Database Users

Livemail - push email 30 day free trial.

Hi,
This maybe intresting to someone, ive not tryed the 30 trial as i have no use for live email.
Got a PDA, Pocket PC or Smartphone? With Fasthosts Livemail you could already get Outlook® email from your home, office computer or any internet-connected browser... but now you can also get it on your mobile device thanks to the exclusive GoodLink data push software available with all new Livemail packages.
With GoodLink, Livemail can now push email, contacts and schedule data directly to your hand-held device in real-time, just like a BlackBerry. Any activity like new mail, meeting requests or changes to your schedule are recognised immediately and displayed on your screen as they happen.
Retrieving email on your hand-held will keep you constantly informed of the day's developments, helping you to recover hours of lost communication time. What's more, all mailbox data is stored centrally on a secure server in one of Fasthosts' cutting-edge UK data centres, so even if you lose or change your computer or hand-held device - all your email, contacts and schedule data is fully backed up.
Find out more about Livemail with GoodLink data push at:
http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/email/

I tried it - managed to work fairly well until I decided I wanted to uninstall it as the goodlink software overrides all of your existing accounts.
Didn't really bother reading a manual on uninstalling it as I just tried to remove it from remove Programs - didn't want to go - reset it to make sure no components were running when I next tried it - it said it had uninstalled it but there were still lots of residual evidence it had been there.
Eventually hard-reset and had to start from scratch again.
Don't get me wrong, I think it would be fantastic - one issue though - you do need to tell them a domain you wish them to receive mail for - didn't see an option to receive mail from an account forwarder.
If you already have a domain, this means transferring your domain record (or possibly just the MX record) to fasthosts.

I pay a monthly sub to 4smartphone.net - the service is excellent. Fully hosted exchange account that'll support "proper" push as soon as the device can be updated to support it.

I was told you cant pay monthly for 4smartphone you have to pay a year upfront
Chris

Thats also what I thought - I had signed up for a trial account and was told it needs a year to continue service.

erm you're right - year up front, but I look at it in terms of what it equates to per month... sorry for misleading

he he - no worries mate.
Have 4smartphone definitely confirmed they'll be supporting the push technology once the devices support it?

Am i confused here with this push email, i set up 4smartphone trial and when an email is received it sends a message to an email address that it has received mail, i set this up so an sms was sent to my phone from that email account when the mail arrived from 4smartphone, this activated my device to contact the server and get the mail, isnt this push email, the only problem was i had to pay for the sms triggers and it was costing a fortune to do it, what we need is the subscription to 4smartphone that sends a text message rather than an email at a reasonable cost
Guys enlighten me please

I thought the very same - O2 charge me 10p per SMS but I couldn't find any clear providers who would do the same for cheaper. Most providers were on about sending SMSes rather than allowing you to receive via their systems.
From what's been said, once the new update comes out with the push technology, the requirement for SMSes goes out the window as this is one of the things the exchange developers wanted to get rid of - reliance on the network provider.
All you need is a network connection of some sort (be it wifi, gprs, cradled) and it should receive the updates.

numanoids said:
he he - no worries mate.
Have 4smartphone definitely confirmed they'll be supporting the push technology once the devices support it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think so, yes. In fact I think they've already upgraded their exchange servers to the correct service pack - so we're just waiting on an operator to bring out a ROM for the Universal which incorporates the Windows Messaging and Security patch for WM5.0
To the others - yes, you can set it up to text you if you receive email etc. Personally I just leave mine to check every 10 mins (which, lets face it, is practically instant "push" anyway!) as on average I receive a new mail less than 5 mins after it is sent. The data overhead is minimal this way and no texts are needed.

another push email 30 day free trial
i have tried another email push service for pocket pcs. it is called Pocket X-Press. you can access your pop3 and imap4 mail server and get a realtime push wit out checking from device in an interval.
you can download a trial version for wm 2003 and 2005 under: www.pocketxpress.com
has anybody experience made with this?

you tell us mate, you developed it

Various Questions!!!

Hi There,
I am looking to purchase a device; mainly to be used to send/receive e-mail's on the move but also am interested in any extra functionality available to me!!
At the moment I am choosing between this (T-mobile Vario) and the Blackberry 8700. I was wandering if anyone would be willing to give me a quick comparison and maybe a personal reccommendation!!?
Also I was reading in a previous thread about a blackberry add on for the Vario....would anyone be able to give me a rough run-down on how/if that works at all please!!
I appreciate your understanding of my simple questions!!
Many Thanks
Dave

HTC Wizard .. its both cheaper and beter.
What good feature do you see in BlackBerry that HTC Wizard doesn't have?

I'm guessing that you've never used either a PDA or a Blackberry. The reason I say this is because if you had, the differences would be immediately obvious.
Blackberry is good at doing one thing and one thing only: email. There are very few apps available, and even fewer are free. There is no touchscreen. Browsing is difficult because of this, and many programs are a pain for the same reason. WM Smartphones has the same issue.
Both do email, but Blackberry is generally better (for now). What WM PDAs do better than Blackberry is... everything else. Look through these forums (fora?) and see what other people are doing with their PDAs. Anything they can do, NO MATTER THE PDA, you can do with a Wizard, and with very few exceptions, cannot do with a Blackberry.
My boss has a Blackberry from work, and I have a Wizard. I can't get my work email on my Wizard because it's not allowed yet at our organization. BUT, I can browse Outlook Web Access and view it when I want. I also can get my 5 personal email accounts on my Wizard, which he can't do on his Blackberry. Finally, he tried browsing Kelly Blue Book when buying a car, failed miserably and called me, and I looked it up on my Wizard.
Next, I have mapping programs, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, games, astronomy, a camera, dictionary, ebooks, music, videos, pictures, and on and on...
IMHO, anyone who's ever owned even a basic PDA would never bother choosing a Blackberry. You just lose so much functionality. If you don't need that and just want email, go for it.

uwaku said:
Blackberry is good at doing one thing and one thing only: email. There are very few apps available, and even fewer are free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Email with Wizard isn't a problem after the last ROM where SyncML for e-mail (push) is supported. You also have VPN support to accessing company networks.
uwaku .. what type of company mail setup do you have? You should not blame the Wizard for that your company don't allow you to connect your e-mail.
Comparing SyncML and BlackBerry.. is BlackBerry even a standard protocol? SyncML is a standard:
http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/wg_committees/workinggroups.html

Cool; sounds like the Wizard is definately more for me than the Blackberry....which is what I was leaning towards anyways. The one thing that I did want to know is whether you can get Hotmail on to the Wizard without having to go through the web browser (ie; go to www.hotmail.com).
Many Thanks

yes, hotmail access is pretty good on the wizard, It comes with Pocket MSN, once you've put your username and password into that it will add your hotmail emails and account the the windows email application, so no messing with www.hotmail.com

A couple of pains...

Hello all
Right, so I've had my Wizard for a couple of months so far and it's struck me as a wonderful piece of miniaturisation. But I've found the OS lets it down - WM2005 tries to do too much and thus fails as the basic features, stability and user-friendliness. Anyway, bashing Microsoft isn't why I'm here today
I've managed to sort out most of the pressing concerns with the device, especially the sluggishness (fixed with a firmware upgrade from O2, my carrier). But there are a few things that bother me still:
1) When adding a new ToDo task or contact, the first field loses focus after a random amount of time, halfway through typing. This is incredibly annoying as I have to, after typing in thef first few letters, refocus the cursor at the end of the text to continue typing. This only effects the default (first) field selection, ie, the contact or task name.
2) When plugged into my PC, it appears as a network device. Fair enough, I can see the logic behind a phone being classed as a network device. What's annoying as that whenevr I plug it in, a network connection is set up which become the primary - overruling my LAN connection to the internet. Now I never use my phone as a modem, but I still have to unplug or disable it if I want to access the web or do other PC-based networking activites.
3) Hotmail. I can't believe this was built into the email client. How can it be removed? And can the 'Outlook' email be made to download email directly? It's completely pointless to have to maintain two email profiles for the same account - one for email received via Outlook and the other for directly downloaded messages. I need to reply to SMSs for them to be marked as 'read'. Anyone know if this is usual behaviour? Better yet, are there any decent alternatives to the messaging suite? I really loved the threaded SMS views of the Treo and its email client, but haven't found any PocketPC equivalents.
4) I'm really hating Outlook on my desktop - the only reason I installed it was to allow (half) my emails to by sync'ed. I've been yearning to get back to Thunderbird but have been held back by my phone. However, recently, I heard of something called FinchSync, which claims to allow Thunderbird-WM2005 email/contact sync'ing. Anyone used it?
5) Skype. I like Skype and would love to see it on my phone. I knew when I brought it that it probably wouldn't be able to run it and my tests (even if OC'ed to 252MHz) show that it doesn't really work (gets tantilizingly close). Yet I hear people claiming it works perfectly on their devices - I was wondering if there's a clever trick to this.
Phew - that's a load!
Thanks

F*SH said:
Hello all
Right, so I've had my Wizard for a couple of months so far and it's struck me as a wonderful piece of miniaturisation. But I've found the OS lets it down - WM2005 tries to do too much and thus fails as the basic features, stability and user-friendliness. Anyway, bashing Microsoft isn't why I'm here today
I've managed to sort out most of the pressing concerns with the device, especially the sluggishness (fixed with a firmware upgrade from O2, my carrier). But there are a few things that bother me still:
1) When adding a new ToDo task or contact, the first field loses focus after a random amount of time, halfway through typing. This is incredibly annoying as I have to, after typing in thef first few letters, refocus the cursor at the end of the text to continue typing. This only effects the default (first) field selection, ie, the contact or task name.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hm never had that problem
2) When plugged into my PC, it appears as a network device. Fair enough, I can see the logic behind a phone being classed as a network device. What's annoying as that whenevr I plug it in, a network connection is set up which become the primary - overruling my LAN connection to the internet. Now I never use my phone as a modem, but I still have to unplug or disable it if I want to access the web or do other PC-based networking activites.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it has to be related to your PC networking settings[routing i think]. right now my wiz is connected and I use net ;]
3) Hotmail. I can't believe this was built into the email client. How can it be removed? And can the 'Outlook' email be made to download email directly? It's completely pointless to have to maintain two email profiles for the same account - one for email received via Outlook and the other for directly downloaded messages. I need to reply to SMSs for them to be marked as 'read'. Anyone know if this is usual behaviour? Better yet, are there any decent alternatives to the messaging suite? I really loved the threaded SMS views of the Treo and its email client, but haven't found any PocketPC equivalents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is related to way of managing mails. Outlook is build in acount fo handling sync'ed mail's and standard pop3 is for handlig popped mails. Actually I am not syncing my e'mails (my inobx on pc is larger thn my sd card ) but imo there is another way of managaging (ie. on my pop3 account emails are deleted from device when read and older than settins)
4) I'm really hating Outlook on my desktop - the only reason I installed it was to allow (half) my emails to by sync'ed. I've been yearning to get back to Thunderbird but have been held back by my phone. However, recently, I heard of something called FinchSync, which claims to allow Thunderbird-WM2005 email/contact sync'ing. Anyone used it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope
5) Skype. I like Skype and would love to see it on my phone. I knew when I brought it that it probably wouldn't be able to run it and my tests (even if OC'ed to 252MHz) show that it doesn't really work (gets tantilizingly close). Yet I hear people claiming it works perfectly on their devices - I was wondering if there's a clever trick to this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
on my OC [240] wiz skype is working flawleseverything I've done is oc my wiz. skype was included on rom I am using.
Phew - that's a load!
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iv that was a help, np. [/quote]

Hi savac
Thanks for the reply - I'm thinking you're right about the networking issues being on the desktop.
You got your Skype on a ROM - I downloaded mine from the Skype website. I opted for the 'low power' version, I assume that's the one everyone else uses?

[Question] Using Android for Company Use?

Hi,
I am a system administrator for my company and i am considering switching from windows mobile devices to android devices in our company.
What i am looking for is people who use or have used there android with exchange.
This is mandatory in our company.
The phone needs to be able to sync Email, Contacts and Calendar with MS Exchange.
Are there people who can confirm that
- this works.
- what is your experience.
- Does is work like on a windows mobile device?
- Does it run smooth
- are there any complications.
- Is there anything that needs to be done server side (i assume not)
Any information would help.
Also i would like to know,
From the 3 android phones that are now available (g1, magic & hero)
Seeing that they are all HTC made, do they all have the htc exchange support implemented?
And if not, which ones don't support it, and is there an alternative solution for it?
Thank you in advanced.
Alex

A little info...
anheuer said:
Hi,
Are there people who can confirm that
- this works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this works. The HTC Exchange app "Work Mail" (mail.apk) allows for syncing of mail only. Complete Exchange sync support is available at this time via thrid party apps only. The best I've seen so far is Touchdown. A 5 day demo is available for testing. This solution is frowned upon by all my sysadmin pals because of two reasons... 1) added cost per end user and 2) its not native therefore you're relying on a third party for support. If they go under, your elegant solution is toast.
- what is your experience.
--> See above. Touchdown works well. Mail.apk gets the mail down but sync can be an issue and calendar, contacts and tasks is a NOGO.
- Does is work like on a windows mobile device?
--> Don't think I know what you're asking but... if you mean does it work like windows mobile's implementation of Outlook/Activesync then... not really. Sync is just like Activesync in that it polls your Exchange server periodically and checks for new items. See above for differences.
- Does it run smooth
--> Sure, though some have reported intermittent sync issues, I have not had that problem. Bear in mind pretty much everyone using Mail.apk is running some flavor of an experimental ROM.
- are there any complications.
-->typically, yes. See above
- Is there anything that needs to be done server side (i assume not)
-->no, no config changes are required to run either mail.apk or Touchdown
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also i would like to know,
From the 3 android phones that are now available (g1, magic & hero)
Seeing that they are all HTC made, do they all have the htc exchange support implemented?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mail.apk or Work Mail is a part of the ROMS for newer HTC devices, it is not intended to be used on the HTC Dream/G1 but has been ported over by kickass people to be used on the G1 and is included in newer modded roms like Cyanogens. I believe it first popped up in the Sapphire ROM, search here for in And.dev for the thread that clued me in to its existence.
So bear in mind, any solution you employ will either be entirely 3rd party or incomplete at this time. Also, the Dream/G1 is the only phone with a keyboard, I don't know about you but I wouldn't be composing emails with an onscreen keyboard.
Hope that helps and that I didn't misrepresent anything. If I got any of this wrong get in here and spank me good guys.

innerspace said:
Yes, this works. The HTC Exchange app "Work Mail" (mail.apk) allows for syncing of mail.....................
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply.
I assume that when i use the application Touchdown on the G1, that this will also work right?
On our mail server we enforce 2 things when connected to the exchange mail.
1. force password protection on the device
2. force encryption for files on device and SD card.
Do you have experience with this in combination with Touchdown?
Does it ignore it?
Will it enforce it?
Because i think we at least want password protection
(and then i mean that the entire phone cannot be used until the password has been typed. to protect all date on the phone.)

Just one additional point - the "work email" app DOES provide for full Exchange support (ie. contacts, calendar, email) on SOME ROMs. Any ROM that uses an HTC branded Magic ROM as its basis will have this, whereas Google branded ROMs do not (although they can run the application if one acquires it, in such case you'll get email only - most ROMs over on the development board bundle at least the email only version).
A good ROM to use for this is the Smartphone France ROM, which has full support, and is a moderately fast ROM.
I'm not sure about encryption and/or password protection for Exchange but certainly you can add passwords or even gesture based locking onto Android phones.
I personally found Touchdown to be complete and total gash, just couldn't get it to work at all well. Either it wouldn't sync at all, or it'd take ages for mails to appear, or you'd get a random subset of an inbox rather than a complete listing. However, most people who have used Touchdown seem to think my experience is in a minority.

Loccy said:
Just one additional point - the "work email" app DOES provide for full Exchange support (ie. contacts, calendar, email) on SOME ROMs. Any ROM that uses an HTC branded Magic ROM as its basis will have this, whereas Google branded ROMs do not (although they can run the application if one acquires it, in such case you'll get email only - most ROMs over on the development board bundle at least the email only version).
A good ROM to use for this is the Smartphone France ROM, which has full support, and is a moderately fast ROM.
I'm not sure about encryption and/or password protection for Exchange but certainly you can add passwords or even gesture based locking onto Android phones.
I personally found Touchdown to be complete and total gash, just couldn't get it to work at all well. Either it wouldn't sync at all, or it'd take ages for mails to appear, or you'd get a random subset of an inbox rather than a complete listing. However, most people who have used Touchdown seem to think my experience is in a minority.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you suggest one or more of those locking apps?
So if i understand correct.
The only way to not have to worry about which android phone people would like to use, and still have full exchange functionality is by using touchdown.
If i dont want to use that, then i need to get an android phone that is htc branded, or change the rom to a custom rom.

All Rogers and Hero ROM's have full exchange support NATIVE to the ROM.. do not go the Touchdown route.
As Android is increasingly supporting exchange, Touchdown will be less and less supported.
I am currently running Soulife's Rogers ROM and it handles exchange (email/contacts/calendar) totally native and works really well.
As for your company, it really depends on how many handsets you are supporting, and also depends on whether you really want to root and run different roms on all these devices as well.
I'd probably wait until an Android phone is released in your area that fully supports exchange natively.

There is no remote wipe for Android ... so if you are concerned about security or have to enforce password or locking policies then you should consider blackberry server ... I'm in the same boat as you, would like to use Android but the management tools are not there yet.

I have a magic flashed to jacHero, all aspects of exchange work fine, except one thing. When I try to change the date on a meeting invitation, I get a force close. I guess this is a problem with the ROM, as the stock Rogers ROM did not have this issue.
I have also tried touchdown, which works fine, and has tasks (which is a plus), but I prefer the native app.

Loccy said:
Just one additional point - the "work email" app DOES provide for full Exchange support (ie. contacts, calendar, email) on SOME ROMs. Any ROM that uses an HTC branded Magic ROM as its basis will have this, whereas Google branded ROMs do not (although they can run the application if one acquires it, in such case you'll get email only - most ROMs over on the development board bundle at least the email only version).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm using an HTC ROM on my vodafone/Google branded magic (which does not sync with exchange by default) and the exchange sync works quite well. i get email, calendar and contacts.
one thing though, with regards to exchange contacts, there doesn't seem to be a way to browse the GAL.
in my case i have to click menu, then company directory. then i can type an entry into the search box.
it does feel a bit cumbersome, but i guess it's better than your phone trying to download several thousand GAL entries to your phone.

Do you need wi-fi?
If you need to use wi-fi in your company, and if you are using WPA-Enterprise (AD auth), keep in mind that android doesn't support it yet (at least out of the box).

Android's Exchange ActiveSync Integration

After using both the iPhone and a WiMo handset, I'm saddened by what I consider to be a pretty poor implementation of ActiveSync on Android. There are a few issues that I'm not sure are related to the N1 specifically or Exchange on Android in general.
I'm a bit worried because I do use Touch Down and while it improved a lot of the usability issues with the native client, it hasn't solved what I now think is just poor Exchange implementation on the OS level.
Here is my biggest issue:
Delete message/mark as read+unread in Outlook client --> resolution with Nexus takes exceptionally long or requires refresh or performance of some function on the device that forces communication with exchange server (i.e. send an e-mail or create/modify a contact, etc.).
It's frustrating because I see packet activity on the N1 immediately after performing a message delete or some other action in Outlook, which means that the changes are being pushed to the phone but the N1 client is just sitting on them.
Basically the N1 is not refreshing the inbox or the notification panel until some other action like send or receiving a new message is performed.

I don't even bother trying to use the built-in integration. Just get Touchdown from the market. There's a demo there to try and if you like it, it is $20. Well worth it.

Mark - thanks but I did mention in my post that I already use Touchdown. It does not fix these issues....

To be honest I had the same issue on my last 3 windows mobile handsets (using WM6.1 and 6.5) - many times messages deleted/marked read on the server would not update until an event triggered a sync from the server such as a received email.