Looking for a way to easily share incoming / sent emails between multiple machines

[CurseTheSky]

Like many others, my primary means of business communication is through email. I work as a web programmer / developer for a small company, and communicating with customers is equally as important as writing code.

I work from home, so I have the luxury of being able to work where I please (within reason, of course), and I generally carry a laptop where ever I go, just in case there's an emergency. The problem I've been running into lately is that I use Outlook 2007 to connect to my POP3 email account, and respond / forward / etc. from there. When I'm not at my desktop, I have no way of getting to my email archives or sent emails, so I'm often find myself blindly stabbing at a situation with no record of what was said in the past, or what I had already said to the customer. I do leave a copy of the message up on the server for a week just in case something happens, and the server does have a Webmail interface so I can check my mail remotely, but I don't have access to any sent emails (so I can quote myself, for example) or emails older than the past week. To make matters worse, if a send an email through Webmail, I won't have a record of my sent message in Outlook. It's a major headache.

Up until now, I've had Outlook installed on both my desktop (which is on constantly and downloads email all day every day) and my laptop (I sometimes go over a week without turning it on). I've generally copied my desktop's Outlook .pst file over to my laptop to keep things up to date, but that still leaves me with the problem of copying the laptop's .pst over to the desktop so I have a record of any sent messages from the laptop. Many times, I'm only turn on the laptop just long enough to send a quick email, which later leaves me wondering which computer has the most up-to-date .pst file.

Anyway, I'm looking for a better way to get around this situation. I recently bought an ultra-portable laptop (not netbook) without a CD drive, and it oddly inspired me to try many of the free, open-source programs instead of the usual applications: Notepad++ instead of Visual Studio, OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office, GIMP + Paint.net instead of Photoshop, etc. While it's not a must, I'd like to stay away from installing Outlook on the machine. Whether I go with something like Thunderbird or look into a webmail service is still up in the air - that's what I need help figuring out.

I've considered installing Thunderbird on both machines, then looking for a way to automatically sync both inboxes. If that's not possible, I was considering setting up a Gmail account just for my work needs, and using that to download emails from our server and hold a record of all my sent messages. Both ways seem a bit iffy to me, and I'm not sure which is my best bet (or if there's an even better option somewhere else). What do you suggest?

Sorry for the long-winded post. It's sort of difficult to explain exactly what the situation is and why it's such a problem. Here are some cliffs:
[*]Currently using Outlook on desktop, nothing installed yet on laptop
[*]Need to be able to read my inbox and my sent emails from my desktop AND my laptop
[*]If emails are sent from one machine, I need the sent message to be available in either machine's email client; similarly, I need my email archives available on both machines without any messages missing
[*]Considering using Thunderbird and looking for a way to automatically sync the desktop and laptop emails together, or looking at a webmail solution like Gmail

Thanks.

 

[Leros]

Can you not use IMAP?

 

[gsaldivar]

I think you're approaching this the wrong way. The problem isn't really your choice of email client software, its in the way you are trying to work. For business-class communications, it's really hard to beat Outlook & Exchange. If you are using Outlook as your email client WITHOUT an Exchange server, you are really only using half the solution...

First, take a look at how much email archive you need to have access to. You can archive your non-important emails, but you will need to have access to a certain quantity of email for searching, replying etc., and this amount will vary from person to person. Then just get yourself a personal hosted e-mail plan. Godaddy.com will run you about $120/year for a 2GB plan with unlimited use, which means you can keep up to 2GB of Calendar, Contacts, E-mail online at any given moment. That price includes a personal domain name (yourname@whatever.com), or you can use your existing domain name, and it also includes Blackberry Exchange Server access. Obviously the price will vary slightly from host to host, some people here might recommend other hosts they prefer over Godaddy, but the concept is the same.

A hosted Exchange server provides you with a place to point ALL of your devices to: Laptops, Desktops, PCs, Macs, most Smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry, etc), and Webmail... everything is pulling from same "live" pool of emails wherever you go. And if you turn server caching on in your Outlook client, it will automatically keep an updated cache of emails on the local hard drive for you to refer to when you are off the network. Reply to an email from anywhere, and it is instantly reflected across all of your devices. Add or change a contact from any device, it's also reflected everywhere.

If you ever approach the 2GB limit, you can just call the host and purchase more space, or archive some of the older emails. It's simple and easy.

 

[gsaldivar]

Mobile Phones & Exchange:

I forgot to mention that RIM charges mobile providers (Sprint, AT&T, etc.) for the access to BES routing, so they will pass this cost to you if you are using a Blackberry device to connect to an Exchange server through their network. Price varies from provider to provider, but is about $30/month on top of your existing mobile phone bill. You might be able to get this bundled with certain plans. Alternatively, you can use ActiveSync to connect to an Exchange server, most mobile carriers will not charge extra for that, assuming you have unlimited date included in your current plan.

Good luck.