Category Archives: Windows

Windows Phone and Open-Xchange: Syncing PIM data using HostEurope

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Well over ten years ago, I did one of the stupidiest things in my life: I bought a Schroff eurorack 19″ server cabinet (>1000 euro) for my semi-indoor verandah, and signed up for a fixed SDSL Internet connection (300 euro/month, but oh my God was it fast: 1 Mb/s in both directions).

Sounds crazy, but remember kids: this was a decade before 20 euro/month virtual root servers, or 45 euro/month 50 Mb/s VDSL Internet pipes.

I actually had such a glass doored rack on my verandah!

In the rack I kept several linux computers, running my own name server, postfix smtp server, and cyrus imap server. I learned a lot, but as time went by I realized that my most scarce resource was time. And when I left Stockholm for Berlin, I couldn’t really bring all that stuff with me…

So I started to use the e-mail provider FastMail (highly recommendable!), and used its address book as contact manager. Worked fine until I bought an e-mail capable cell phone, so I added Memotoo (also an excellent service!) to my service provider portfolio.

But The Times Are A Changin’… and Memotoo turned out incapable to sync with the Windows Phone, unless one made a detour via Microsoft Live Hotmail.

No way I’d handle over my precious contact/calender/task data to some freebie “service provider” like Microsoft, Google, or Facebook. But I’ve also become lazy, so what to do?

The native sync method for the Windows Phone is (of course) the (Microsoft proprietary) Exchange ActiveSync protocol. But the idea of setting up and operating Microsoft Exchange, or using a Microsoft hosted service, didn’t appeal to me the least.

Then I learned about Open-Xchange. And all pieces fell in place!

So now I’m paying 3 euro/month to highly reputable Host Europe for their product Mail Basic with the Mobility Mailbox upgrade (warning: in German! but the OX gui can be made English speaking). I’m not using the mail account though, nobody beats FastMail.

It simply works, and syncing is more or less instantaneous.

Defected Linux Hippie recommends Windows tools: Virtual Desktops

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Until two years ago I had only been using Windows if absolutely forced to. In fact I hadn’t really owned a DOS/Windows based desktop computer before.

My first own computer was a Commodore Amiga 2000, which I bought early 1987 for almost $ 6,000 (corrected for inflation). Admitted, that was with an optional second floppy drive, and a color monitor; my successful bargaining had even made the salesman throw in Lattice C Compiler. Nevertheless, it was a fortune to me.

Some years later, after having finished my Computer and Systems Science studies, I bought a Bridgeboard expansion card, with a 286 CPU running MS/DOS. I was using it for telecommuting (an extremely exotic thing at that time, kids!) to a mainframe using a 3270 emulator and an analog 9600 bps modem. And I learned some DOS.

As time passed, the Amiga was marginalized, so I sold my A 2000 and built my own PC. But I refused to buy Windows. Instead I placed my bet on IBM OS/2. A wonderful thing, especially with the GUI extension Object Desktop. OS/2 could run (most) Windows programs, so I got by without a Windows computer yet some more years…

My first laptop was a Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Mobile 800, an exquisite piece of German engineering. The first thing I did was to throw out Windows NT and replace it with Red Hat Linux. And I installed VMware (pretty new and sexy stuff then!) and run Windows there.

( almost ten years went… )

Late an evening, or early a morning, I sat by my n:th linux desktop and visited (not “played”!) Second Life, which places extreme demands on the graphics adapter. Too extreme, it turned out. Because suddenly the screen turned black, and the computer crashed. The buggy X drivers in SUSE Linux had caused my expensive Radeon adapter to fry. This was the tipping point to me, together with a number of signs hinting at a slow death for linux as a desktop operative.

A more conformist developer had taken the OS X path. But then again, I am what I am… So I built yet-another-pc and bought a Technet Windows 7 Ultimate license, well before it was available to the public. This was well over two years ago, which is probably how long time it actually takes to really get accustomed to a new part of your brain.

Finally the recommendation I promised:

One thing I immediately missed in Windows was virtual desktops. After having tried many free products, all more or less crappy, I finally decided to paid 25 euro for Dexpot. It has everything I need, and much more. Dexpot has been extremely stable, and updates come regularly. You’ll find some demo videos here.