So I finally got around to setting up my Exchange Server. I have no-ip providing a “backup MX” server in case the server it runs on is ever down for any reason, or when it’s being moved (as it will be fairly soon). The benefits of switching to Exchange from Hotmail are huge, though.
For one, the sync’ing between my desktop, laptop, and my mailboxes is far better. Second, I now have the Newsgator setup I always wanted. Both my desktop and laptop have the same RSS subscriptions, and they both store posts in the same Exchange folder. So when I read something on my laptop, it’s marked as read on the Exchange server (and thusly, on my desktop as well). Perfect!
Even better, Exchange has a great feature where it will send an SMS message to my Pocket PC phone whenever I get new e-mail. My phone never shows me the message, it just intercepts it and triggers a wireless sync using ServerActivesync – which, by the way, is WAY WAY WAY faster than sync’ing with Outlook over a VPN connection. And since it uses HTTP over SSL for the connection I don’t have to worry about security, either.
Now… what’s a blog post without me asking for something?
Here’s what I want. Exchange Personal Edition. I should be able to run a small Exchange server on my desktop. It should be able to pull mail from POP3 or MSN/Hotmail, or optionally host my own e-mail server (with a limited number of mailboxes). It should do the SMS sync notification thing, and should support connecting from Outlook remotely (or locally). Basically, I want Outlook to give me all of the features of Exchange without Exchange. That’s because, to be perfectly honest, Exchange is complete overkill for me at this point. I mainly have it because my customers are going to need it, so I need to know how it works in practice – and it’s part of the architecture I’m developing against (basically, Windows SBS 2003).
So what do you think? Should we have Exchange for the masses?