Exchange Syncronization?

[Locri]

We've recently moved over to Exchange where I work and it would be a huge bonus if I could synchronize with the Pandora. I realize this might not be possible given the minuscule amount compatibility support that Microsoft provides in general, but I'm vaguely hopeful. Doing some quick research turns up a project called SynCE (http://www.synce.org/moin/) which seems to have some sort of ActiveSync compatibility, but it's hard to tell if this includes Exchange or not.

Does anyone have any experience with SynCE or anything else that might work in this situation?

 

[Capn_Fish]

I don't know if it's possible on Linux or not, but if some open-source solution does exist, it should be fairly easy to compile it for the Pandora (it could be done somewhat painlessly even if it depends on full KDE or something similarly large thanks to BitBake/the Gentoo-on-Pandora project).

I assume somebody else has a more definite answer. I vaguely recall that it depends on the Exchange version (200x works, but 200y doesn't, where x < y, IIRC).

 

[cosurgi]

I'm not sure what you need, exactly.... claws-mail works on pandora (it's even on one of pandora videos), and there is http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php/Co..._to_MS_Exchange

 

[Locri]

I'm not sure what you need, exactly.... claws-mail works on pandora (it's even on one of pandora videos), and there is http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php/Co..._to_MS_Exchange



From what I can tell, Claws just uses IMAP to check email, which pretty much any email client can do. What I was looking for is something that I can sync with Exchange that will give me email AND (the tricky part) calendaring. So far, my searches aren't turning up much. And of course the only devices that I know of that will do it well using ActiveSync from MS are Windows Mobile Phones or iPhone/iPod Touch and from what I can tell those don't work with connecting to Linux all that well (for the latest firmware versions of the iPhone/iPod Touch).

I really wish these companies would open their interfaces a bit more and use some standard stuff... so many OSS developers would gladly program what needs to be done if only they had some specs to write to -_-

 

[Tempel]

Evolution is an open-source client very similar to MS Outlook that is apparently capable of connecting to Exchange servers. No idea if it will, or even can be ported to Pandora (i think it's a little resource heavy), but at least it bodes well for other Exchange-capable Pandora software.

I really wish these companies would open their interfaces a bit more and use some standard stuff... so many OSS developers would gladly program what needs to be done if only they had some specs to write to -_-
But why would Microsoft want that?

 

[RajTakhar]

From my old Zaurus days, any Exchange/outlook synchronisation depended on the PIM tool being used some were good with exchange server data whilst others were bad

Ideally you want someone to come up with an activesync type application which would allow you to sync the Pandora to a PC thereby letting you get to access.

The first series of Iphones sort of did this through the apple app stored on a PC - but it was a bugger trying to get data off the iphone on a PC and on several occaisions I ended up going old skool and using putty - but apple have since signed up with microsoft to use activesync

The process will be ht and miss

If evolution works stick with that

 

[marshal]

"Evolution includes support for Exchange 2000/2003"
http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/features.shtml

So no exchange 2007 support. I do believe they are working on this though.

Evolution could be ported to the pandora for sure. It's not really light-weight nor optimized for a small screen but nevertheless it should be usable considering the performance of the pandora.

 

[parag0n]

I use evolution at work for connecting to our exchange server, and it works fantastically.

Its a bit UI-heavy, but lots of the unecessary stuff can be turned off, i think it'd work quite well at 800x480.

--Edit--: Just had a play and i can get it down to 918x514 (and usable), i'm assuming this is just a hardcoded limit that can be turned off somewhere though.

 

[WizardStan]

I really wish these companies would open their interfaces a bit more and use some standard stuff... so many OSS developers would gladly program what needs to be done if only they had some specs to write to -_-

That is exactly why they keep the interfaces as closed as possible. They're in business to sell software and they can't do that if someone has compatible software for less or free.

 

[chole]

--Edit--: Just had a play and i can get it down to 918x514 (and usable), i'm assuming this is just a hardcoded limit that can be turned off somewhere though.

I just checked it out. With the switcher turned off, it goes down to as narrow as 800px and as short as 319px.

Switch off the toolbar and the status bar and the height goes down to 235px. Hit CTRL+M to toggle off the message preview pane, and you're down to 168px height.

Message window is 211px by 212px minimum (so at ~800x~480 it'd look fine with plenty of extra room). Settings window cannot be shrunk smaller than 803 by 730 here. Some other windows, like Contacts, are also a little wider than the Pandora's screen.

The only killer with the width in the main window is that it shrinks the folders pane such that you can't read any of it. Luckily, it looks like the width is limited by the widgets in the message filter bar, whose sizes should be dependent on gtk settings (mostly the font size, which I imagine would by default be lower on the Pandora).

The real shame is that the Exchange connector for Evolution wasn't made as a simple daemon that reads from owa and then just serves imap/ldap/smtp (and caldav I guess) on the fly. Then we could have free reign over mail client choice. I guess that's up to Novell's businessfolk.



Just for what it's worth: RSS | VSZ values from my current evolution processes (32-bit x86), with the main window and one message window opened:

evolution: 49,228KB | 404,892KB
evolution-exchange-storage: 11,384KB | 64,028KB
evolution-alarm-notify: 10,792KB | 70,516KB
evolution-data-server: 7,848KB | 70,880KB

Could get rid of the alarm-notify process, and there are a bunch of plugins that could be disabled to reduce overall memory footprint. Still, I'm strongly considering "ssh -XC myname@myhost evolution &"

(last bit: Removing most of the plugins seems to knock off ~20MB from RSS and ~85MB from VSZ in the main evolution process)