Easiest way to access work email?

[seismik]

My friend is looking for a way to access his work email remotely. It's a very small company that's not going to help him out much in terms of getting new servers or anything, so we're thinking some sort of desktop remote control is the answer. What do you guys recommend? He's got XP Pro at home and XP Pro at work. There is a firewall on the work network, but they would consider opening up a port or two if necessary.

 

[Need4Speed]

if they consider opening a port for that, then y not just make the mail server available from the outside? there are all kinds of possibilities...one of them would be to run an ssh server on the network and allow port 22 to it. then you could log in via ssh, setup some port forwarding rules to the mail server and presto!

 

[seismik]

I was thinking more along the lines of PC Anywhere through the open port. Opening up the mail server to the outside seems far more dangerous no?

 

[texazed]

At my office we have several options:

1. Dial-in directly to our network with a modem.

2. Use a web-based e-mail retrieval set up on or server with password authentication

3. Use VPN software to get onto our network from any internet location

4. Use AT&T Worldnet dial-up and VPN software

5. Blackberry relay from the server

 

[Need4Speed]

thats why you should use ssh, its encrypted and you can total access to the local network using simple port forwarding rules.

 

[seismik]

Ok, I'll take a look at SSH -- do you have any links to guides/tutorials for setting it up on a Windows network?