your phone and then it is also in your wife’s and then in your Outlook - automagically. Sweet.

All you need to do is sign up for one account with their free service and then go configure your machines and devices. I already have active sync on my desktop/laptop so I do not need to configure Outlook to sync directly with the Mail2Web server. I recommend this method. So all your information is on your handheld and computer. Now lets get the two handhelds setup as follows

(Instructions are for Windows Mobile 5 and 6, use VersaMail on the Palm or the built in Exchange sync on the Blackberry):

Open up Active Sync

Choose Configure Server

Setup your server information as follows (Make sure you use the mobile.exchange.mail2web.com address!):

Hit Next and fill in your user information that Mail2Web provided you.

Hit Next again and pick what you want to sync. This will combine all of these items with whatever machines you are going to use this account with. I suggest NOT syncing e-mail as it gets messy. But the other items like Contacts, Calendar and Tasks, feel free to select and use them at will.

Click Finish and you are good to go!

This is going to be awesome - real deal wireless syncing is bound to bring the wife and I’s relationship closer. At the very least it will keep our appointments, birthdays, reminders, tasks, to do lists under control!

The possibilities are endless and here I go ranting and raving and you probably want to go check it out. Go ahead, I’ll wait and when it changes your life - make sure you come back and share the article so everyone can get down with the get down.

From their website:

What kind of mobile magic do you do? Let us know! What are you waiting for? That is what the comments are for!!

By: Karl L. Gechlik, A superhero of the IT industry. He runs a global WAN, Cracks the whip at his consulting company and gets the whip cracked at him by his beautiful Wife and Daughter! For more geeky goodness http://www.askTheAdmin.com

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