When I got a netbook, I wanted to copy my e-mail settings from my 64-bit Windows 7 desktop running Office 2007 to my 32-bit Windows 7 netbook, also running Office 2007. Boy was I surprised when the Windows Easy Transfer Wizard told me that I couldn’t transfer my settings from 64-bit to 32-bit. I have half a dozen e-mail accounts, and I was going to have to enter the information for each one in by hand on the new computer, and then re-download months, or in some cases years of messages.
This got me hunting for another way to get my e-mail. What I found was amazing. Even the newest piece of my puzzle – DavMail - had been around for two years, and I hadn’t noticed it. Now that I have put everything together, I am ecstatic. I will never have to go through all that garbage just to move my e-mail again. Furthermore, I will never have to type in a license key for my home office and email suite again. I don’t need to stick with a single operating system to get my work done. I can use a single collection of programs across three different operating systems, and I can move my data easily between those systems, regardless of whether it’s running Windows, Linux, or OS X This doesn’t require a magic wizard utility or expensive third party software, I just copy and paste the folders containing the data. All of this is thanks to DavMail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Mozilla Sunbird, and OpenOffice.
DavMail is a gateway between your computer and your company’s Exchange client. It runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X. It translates requests from Thunderbird and Sunbird for data into something that your Exchange sever and Domain Controller can understand, and then translates the responses from those servers into something Thunderbird and Sunbird can understand. Even if you don’t like Thunderbird and Sunbird, Exchange e-mail access is still possible. DavMail works with any client that can get POP3 or IMAP e-mail. Calendar access through DavMail will work with any client that can use calDav. Corporate address books will work through DavMail with any client that can get contacts from LDAP. You can even use it as a server for e-mail. This means that you can use your home computer running DavMail to from an Exchange server, even if you can’t install DavMail on that device! Most important of all, DavMail is Free (as in free beer) and open source.
Mozilla Sunbird is a standalone calendar client that runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X. Thunderbird has plugins to perform all of Sunbird’s work, but I really like the fact that I can look at my calendar and my e-mail at the same time. The interface is simple, and all of the settings are stored in a profile folder specific to Sunbird. It has the same ultra-low system requirements and easy migration as Thunderbird (noted below), and is clear, simple, and easy to use. At this time, Tasks are not synchronized (at least, not that I’ve seen), but I expect this will change with later versions of the client.
Mozilla Thunderbird is an e-mail client from the Mozilla Foundation that runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X. If The Mozilla Foundation sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’re running Firefox, another of their excellent free products. It supports plugins, just like Firefox, including the Lightning Calender plugin. It also supports LDAP contacts, so via DavMail you can search for contacts through an Exchange Server or Directory server. It also supports POP3 and IMAP accounts, meaning that you can use it to get e-mail from most ISPs, gmail, etc. It is stable, well developed, well supported, and easy to use. One of the features I like the most is how it stores e-mail data. The program simply creates a profile directory in your home folder, and stores everything there. This means that when you get a new computer, want to change operating systems, or want to back up your e-mail settings (and all locally stored mail), all you need to do is copy and paste this directory somewhere else! This is an enormous perk. Not only does it mean that you can move your e-mail settings from computer to computer with nothing more than a flash drive and a few clicks, but it also means that new computer can be running any operating system that Thunderbird runs on! Just get a Mac? Install Thunderbird, and copy your profile. New Linux netbook? Thunderbird! New Windows 7 Desktop? Thunderbird! Even if your computer is from halfway through the Clinton administration, sporting a 233MHz Pentium with 64MB of RAM running Windows NT4, Thunderbird will dutifully collect your e-mail. (Author’s note: Windows NT4 was released in 1996. That’s some serious – and perhaps slightly insane – legacy support! )
OpenOffice is a free and open-source Productivity Suite designed by Sun Microsystems to compete directly with Microsoft Office for most computer users. While not strictly required for my e-mail setup, I felt it important to include this as a viable option for users to completely eliminate Microsoft Office. People who use Word, Excel and PowerPoint can easily switch to OpenOffice without worrying about problems with documents opening or paying expensive license fees when a new version comes out. It has applications to match Access, Visio, and Microsoft Equation Editor as well. Because of its open source nature, OpenOffice has been ported to Windows, OS X, Linux, OS/2, and of course, Sun’s own Solaris. It can save documents in a variety of file types, including Microsoft’s formats and OpenOffice specific formats. OpenOffice Writer even has an “Export directly as PDF” button next to the print button.
Phew! That’s a lot of software and functionality! Don’t forget, your grand total for the software above is ZERO currency. You will not spend a dollar, dinar, peso or euro on those packages. Furthermore, if you are a programmer, you can write your own plugins, addons and extensions using nothing but more free software! Wow!
i never use windows, linux is the best os
Nice commentary. This is all true, but allow me to put my 2 cents in too. Whenever I have talked about slowly integrating better open source software into environments I’ve been in most people listened patiently, and at least considered it. In only one case did I have a boss so dumb, and anti-open source in general, that they embarrassed me just to shut me up. They also happen to know almost nothing about computers which in the modern world, means that they are the head of an IT department. The point, especially when it comes to e-mail clients and office suites, is that the only solutions that worked cross platform are open source. Look at office suites for instance, Open Office works on BSD, Linux, OSX, Windows, and more, and it’s free. Finances aside, this means that I can use it for any of my clients and give them all the same software and be assured that they can share files easily. MS office on Windows runs ok, but it is not the same version on OSX and doesn’t run as well, in fact you don’t even get the same e-mail client anymore and you have omitted software between the 2 versions. You have to WINE MS Office to run it on Linux, and all of this even if you paid for it. Again, Open Office is free and just works. It is stable and full of features as well, and oh yeah it can save in MS Office formats. The same is true when it comes to e-mail clients.
Most of the opposition I’ve heard to using this stuff comes from incompetent people. For example, Admins that think you have to use Exchange because of calendering, or that turning on IMAP will somehow break their Exchange servers. This also means that they are going to want to use Windows, etc. This costs their companies not only their salaries, since they are paying for a person that is obviously half or less informed, but the upkeep of Microsoft licenses, and Apple licenses in some cases.
I designed a call tracking system using Open Office 2, years ago. I found it to be just as good, or bad, as MS Office at the time and it’s data to be more portable even from version to version and probably for all time. File based open source operating systems are the only things that make sense. Once you start putting registries in the way, hiding things, etc. you make it unnecessarily hard for users to do the simplest of tasks, including simply migrate their data from one version of your over priced OS to the next. So yeah, use Windows or OSX if you have to for a proprietary program that you can only get on one or the other if you can’t find a substitute, demand that it be created for at least 2 platforms, and in the end run as quickly as you can away from proprietary computing. There will always be room for well made purchased software, but allowing MS or Apple to tie your hands and force you to use one OS or the other for a program that doesn’t even get along well with other systems is just dumb. I’m sure if everyone switched to GNU/Linux tomorrow we would start seeing Final Cut and Office show up natively on GNU/Linux, and MS and Apple would find some way to keep them closed source. What it means is that you as the user would simply actually have control of the hardware and software you wanted to use, but go ahead and ask the head of your IT department instead. I’m sure in most cases you’ll get an answer that sounds good but is just flat ignorant.
There’s a lot of big movement on this by Google too, besides Chrome OS, their Google Apps are progressing and in two years they’d like to have it replace MS Office for most users.
All free of course!
The funny thing is that it can replace MS Office now. We’ve been using it as our primary office suite for years to do both personal and professional work.