mail2web question
 

Hi all,

I've just discovered mail2web and have been reading up on it. I plan on signing up for its free Live version.

That said, I was wondering how I can port all my Outlook 2003 stuff (contacts, mail, calendar, tasks, etc) to mail2web? I have a bit of a complicated setup already, and I can't find anything solid on mail2web's site. Basically, my Outlook receives and sends mail through our Yahoo business account.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Issachar,
The free Live version won't do exactly what you want. For complete, seamless sync of all supported features of Outlook, it sounds like you want a full professional hosted Exchange account, which will cost you 14.95/month at M2W. This is what I have - syncing a mobile device, laptop, and desktop altogether. The service has been pretty reliable, but you can find lower (and of course higher) prices on similar services. I was tempted to go with Sherweb but decided that the switching hassle and other risks weren't worth the cost difference (Sherweb is only 8.95/mo).

You could just forward all your email from the Yahoo account to your new M2W account, then setup the Yahoo account as your primary address, so all your outgoing mails have the same domain as the rest of your company.

Thanks for the info.

Unfortunately, setting up the Exchange version is a bit too complicated for me. I don't even know how to input the domain information correctly. I've tried getting in contact w/ mail2web, but I can't seem to raise them on the phone and live chat is unavailable.

TMB_XV6700, I'm at a total loss here :(.

I tried getting some answers from mail2web's tech support, but after 15 minutes I didn't get anywhere. I don't think the CSR understood what I was looking for.

If you have time, I was wondering if you could help me out here, as it appears you're very well-versed with M2W's products. Here's the short of it:

(1) I currently have three e-mail accounts I'd like to merge into one interface on M2W: 2 Gmail and 1 Yahoo business account.
(2) I also have a whole slew of e-mails, contacts, tasks, and appointments I need to move from Outlook 2003 to M2W.
(3) I would also like all these items on M2W to sync w/ my PPC via ActiveSync.

I know how to do item (3), more or less, but I can't seem to find any answers on items (1) and (2). Maybe it's just that I don't understand the whole concept of this product, but I'm really stumped as to how I'm supposed to use it.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Issachar,
(1) - I can't help you too much with these, because I have no experience with gmail or yahoo mail. Normally with pop email accounts you just forward them to your M2W account. If they refuse to forward, then you can use M2W's "mail aggregation" feature instead - this basically involves M2W going to the other mailboxes and checking them for mail once every couple of hours - definitely not good for important mail.
(2) - Your e-mails, contacts, tasks, and appointments are all contained in a ".pst", a personal folders file. [The default path for Outlook 2003 on XP is c:\documents and settings\yourprofilename\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook\outlook.pst]. When you convert to Exchange, you sign up for an Exchange account, including specifying your domain new domain name, then upload your .pst file to M2W. Once your data has been uploaded, you need to a) forward your gmail and Yahoo mail to your new domain name, and b) use the detailed information provided by M2W to properly configure Outlook to work with Exchange. Once it's been setup, the Exchange server retains all your data and then downloads it to Outlook. Outlook will behave almost exactly as it does now except that the data is kept in an ost file ("offline folders file") rather than a pst. Exchange and Outlook use an advanced version of activesync to keep all the data in sync, and the whole system is pretty robust. (Note - M2W will offer you a free upgrade from Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007. I tried it and returned to 2003. That required a complete removal and reinstall of Outlook and the exchange profile data.)
(3) Once your exchange account is setup, M2W will provide you with detailed information to setup your PPC to sync with Exchange. It's much simpler than setting up the PC and can be done in five minutes. Once it's set up, activesync on the ppc will automatically start and sync with the server. Then just open the activesync options on the phone and customize your settings.
Good luck, tmb

Thank you VERY much TMB, I greatly appreciate your assistance. I'll spend some time during lunch working on these things.

not sure about yahoo but in Gmail if you got to the Settings tab (top right of screen) and then Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab on new screen you will need to choose one of these options
Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)
Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on

then pick a setting here
When messages are accessed with POP(???????????)


and after that is a link to walk you through "configuring your email client". To my knowledge setting up mail2 web is similar to setting up outlook so that would be the directions i would suggest looking at.
The plus to taking the time to set this up instead of forwarding all the mail is any mail you get from this account you can reply to from same account. If you set up forwarding you end up replying with a different account. Now there is also and option for IMAP4 and I know that mail2web supports it this would be used if you were to say check your mail at multiple computers and devices and would like to have more control over how much of the message gets downloaded. ie. only see headers on phone and choose which to download but PC sees whole of every email

As far as Yahoo see if you need to do a similar setup in yahoo or if they even offer you to pop the account.

once you get your phone setup with the information for m2w, your phone will sync with their server and all your mail, contacts, appointments and tasks (if I am not mistaken, mail and contacts and calendar are synced by default but you have to go to active sync on your PPC and tell it to sync tasks) will be on m2w server and then you can sync with that server.

I have a question regarding html mail in web2mail. Once i setup my account, I do not have the option to change the mail format from text to html. I am the only one having that problem or is it happening to everyone?

Thanks

HTML support is limited to Exchange 2007 servers, which Mail2Web offers only to business account users - i.e. at $14.95/month. If you have setup a business account since around November of last year, then you should have it already; if your account is older than that, then you should be transitioned soon. [I've had a business account for a year and have finally been notified that it will transition to Exchange 2007 next week. So I expect that little grayed-out box to finally become accessible.]

Free and reduced-price mobile mail plans are still on Exchange 2003. Apparently Microsoft really increased the costs for the Exchange 2007, which also requires substantial hardware improvements. So while there are certainly cheaper Exchange 2007 accounts out there, you are unlikely to find any such services for free.

With WM6 you can still set up any non-exchange accounts with HTML email.