Alternatives to Exchange Server

[Kevin D. Clark]

Brian Chabot <brian at datasquire.net> writes:

> I've found in *most* (not all) situations, no one ever uses the
> integrated calendar functionality in Outlook.

My experience is that this is false.

[snip]

> 1. Use a web interface.  One client I had was impressed that you never
> had to install software on the client machines AND that you  could
> check email from home with zero setup.I hooked them up with a somewhat
> limited install of PHP Groupware and they were very pleased.

One minor problem I experienced with the web interface is that the
damn Exchange server kept on sending me http: urls -- but these never
worked for me.  The Exchange server that I used required that the urls
be https: urls.  The error message that I got was totally unhelpful.

When I complained to the company's Exchange admins, I got blank looks
and the helpful suggestion "have you tried using Outlook?".  For
whatever reason, these guys couldn't fix this problem.


So, not being one to enjoy manually editing urls every time I got
invited to a meeting, I came up with the following procmail recipe.  I
hope that others find it to be useful as well:

   #  These next two go together

   # modify it...
   :0 f
   * B ?? ^When:
   * B ?? ^Microsoft Outlook Web Access:
   * B ?? ^http://THE-EXCHANGE-SERVER
   | perl -pe 's,^\s*http://THE-EXCHANGE-SERVER,https://THE-EXCHANGE-SERVER,i'

   # ...and file it away   
   :0 a
   $HOME/Maildir/.company-meetings/


Modify to suit your taste.


Regards,

--kevin