In the seven months that I've had my PowerBook, I've slowly been working my way toward a Microsoft-less set up: When I upgraded to Panther, I chose not to install Internet Explorer and rely on Safari and Opera instead I use a Palm Tungsten|T2, and in the last few months I've been HotSyncing with Address Book and iCal (via iSync) instead of MS Entourage I used to use WMP for the Mac for viewing .wmv files, but now I use VLC instead The only exception is MS Office X. I bought a licensed copy a couple of months ago, mainly because I have to share a lot of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files with Windows users and it's easier to send them .doc, .xls, and ,.ppt files that they can open right away. Entourage, though, is another story. I thought it would work almost exactly like Outlook, but the I never got it to talk properly to the MS Exchange server here at work. Entourage now basically functions like a POP mail client for me, pulling out my messages from the server via POP3 and sending out messages via SMTP. It doesn't work for stuff like automatically scheduling meetings and other admittedly cool grousp working funtions that Outlook was known for. I'd like to drop Entourage completely and shift to Apple Mail. The problem is, even after setting up an account with exactly the same settings that I had for Entourage, I can't get my mail from the Excahnge server, even when I'm logged on from within the network. Is there anyone who has made the same switch (Entourage --> Apple Mail)? Any tips from network admins who work with both Macs and Windows networks running on MS Exchange at work? On a related note, perhaps some people can share their experience in replacing other MS apps with other apps?
Just a comment about Entourage and Exchange.. I had the same problem during my OJT in Ayalaport. Had to get entourage working with the ayala exchange server. Turns out.. you need to be using the newest version of exchange server and download the update to entourage for it to work.
Thanks for the info. I have the Exchange update but I'll have to check with the admins here at work to see if they are using the latest version.
One other possible way to do it is to run Outlook for OS9 under classic mode. Had a few setup problems (something to do with creating a host file) but got everything working without a hitch. Good luck!
We had the same idea when I upgraded to Panther. However I made do with NeoOffice/J in lieu of MS Office X and VLC for viewing videos in general. The only Microsoft product I have installed is RDC since its an essential whenever I need to remotely control any of my Windows 2000 servers. We also have the same problems. To work around it, I sync my Tungsten|T to my office desktop (a fugly IBM NetVista) and when I'm sure that I got all my schedules on the Palm, I synch it again to my iBook via iSync. As for the mails, I just leave them all on my desktop. For those mails where I need a copy on-hand, I forward it to my @MaPalad.org account and download it via Apple Mail. My solution of syncing my MS Outlook schedules to my Mac may not be an *elegant* solution but it works for me -- mainly because my iBook sits beside my office desktop whenever I'm working. As for personal mails, I created a rule on the MS Outlook on my desktop to forward all personal mails (or at least mails that are addressed only to me) to my @mapalad.org mails so I can download them to my iBook. With regards to .DOC and .XLS files, I just do them in NeoOffice. I'm not a "fancy" writer when doing technical documents for work so it suffices. Besides, my target readers here at the office are more interested in the contents of my papers/documentations/reports than the formatting that they have.
The OpenOffice.org Tech Preview available at Apple's Software download page is far better than NeoOffice. I highly recommend using it instead of NeoOffice, which is really slow. Anybody successfully installed the MPlayer plug-in to Safari? Might work the same way as the WMP plug-in. This will make it easier for me to remove it entirely.
Yup. Same setup as this film director I talked to. The only thing MS in his home is his Xbox. Now am waiting for Xbox 2. Appleworks seem to import and export MS files like Word and Excel pretty well.
Citibank Online Banking can be accessed through a Mac only via MS Internet Explorer. And even with the last version of MS IE, PDF electronic statements cannot be viewed nor downloaded.
The only true Microsoft Outlook client for the Mac is "Outlook 2001 for Macintosh," which was released for Mac OS 9.x. MS Entourage is not a true Outlook equivalent, and its MS Exchange support is limited, and requires configuration on the part of MS Exchange to get it to work properly (web access). I use OpenOffice at work, but I find that OpenOffice 1.0.1 for Mac is really lethargic compared to the 1.1.x releases available for other platforms. I still haven't gotten used to the formatting change here and there, but for basic requirements, OOo does the job. I am still debating about Keynote as a replacement to PowerPoint. I still find it rather, limited, for some tasks.
gino, get OpenOffice.org Tech Preview from Apple.com. It is based on 1.1.1 engine. Alfiesy, try Firefox or Camino, it works with Citibank Online. Just disable the Pop-up blocking. [Edited on 5-25-2004 by directX]
Hahaha! My thoughts exactly directX, do you have a link to the OpenOffice Tech Preview? I tried searching Apple.com but couldn't find it. Like Gino, I found OOo 1.0 much too slow (especially when it starts up) on my PowerBook (I do use OOo 1.1 on my PCs though) so I had to go back to MS Office v. X. [Edited on 5-26-2004 by PatrickGaerlan]
Alfie, Citibank works with Mozilla/Camino/Firefox. And it also works properly with IE 5.2.3. Like directx said, pop-up blocking should be disabled for the Mozilla browsers, and you need to have a PDF browser plugin installed (even for IE). Check out one of my posts here. Direct download link for PDF Browser Plugin version 0.4 for IE. ~Henjie
I was able to get Entourage working properly with our Exchange server using the latest upgrade, only to find out that it uses only imap or pop3. My thunderbird works just as well. If your sys admins enable pop3 or imap, you could use almost any email client to the exchange server. But no calendaring capabilities, and I wasn't able to get entourage to work properly with our company address book either.
I have Entourage working via POP3, so theoretically using the same settings with another e-mail client like Mail should work. The frustrating thing is that it doesn't. One of the admins says it might be because the restrictions on mail relaying are so strict. I've given up on the calendaring and group work functions -- haven't really missed them much in these last few months that I haven't been able to use them. So if I can only get Mail to talk properly to the Exchange server, I'm set. Sigh. BTW, I just discovered that you can set Address Book to synchronize with an Exchange server. In effect, if I log on to any work station, the address book I pull up in Outlook will be up to date with what I have in Apple Address Book and my Tungsten.
You could try IMAP4 if it is enabled in Exchange. You might want to try another mail program also, like Mozilla Thunderbird or Eudora. Also, POP3 does not have anything to do with mail relaying, POP3 is for retrieving your mails, you need SMTP to send out your mails. I didn't know you could synchronize your address book with exchange, did you use LDAP?
